TEAM DOWNBURST COMMS TRANSCRIPTION LOG - DIGITAL.
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DATE: 09/19/2054.
LOCATION, BASE: 28° 8' 49.9056'' N 82° 45' 24.4440'' W. TARPON SPRINGS, FL.
LOCATION, AGENTS: VARIED. REFER TO PAGE ONE.
STORM: XVI.
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MESSENGER: Winds are picking up. 50 sustained, 80 gusts.
ICARUS: I can handle it.
QUOTA: You say that, yet you were— [Indecipherable]
ICARUS: Couldn’t hear you, doesn’t count.
TRANSIT: Guys, please focus instead of arguing.
ICARUS: Not arguing—
QUOTA: Not arguing—
FROSTBITE: Yes, arguing. Keep it going. Anger equals adrenaline equals good performance. Need that right now.
CLIFFHANGER: I’m still holding this house together, if we could please hurry it up everyone—
ICARUS, QUOTA, FROSTBITE, LANTERN, RIVER: Working on it!
CLIFFHANGER: Not fast enough.
QUOTA: There are fifty-seven other people in need of rescue right now. Only so much we can do at once.
RIVER: Trying to push floodwaters back—
LANTERN: Trying to light the way since the power’s out all over town—
FROSTBITE: Trying to freeze the floodwaters into a makeshift flood-wall—
CLIFFHANGER: This house. Is crumbling. The roof got torn off, the walls are done for—
ICARUS: Tornado?
CLIFFHANGER: Think so. Short one, little one, waterspout to land, but—
ICARUS: Shit. I didn’t notice. Too much going on.
CLIFFHANGER: All the more reason to get here.
MESSENGER: 60 sustained. 85 gusts, just caught a 90.
RIVER: I don’t know how much I’ve got left in me. Where’s the other team? We need to evac already—
MESSENGER: Waiting on a reply. Tracker’s out, don’t know where they are.
QUOTA: I don’t see them. Not close enough.
FROSTBITE: Fuck.
TRANSIT: Language, please. You and Icarus both. Recordings.
QUOTA: Well, they can go fuck themselves! How are we faster than them? We’re the most haphazardly-put together team on the roster right now. Un-fucking-believeable!
ICARUS: Cliffhanger, I’m flying to you. I don’t know. I’ll get them out. How many?
QUOTA: Five.
ICARUS: Fuuuuck—
QUOTA: Three adults, one child, one dog.
ICARUS: Fuck! Okay. Shelter isn’t far. It’s fine.
TRANSIT: Anything yet, Messenger?
MESSENGER: No.
TRANSIT: [Indecipherable]
MESSENGER: I know.
RIVER: I’ve got ten minutes in me, tops.
FROSTBITE: Hang on, I’m coming in from south of you, I think. Just hang on.
MESSENGER: Landfall’s about an hour away. We’re on the north side of it, guaranteed.
ICARUS: Hate my fucking life—
MESSENGER: I know, I know. Less flooding, at least. We’ll make it work. Frostbite gets the walls done, we’re okay.
LANTERN: [Indecipherable]
LANTERN: [Indecipherable]
LANTERN: [Indecipherable]
LANTERN: [Indecipherable]
TRANSIT: Lantern, you’re not coming through clear.
LANTERN: [Indecipherable]
MESSENGER: Quota, where is he? I mean, I see his location, but I don’t understand why we can’t understand him.
QUOTA: I don’t… Hang on.
QUOTA:
QUOTA:
QUOTA:
QUOTA: Lantern, why the fuck are you underground? HOW are you underground?
LANTERN: [Indecipherable] [Deep breath] [Gasping]
LANTERN: [Indecipherable] storm shelter— [Indecipherable] don’t know how— [Indecipherable] not regulated— [Indecipherable] people out— [Indecipherable] flooded—
MESSENGER: Shit. Shit, Transit, go.
TRANSIT: I’m driving, I’m driving—
MESSENGER: Shit.
QUOTA: But I’m not sensing—
MESSENGER: Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it—
QUOTA: He’s wasting time—
MESSENGER: Please don’t fucking say it! Just focus. Work. We all have our own damn work to do!
RIVER: Language.
CLIFFHANGER: Always got work to do.
MESSENGER: And so we’re always working! Yeah, yeah, I know—
RIVER: You’re not doing your job, focusing on this. Neither’s Lantern.
MESSENGER: We fill in where it’s needed. We all do. Whoever the hell managed to put an underground storm shelter in on the Florida coastline, they need the help. We’re filling in.
TRANSIT: No, not me, thank you, don’t put me in this argument, I just drive—
FROSTBITE: Clear comms, please! For the love of God, let’s all just clear comms. Arguing is stupid now, I take it back.
[ Silence from 18:34 to 18:40 ]
LANTERN: They’re dead.
LANTERN: I don’t— I—
FROSTBITE: Clear comms, Lantern.
LANTERN: Sorry. I’m sorry.
FROSTBITE: It’s fine.
FROSTBITE: Walls are done. River and I are free.
QUOTA: A lot of people along the waterline. Just start parting the floodwater, maybe, go house to house.
RIVER: I’m tired.
FROSTBITE: I know. We all are. Keep pushing.
MESSENGER: Landfall… Landfall in fourty. Roughly.
ICARUS: Might be a little sooner. Or a lot sooner.
TRANSIT: We’re going to have to get indoors. Can’t be out here much longer.
ICARUS: Shouldn’t be out here at all! Fucking 90 mile per hour gusts, no person can walk through that, civilians are going to get blown away—
CLIFFHANGER: I’m still holding this goddamn house together—
ICARUS: I’m coming back! I’m coming back.
MESSENGER: Listening for the other team. Still not here yet. I don’t know, maybe they got caught up in another town—
FROSTBITE: Hey—
TRANSIT: But we’ve known for over twenty-four hours now that landfall was going to be somewhere in this general vicinity. That’s why they sent so many of us here! But the other freaking — sorry — team isn’t here! There’s people all along the freaking — sorry, I’m sorry — coast; we’ve got teams for a reason! I don’t understand.
MESSENGER: I don’t know. I’m sorry, I really don’t. We’re doing the best we can, that’s what matters.
FROSTBITE: Hello—
TRANSIT: Our best isn’t enough! We’re a team of eight people against this freaking storm, and we’re about to ride out the eye with eight of us? We shouldn’t even be here! Nobody should! Why did nobody freaking evacuate—
FROSTBITE: For the love of Christ, clear comms!
FROSTBITE: Sorry, Lantern.
LANTERN: What, because I’m Jewish? Fuck.
FROSTBITE: I won’t say River’s parting the red sea like Moses, that feels offensive and I don’t want points docked off my performance, but I will say we are parting the flooding, and we’ve got a shit-ton of people. We have to get them all to the shelter.
RIVER: [Laughter]
ICARUS: Yeah, well, storm’s on our goddamn back, we’re not gonna have the time—
FROSTBITE: On our back and fucking us into the mattress, or just kinda jerking on us with a limp dick?
ICARUS: Jesus—
CLIFFHANGER: C’mon, Frost—
TRANSIT: They’re absolutely docking you for that one—
FROSTBITE: Work with the metaphor! How fucked are we?
ICARUS: I don’t— I don’t have the radar! Still just putting the condom on, I guess. I feel it, though, it’s way too close for comfort. Gonna take all of us to get everyone there safe, I think—
FROSTBITE: Okay, so we do that. Everyone meets on Palm Avenue, near the Baptist church. You find stragglers, bring them too. We just need to get everyone to the shelter alive and whole. That includes us.
FROSTBITE: Any objections?
[ Radio silence ]
FROSTBITE: Okay. Good. Fucking thank you. Clear comms.
[ Radio silence from 18:45 to 20:34 ]
internal review: recording likely turned off. reprimand FROSTBITE, MESSENGER.
[ 28°08'42.2"N 82°46'23.3"W → 28°08'46.3"N 82°45'04.8"W ]
internal review: recording likely turned back on at these coordinates.
ICARUS: You good?
LANTERN: No. I don’t know. Yeah.
ICARUS: That’s a lot of different answers.
LANTERN: Well.
ICARUS: You’re new.
LANTERN: Yeah.
ICARUS: You work in anything related to this before? EMS, medicine, search and rescue…
LANTERN: God, no. None of that. I was a fucking teacher.
ICARUS: Shit. Really? What subject? Or, grade?
LANTERN: Elementary. Mostly third grade, so it was every subject. Felt like the sweet spot. Still kinda little, brains all malleable and new to the world, but they’re coming into their own, you know? Becoming people. Every year I’d start off with a class of twenty-something kids, and then by the end of the school year they’d all be different, somehow. Growth. I’d look at ‘em and be able to actually picture who they might grow up to be one day.
LANTERN: But— fuck— (Sniffle.) There were kids in there. In the shelter. Little ones.
LANTERN: They’re not gonna come into their own. They’re just — like that. Forever. Fucking statistics.
LANTERN: ‘May their memory be a blessing.’ That’s what we say. Jews. Dunno what happens when we die, focus on their memory—
LANTERN: That’s not a blessing, though. Dying like that.
LANTERN: It’s fucked. It’s so fucked.
ICARUS: Yeah.
LANTERN: I don’t get it. I don’t get why any of this is happening.
LANTERN: I thought, you know, I take this job— me getting this stupid power would make sense. But it still doesn’t. I couldn’t save any of them.
LANTERN: Now I’ve got dead kids stuck in my brain for forever and we don’t even get more than ten free therapy sessions a year—
ICARUS: After really bad storm hits, they, uh, give us a few extra.
LANTERN: Oh, great. Guess we hit the fucking jackpot, then.
FROSTBITE: You were losing it, earlier.
MESSENGER: I don’t really want to talk about it.
FROSTBITE: Too bad. You’re my co-leader. Co-captain. Whatever. You need to keep your shit together. I can’t have you falling apart like that.
FROSTBITE: Especially with Transit behind the wheel. He’s not cut out for this. And we’ve got Lantern now, too— you can’t give in like that.
MESSENGER: He found a flooded underground storm shelter with fingers sticking out the damn crack in the door. What the hell else was I supposed to do?
FROSTBITE: Keep it the fuck together.
FROSTBITE: We have a job to do. We get paid to do it. We get fired if we don’t. I don’t know about you, but I like being employed, especially by some of the only people that value what we can do.
FROSTBITE: If you can’t keep it together, give your position up to someone who fucking can. Okay?
MESSENGER: Only goddamn people on this team who can besides me is Cliffhanger and River.
FROSTBITE: Well, they did a hell of a lot better tonight than you did.
MESSENGER: River won’t do it. He hates it here.
MESSENGER: Cliff, doubt it.
FROSTBITE: Why.
MESSENGER: Thinks you’re too hard on us. Too vulgar. Doesn’t like you much.
FROSTBITE: Well, thank God I’m not here to be liked.
FROSTBITE: We got by tonight by the skin of our teeth. Soon as the storm’s further inland, we’ve got more work to do. Get your shit together, or I’m writing a letter to our higher-ups recommending you be moved to an inland team. Or behind a fucking desk somewhere, I don’t know.
FROSTBITE: Please.
MESSENGER:
MESSENGER:
MESSENGER:
FROSTBITE: Okay. Good talk.
QUOTA: Sorry for yelling at you earlier.
TRANSIT: No, it’s fine. You know me. Always worried about the higher-ups—
QUOTA: Even when we’re looking death in the eye.
QUOTA: I still remember… Shit, when was it. Three years ago? When you were trying to drop the damn car because we had that tornado barreling towards us, and Icarus didn’t know if he’d be able to slow it down, and I started screaming—
TRANSIT: “Fuck, fuck me, we’re going to die, we’re all going to die in this stupid fucking ugly ass car!”
QUOTA: Yes! And you, you said— [Deep breath.] “Quota, please, we’re doing our best, please don’t curse, if we live we cannot get docked for this!”
TRANSIT: And then we lived and got docked anyway!
QUOTA: God forbid the team morale be affected when we’ve got a massive tornado barreling towards us!
TRANSIT: I think they said something about, um, too much unnecessary pressure, I think. Not necessarily team morale.
QUOTA: Oh, like a blame game?
TRANSIT: Sort of, maybe.
QUOTA: Did I put too much pressure on you?
TRANSIT: No. No, the tornado did.
QUOTA: The tornado was a lot louder than I was.
TRANSIT: At least I got the spikes in the ground. And at least Icarus slowed it down, too. Even if he did pass out after.
QUOTA: If only we didn’t get points off.
TRANSIT: Ah, well. They’ll dock for anything, at this point. Stupid AI.
TRANSIT: Anyways, uh, do you want coffee? They boiled water with some candles, and…I think it’s just instant coffee, like those little packets with the granules, but at least it’s caffeine.
QUOTA: Ugh, that’s disgusting. Yes please.
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