Grid taunts the Agent and slips through the door to the emergency stairwell leading up.

...[reaction roll...success]
The Agent suddenly turns his attention to Grid and bolts after the large man, entirely forgetting the rest of the party.  He is surprisingly quickfooted.

Just as the Agent is running past you, the elevator door opens with a ding.

T-Minus 5 minutes, 34 seconds

The party begins filing toward the elevator.  [If for any reason you do not want your character riding the elevator, please let me know ASAP.  You may also react to the Agent running by the party.  He passes within 10 feet to jump over and through the rubble after Grid.]

It appears that Grid has about a 6 second headstart on the Agent.  The Agent is running past you toward the stairwell door.

Errata: The map shows an elevation of minus 1325 feet.  This is a typo.  It should read minus 2325 feet.  The elevator moves at about 5.4 feet per second (7 minutes, 12 seconds to reach the top).
This message was last edited by the player at 07:42, Tue 15 June 2004.

Viper curses under his breath after Grid leads the agent away. Still, something else needs to be done, too. Turning towards the others, he tosses his M16 to Lazarus. "Go on, and get upstairs. I'm going after those charges. If they blow while we're in the elevator, it won't matter anyway. I'll either get out on the hardline on this level or go try to help Grid. Hurry!"

Confident that the Marines had already evacuated, Viper turns to run towards the closest of the blast points.

Laz nods at Viper as he steps into the elevator, "Take care of yourself, we've already lost too many people today." Laz flashes a smile at Viper as the elevator's doors close in front of him.

Jade takes Mitose's arm and helps him in the elevator.  As she pushes the up button, she says, "Take the second elevator when you're done, but don't risk your life."

T-Minus 5 minutes, 30 seconds

Viper heads off toward the charges and Grid goes up the emergency stairs.  Mitose, Jade, and Lazarus get inside the elevator, and the door closes.

The elevator is a service elevator made entirely of a yellow painted metallic grating that surrounds you like a cage.  It is completely dark.  Your flashlights reveal the second descending elevator to the north about 30 seconds behind you.  On the south, you see the emergency stairs, made of the same metallic grate-like material, but painted red instead of yellow.  The clunking of Grid's shoes and the glow of his flashlight can be seen as he scales the stairs to your right.

There is an emergency hatch in the ceiling of the elevator for getting into or out of the elevator.  The cable and winches pulling the elevator up seem to extend into a blackness above.  A height of over 2000 feet that your flashlights cannot even illuminate.

The sound of the Agent breaking through the emergency stairwell doorway breaks the clunking of Grid's boots on metal and the grinding as the elevator begins to rise at about 5 feet per second.

X's voice breaks out over your headphones.  "I've isolated Binary's signal.  That Agent shouldn't be able to hear us anymore.  Viper, if you're going to disable the bombs, then disable the one directly north of the elevators and leave the other one.  That should make it so the explosion does not interfere too much with the elevators.  I hope.  I'm trying to pull up a schematic to help walk you through the process, but we don't have much time."

Grid is approximately 5 feet above the top of the rising elevator.  The Agent has just reached the bottom of the first level of stairs.  Viper is arriving at the demolitions set near the discarded computer parts to the north.

T-Minus 5 minutes, 25 seconds

Player Walkthrough:  With X's help as a plus modifier, Viper will need to make a successful disarm demolitions device check.  Failure will result in a randomly determined result, which could include early detonation.

A quick look around, and Viper is kneeling before the demolitions charge. Trying to recall his Zion-sponsored training through the inevitable fear that dealing with something like this brings, he takes a deep breath before speaking.

"Okay, X. I'm here."

(OOC: Demolitions Skill 12.)

Opportunity was knocking and Grid was going to answer the door.

He raced up the stairs and with one powerful leap he crossed the small railing between the stairwell and landed with a thud on top of the elevator.  Spinning on his heel, his M-16 up and ready, he waited to see if the Agent followed.

"Show your head and I'll blow it off." he muttered ready to let lose a fully automatic round should he see any sign of the disconcerting, suit clad man.

Mitose thanks Jade, and does his best not to lean to hard on her. "Grid cannot handle an Agent...perhaps if we can lure the Agent into an Elevator, and cut it loose."

He gestures above them, "We could use the escape hatch...and maybe a phone to get him in the elevator car..."

Despite his injuries, Mitose appears resolute, firm in their course of action, if not in body. "X? How close to an exit?"

"Already on it," Jade says.  Her Thompson is slung across her back and her pistol is tucked away as she leaps up to open the hatch above her.  She pulls out a grenade and will attempt to climb up on top of the elevator and throw the grenade down at the Agent.

T-Minus 5 minutes, 20 seconds

X begins talking to Viper as the party continues to rise, creating a kind of chaos.

"Dammit!" X says.  "This is both a digital and wire-connection demolitions device, and it's fully encased.  You didn't happen to pick up a screwdriver, did you?"

Jade jumps up and grabs the crease around the top of the elevator, her legs splitting to the two perpendicular walls to wedge herself up.  Her thin body easily holds, and she begins to turn the latch.

Grid is gliding up the stairs, waiting for the perfect opportunity to jump across to the rising elevator.  The Agent is about 30 feet below him, and he glances menacingly over as the party rises in the elevator to his right.  Yet he doesn't slow, and he is slightly faster than Grid.  What's worse, he shows no sign of tiring.

"Viper, we'll have to have you hit the casing with the butt of your gun and hope you don't set anything off.  Break it open from the top left corner.  That will be the area least likely to create a premature explosion.  My figures estimate a 35% chance that the explosion from both devices will destroy the entire complex enough to kill you in the elevators, and an 85% chance that the explosion will at least make the elevators inoperative.  Disabling the bomb you're at will reduce those chances by 20% each."

The hatch easily swings open when Jade pushes on it, and like a trained acrobat, she swings up and onto the top of the rising service elevator, her feet reverberating against the metal grating.  The hoist ropes of the elevator are encased in a steel sheath for about 5 feet from the pulleys at the roof of the elevator.  Jade grabs the metal sheath in one hand to steady herself and a grenade in the other.  The hoist ropes (3 steel cables over an inch thick) move quickly as the elevator rises.

Grid sees the elevator rising to his level and leaps...

"Hit it!" X repeats, "or get out of there.  The lower you are on the elevator the greater the chance of being hurt in the explosion...or killed."

Jade flicks the pin from the grenade and leans back to throw it.

...and Grid lands safely next to her, stabilizing his balance by grabbing onto the metal sheath, panting for air.  The Agent is about 20 feet below.

Viper's gun is ready as he decides what to do to open the casing of the bomb...

Jade lightly tosses the grenade onto the stairway as the elevator continues up...it lands on the metal platform, rolls, and nearly falls off the edge, but a steel girder prevents it from rolling off the edge.  The Agent continues to climb, unaware of the waiting grenade, and the elevator also climbs, beginning to edge away from the incendiary.

The elevator has risen 50 feet.  The other elevator is beginning to pass it as it makes its way down to the lower level.

T-Minus 5 Minutes, 5 Seconds

Breathingly heavily Grid turns behind him, looking back at the Agent and the apparent lack of any sign that he has performed any kind of extertion.

"Who the hell is this guy?!" he mutters to Jade as he brings his M-16 up, just in case, "He was actually catching me....."

"Whatever happened to blocks of C-4 with a detonator stuck in it? Where's McGuyver when you need him?" Viper takes a deep breath and raises his AK for a strike. "Here goes nothing, X. Warn the others, and concentrate on keeping them alive. If I get this case open, I should be ok. The way these things are, they usually rely on keeping you out in the first place instead of making it hard to difuse if you do get in... I hope."

Fighting the impulse to close his eyes, Viper brings the rifle butt down on the designated corner.