[Plot Thread 2.2] Stars in the Water

[Nina]

"Memory, their name is Memory. And they were very specific. Destroy what we find there, lest the Living Suns be recalled and our world reduced to rubble."

 

Emily pointed up toward the sky. "They said it had happened before and I think the asteroid belt may be proof of that."

 

She looked at the wall map. "As for talking to the empowered there in Africa, I side with Davian. Memory spoke of the Utopians tunnels , I believe that the water may have been redirected and that if the Utopians created tunnels to the sea that may be our way into this place without them even knowing we are there." 

[Shameless]

Ryan frowned  "They don't care about the rest of it, only their borders.  As to going to talk to them, I'm for it, but doesn't that tip our hands?  They don't want to kill the world, just make their home the envy of the rest of the world, to attract more and more Stormers like us.  "
 

He sighed.  "Showing up unnanounced might be better, but all of us are known as stormers, Save Temple.  Silly as it may sound, won't this negatively impact Novastorm if the two Stormer founders show up in a nation that cares only for Stormers?    The company isn't as important as the world, but I'd be a poor boss if I didn't consider those who work for us."
 

"I'm not saying we don't go, but if we do, and we're found out, what do we say?  Do we tell them truth, strange as it sounds, or do we tell them something else, and what?"

[SalmonMax]

"Nah nah nah, you're thinking about this wrong," Deezy said. "We don't have one mission. We have TWO. One mission is to find out who these guys are and what they want, and try to cut past the garbage with an actual meeting. Don't even worry about public opinion, it's super easy to spin."

 

"Mission TWO is to check the tunnels and blow something up and probably save the world. These two missions are only related in that they're in the same place, more or less. We don't have to tell them anything about the tunnels, so let's...not. Because they SOUND like the kind of fellas who we'd SAY 'there's something super dangerous down there that could destroy the planet,' and they'd HEAR 'there's a weapon we've GOT to have down there.' Not having it."

 

"We can get into the whole revision to known history and existence of past 'stormers,' and what the implications of that are later. For now? I think two groups. A small diplomatic team, and a team capable of getting somewhere quick and quiet...and also capable of blowing the ever-loving beJESUS out of stuff."

Edited April 9, 2020 by SalmonMax

[Malachite]

"That is what I suggested," Davian said with a smile for Deezy. "I just suggested all of you be the second team. Right now, we're still digging into who to even talk to over there. Their little media stunts didn't include a Supreme Leader Head Up My Ass announcement, so people have to go hunting for what kind of government or leadership they do have." He shook his head, clearly trying to smooth away his irritation. As much as it was a dire situation, it was kind of amusing seeing the usually restrained and unflappable young man clearly frustrated. "I think that's intentional. It makes the rest of have to waste time and resources paying even more attention to them. They expect the rest of the world to come to them. You all are just the advance keep-aliens-from-returning-and-blowing-up-the-planet diplomatic mission. As Deezy says, we can spin that, so long as you all make it out of Utopian territory alive." 

He looked around the group. "Ryan, you're that way in and out. Cassandra, you're our Stormer muscle. Deezy, you're the problem solver for whatever pops up with the tunnels and the whatever-it-is alien ruins. Temple, you can bop around in a way that Ryan can't and with a little more flexibility in where you can go, from what you've said." His gaze lingered on her for a moment and she didn't need to be a telepath to understand that her ability to read and scan for minds would also be useful. "And Emily, you are the guide to all things water. These tunnels link up to the sea tunnels for the Utopians. They're likely to be flooded at this point, and maybe the ruins, too."

 

He glanced around the room. "The five of you should be able to handle just about anything, working together. I truly believe that. We need to give our world the best chance we can. I can't do the things you can, but I do have access in politics. That's where I can help. We could keep one or two of you here with me, but I'm not going to be in danger. Not having Temple or Deezy or Ryan," he nodded to each of them in turn, "around isn't going to possibly be a life-or-death lack for me. I might just get shut out and have to wait until one of you two get back to be the Stormer face for Novastorm when dealing with Utopia."

[SalmonMax]

"Yes, but now you know it was a good idea," Deezy chortled. "Though you should take a Stormer or equivalent with you, I think. They might take it as an insult if we send in a bunch of normal people without one."

 

She shrugged. "Not that I care really about insulting them, but it might make your lives harder. I'm sure we can make some calls."

Edited April 9, 2020 by SalmonMax

[Malachite]

"I'm not planning on going there any time soon." Davian said with a shake of his head. "I'm going to do everything I can to find out the movers and shakers among them and see if I can set up a meeting. Preferably online or outside of Utopia. Then see where things go from there. I may not be a Stormer, but I do represent the first corporation in the world that has looked to employ Stormers as a group and recognized the good they could do for the world. That might count for something. If they insist on talking to you or Ryan, then I can tell them I can put the meeting on your schedules when you have time. They want the Stormers, they can wait."

[Exile_Jeane]

"Good luck with that, Sir."

 

Pondering the fact that *she* was the Heavy, God help them all, of the group, Cassandra's tone wasn't quite flippant as she studied the big map of the central Sahara and associated coastline. After working with Deezy for the past few days, she wasn't quite sold on the idea that the water needed to have come from an ocean. At least directly via a tunnel that was still there. Someone like Mr. Hawke could, maybe, open a warp directly between point a and b. Or Deezy could tinker up some solution the bombshell brunette couldn't even imagine. Or who knows what. She grunted as she failed to see what she was looking for. An x marks the spot would have been nice.

 

"So, assuming we can find the tunnel entrance on the coast, find it's not obviously boobytrapped or blocked, and pull a mini sub out of our butts that fits in said tunnel, sounds good. If not, well... We'll need to go in via their new lake and avoid any defensive stuff they have set up there with a mini sub we pull out of our butts. Going with Plan Ask Forgiveness Rather Permission that is," she chuckled, numbering the steps on the fingers of one hand, "Oh, and speaking for myself, I've never been scuba diving let alone cave diving."

[Shameless]

"Alright, the five of us."  he indicated Temple, Emily, Cassandra, Deezy and himself.  "Will go to the Sahara, and see this utopia ourselves.  We'll investigate the tunnels, and if we're caught, just say that we were curious as to just how they managed this.   Curiosity won over courtesy, and apologize."  He looked to them.  "Anyone object, speak now, or hold your peace."

When no one spoke, he began bringing up sattelite footage of the area where the tunnels were, looking for live footage.  He'd been to the persian gulf, but nowhere near the Sahara, and he wasn't going to risk a blind jump with the others.

[Nina]

While Hawke played with the images on the screen and everyone was paying rapt attention to that, Temple slid over to stand close beside Davian, she gave him a slightly conflicted look before sending a thought down their link. < Are you sure I shouldn't stay with you, here?>

[Nina]

Emily shook her head at the flashing satellite images, "I don't think those pictures are going to show anything. We know the tunnels are there because of what memory told us. They are more than likely deep off the coastal shelf, exactly where I won't know until I look. I haven't done any exploring in the Atlantic, but, " she looks at Ryan, "if you can put me somewhere around here," she gesture at the coast of Africa closest to the area of the new nation, "I can do an underwater survey a lot faster than the satellites."

 

She steps back from the screen and puts her hands on her hips. "Call me a cynic but I don't think these empowered are on the up and up. And i don't think knocking on their front door and announcing ourselves is a good Idea. That is a lot of water which probably means the tunnels are big. I'll find them and then I can get us through them. Ryan can get us out."

 

[Shameless]

Ryan smiled   "The pictures aren't to search for the tunnels, they're more to give me the lay of the land.  With everything going on, I haven't really gotten to travel like i like.  I can blindly open gates, but there is some risk in opening them in a person, or wall, or other less than desirable endpoint.   Having a point of reference however, makes it much easier.   Of course once I've been somewhere I can always go back."  

He shook his head.  "That will show you to the saltwater tunnel, but what about the freshwater one?"

[Exile_Jeane]

"Unless they're using quantum bullshit to create water from thin air," Cassandra interjected, a frown of concentration lingering on her face, glancing at Deezy for her input, "I'd think they have just the one tunnel leading out, forked the thing, and plopped the mother of all desalination plants between it and the freshwater lake. It'd have to be a hell of a lot hardier than the ones my brother deals with in the Navy to anywhere close to fill an entire lake that fast, but, yeah. Maybe?"

 

She shrugged, smiling as she worked the problem the way she would a fireworks display. As her sweat cooled in the air conditioning, she was fighting a shiver, but the bombshell brunette was not going anywhere, not unless it bogged down and they sent Miss Aquawoman off to get eyes on. Especially with Temple looking uncertain. Fake it till you make it. 

[Nina]

Again Emily nodded, "I was thinking something along those lines myself." She flashed a smile at Cassandra, my god she is so effing gorgeous, she quickly cut her eyes away to keep from staring, she pointed again at the map.

 

"That is a lot of freshwater. If they stole it from somewhere, even multiple some wheres it would have been noticed. And at that volume it would have had an almost immediate environmental impact on where it came from. So one of two things probably happened, either they are doing what Ms. Durrant suggests, and taking it from the Atlantic and desalinating it, I would say not with machinery but with an Empowered Person.  We know at least one who has the ability to effect the weather on a grand scale it is safe to assume there are others who can as well. The other place they could be finding it is from a hitherto unknown sub-surface aquifer, not likely but possible."

 

She looked back around at all of them but settled on Davian. "The reason I don't trust them or their motives is the obvious move to intimidate by showing these two seas to the world. They didn't just move the water, they built those seas whole, created the basins for them. if they can do that they could have just as easily done it all underground. They wanted the world to know their power.

At least that is what I think."

[SalmonMax]

"Yeah, it's definitely a huge flex," Deezy agreed as she eyed the map. "I also agree the most likely source of the freshwater is desalinization."

 

"So, here's the thing. There's a pattern to Stormers. When they first get powers, it's almost always in this explosive release, virtually unlimited. But it's short-lived, just a burst. These basins, these lakes...they feel to me like someone may have made them during that big burst. But it's not sustainable, so they'd need some way to keep it going."

 

She pursed her lips. "The problem with irrigating the desert, aside from the lack of SOIL, is the lack of a water cycle. So it seems like they're trying to make an artificial one. They pipe salt water in, and it outputs into the salt lake, with the excess draining off into a river so there's equilibrium with their desalinization process. The freshwater drains into the fresh lake, and again the excess drains off into a river. The desert  must be gobbling that water up pretty fast, which means they have to continually replace it...which means they must be pulling a LOT of salt water in. Even if someone had a Stormer-type power to pull salt out of water...the volume they're pulling should be tiring them out. And then there's sleeping, eating...every second they're not doing it they're backlogging. And that has to go on for a long time, until the amount of water vapor in the air over the Sahara alters the climate and the process becomes self-sustaining."

 

"The initial freshwater lake had to come from a power, but I think there almost has to be something else going on now. Maybe more than one Empowered with similar abilities, or some kind of technological solution that they super-engineered. We need to get eyes on it, whatever it is."

[Malachite]

Davian watched the others with a mild, neutral expression as they worked out theories on Utopia's creation. When he reached out along the connection Temple kept between them she could feel the edges of something unusual from him - like an involuntary mental smile. <You may stay or go, Temple. The choice is always yours.>

<Then I want to stay with you,> she responded swiftly. 

 

"Given a mindset of 'show of power' over any sort of diplomacy, having a Stormer beside me to when trying to set up lines of communication is a good idea," Davian conceded as the conversation lulled for a moment. He gave the quiet teleporter a practiced smile,  "Temple, would you be willing to stay behind and tend to paperwork and public relations with me?"

She nodded her head and tried not to look too relieved. 


They spent another hour or so looking over the video uploads of the seas filling and debating on the exact nature of powers the Utopians had at their disposal. Emily spotted weird water movement to the west of the coastal Libyan town of Sirte. Cassie popped up with an unexpected expertise on the matter - Bob had showed her once why you didn't trust just water to put out firecrackers. He'd lit a string, let it burn for a moment, then put it in a dented, kinda rusty large bucket on the concrete floor of his workshop. They moved on to other things and she'd utterly forgotten about the little demonstration until the bucket jumped and sent up a splash of water as one of the crackers went off. Bob had pulled her back over to the now leaking bucket and said, "You see that water runnin' everywhere? That's your blood and your life if you don't respect the 'crackers, Little Poppet." 

The water swirling weird as it leaked from several different holes looked eerily familiar to the odd movements of the Mediterranean west of Sirte.  Bob did eventually admit that he'd made that string specifically take the heat down the wick and smolder in a little waterproof pouch for a bit before exploding just to make a point, but Cassie had been more careful after the surprise explosion-bucket. Some lessons were worth cheating for.

 

Luckily for the team, there were long stretches of uninhabited beachfront west of Sirte. Ryan spent a few minutes digging for the most up-to-date pictures of the area he could find. Eventually he stumbled across a selfie of the area by a French couple backpacking the entire coastline for an environmental fundraiser only a few days ago.  Then came the hard question: it was all well and fine for Emily to scout for them, but how were the rest of them going to explore tunnels that may or may not be flooded? Standard SCUBA gear was cumbersome and they'd have to lug it around on land if there were parts that weren't flooded in case there were more parts that were. Deezy loved big and flashy as well as the next manic pixie mad scientist, but this sounded exhausting and boring. It had to go. Preferably go awesomely. She asked for two hours to get something ready while everyone else grabbed a meal and maybe wrote out a will or something - everyone but Emily. She was needed. For SCIENCE!


When the group gathered in the Command Center again, it was without Temple or Davian. The businessman had wished them all good luck through a group text, but was already busy with his own side of the coin for this endeavor. Ryan was there waiting when the others arrived - Deezy with her arms full of two sea-blue and full-body wet suits, while she was clearly wearing a third. She held them up triumphantly and declared, "Aquasuits! They have water-to-breathable air converters, thermal reflection and recapture to keep you warm down to near-freezing temperatures, a pressure system that keeps you from getting crushed in the depths. . . and, uh, might be able to reflect bullets better than kevlar. . . not enough time to test that one out," she sighed wistfully before sweeping on, "and a whole hydrolic water-jet system with retractable fins for your feet so we can move around a little closer to what Emily does in the water and be able to walk easily on land. Oh! And lights, of course!"

She laid the two extra suits out, clearly sized to Cassie and Ryan, and pointed to the small protrusions on the arms and cap of the suit. "So we can see where we're going. There's some LED lights threaded through the suit, too. You can turn them on by tapping your thumb and pinky on either hand together and they'll cycle through colors on the ring finger tap and flash patterns on the middle fingers. So we can find each other easier if we get separated! I build in sealed pockets large enough to put our cellphones in, and there's bluetooth headphones over the ears. I couldn't figure out how to do a HUD system over the eye panels," she sighed wistfully again - if she'd just had a few more hours! - but you worked with what you had, "but the suit has built-in no-fog lenses that are way more comfortable than swim goggles."

She grinned at the others, fairly vibrating with excitement. "Suit up! We've got alien tunnels to explore!"

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

3

Spoiler

Suit mechanics: 

Body Mod - Gills (effectively the suit acts as a large gill and pumps the oxygen into the face mask that goes over the mouth
Mega-Stamina 1 (the suit has M-Sta, providing damage protection but not the other benefits of M-Sta to the character)
Adaptation (Pressure - the suit exerts an adaptive outward pressure to keep you all at 1 atmosphere)
Thermal Recapture (the suit capture body heat and energy from movement to reflect back at you and keep you warm even at 4 C)

Fins - The fins on the suit collapse and retract to sit around the back part of the calf when walking, then deploy via a button push on the knee in water to help with swimming, +3 Enhancement to underwater movements)
Water Jets - Water jets with extremely miniaturized motors run through tubes up and down the suit arms and legs. These provide speed and maneuverability while in the water Movement Mode [Swimming 1]) 

I did rolls for Deezy to see what she could put together in one crafting milestone. She is ridiculous. She had 23 successes to spend after all Enhancements were taken into account. The suit needed a total of 16 successes to successfully complete it and buy down the number of milestones to 1. It has Movement Mode because she could purchase more stuff for it with than had originally be designed with 7 extra successes she had left over. Max, feel free to PM me about how it all broke down, if you're interested. I'd've had you do it, but this post is overdue and it's 2 AM at this point. >.<

All that being said, this is still untested new tech. Glitches and failure can happen, though from what Deezy's put out over the past six months, failure is very rare. Glitches. . . .

Ryan - Feel free to move them all to Sirte with your post. This is an area where the sea and the desert actually touch. I'm going to give you four a chance to respond to Deezy's SCIENCING, and then we'll get to the next phase. Emily, if you'll give me an appropriate roll to gather info (Wits + Survival if she's looking for water movement or unusual animal activity, Wits + Composure if she's just scanning the coastline for tunnels). Feel free to do something else if you get an idea, and just put in a spoiler what dice pool you used.


As for Temple, I'll be splitting you off into another thread. It may take a little bit to get that done, as I also need to build some NPCs and flesh out the plot points for over there. I'll get it done as soon as I can but there's a list of To Do's ahead of that right now.  

 

[Exile_Jeane]

"Nice," Cassandra responded with a enthusiastic nod of her head.

 

If they were going to play scary as hell real life super hero against a literal planet altering cabal of super scientists and revolutionaries and ancient aliens, might as well get some life saving toys to make it a little bit less dangerous. It made her feel a little better that Temple wasn't going to be in the line of potential fire. The girl had been through too much as is, and if she had a better grip on danger than the bombshell brunette had gained avoiding blowing herself up via firework mishap through the years... Nope. Nope. Not gonna think about it. Too many potentially paralyzing doubts already as the less-than-a-week newbie at this whole Stormer thing.

 

 Right. Shiny new toy.

 

She excused herself and ducked into the nearest bathroom with a slightly-forced chuckle, striping out of her outer layers and into the super scuba suit. It looked good on her, not that anything looked bad on her per say, but still. If she had been told a day earlier what she was about to go do... Well it would have looked something like this. Except maybe with some black? Oh, and pink. Pink was a nice non-threatening color without being boring long as they were throwing stealth out the window with flashing lights that'd end up saving her life if things got hairy down there. She took a minute securing her hair into a quick and dirty ponytail ready for stuffing into the suit's hood, squaring up with her reflection, flashing herself a test smile, and bopping out of the bathroom back to the group.

 

"Still scared as shit to be perfectly honest," she confessed, bundle of clothes under one arm as she gestured with the other to indicated Deezy's marvel, "But *this* helps. A lot. Looking forward to the Mark II. Let's blow up some suns." 

 

 

[Shameless]

Ryan quietly went and found another room to change in.  There were things the suits could do that wern't things he needed, but a backup was nice to have.  More than that, it was also good that she'd thought to help them move faster and easier through the water.  His was a dark blue with a black base, and he nodded, coming back to the others.   Onc everyone was back and ready to go he concentrated.
 

Temple not going with them made him smile, he wasn't that happy to bring the two newest  Stormers on this mission, and he'd be worried about them regardless of whether they could handle themselves or not.  It wasn't a lack of faith in their abilities, but more a product of his upbringing.   What they were doing was dangerous, and you didn't just take Young people into danger.
 

He sighed, back to his concentration and the mental image or Sirte's coastline.   Once it was fixed in his mind, He poured power into the image, and before them, the portal to the other side of the world opened.  
 

He smiled at the trio who'd be going with him.  "Africa awaits."
 

Once they were all through the portal he followed, cranking his senses to high alert, as the portal closed behind them.

[Nina]

Emily steps through the portal and is struck by the smell of the sea close by and the crash of the waves. She breaths in deeply and attuned now to the ocean she can smell and taste the difference in the water in the air here. She strides toward the surf and kicks off her shoes and pulls her shirt off and tosses it at Ryan as he collapses his portal. “Clothes get in my way in the water,” she says as she strips off her jeans tossing those at the wide eyed pilot, “plus they wont survive the swim. Can you hold them for me?”

 

As she turns back toward the sea she says over her shoulder, “I'll go as fast as I can, you guys find a spot and I'll be back as soon as I can.” By the time she finishes she is up to her thighs in the surface and those watching notice her skin changing, becoming covered with tiny delicate looking scales which catch and reflect the sunlight in a rainbow of metallic color. Then with a smooth supple twist she dives into the waves and disappears from sight.

 

This was Emily's first time in the Atlantic and it was different but she found her baring quickly and with a few kicks she was off heading into the deep. The underwater world was a blue black

swirl of confused currents, nature contesting with sudden catastrophe, silt roiled in the strong unnatural currents which swept along the coast making the water blurry and cloudy she saw fish and other marine life moving in and out of new currents chaos in action as instinct fought with reality.

 

Calling upon her connection with the sea she propelled herself faster and deeper than any human could ever swim. Faster than any natural denizen spawned in the deep. Like a torpedo she tunneled up and down the coast stopping every few miles to gather with her senses the currents and eddies she witnessed the displaced sea-life and could sense the impending disaster this would cause if the ocean wasn't put to rights.

 

It takes some time but she does locate the tunnels off the coastal shelf and deep very deep. He wanted to go in and see what she could find out but she had been gone longer than she had intended and so decided to return to the team.

 

Emily broke surface several yards off the shore and found them with her eyes before heading out of the surf. She strode out of the water skin glisten and reflecting the light as the tiny scales dripped.

“I found them, the tunnels and its bad. Its far out and deep.” She gives the details of what she encountered using Deezy's hand held shows them the locations on the maps.

[Exile_Jeane]

Cassandra whistled respectfully, arms crossed over her chest. Emily had been down a long time, and it showed. That was *far* and *deep*.

 

If she was less certain about Deezy's capabilities, she'd have been nervous about going so deep in something that looked and felt like a second skin on her. But the fact she wasn't sweating despite the heat of the African beach, reassured her on that front. No, the weak link in this chain was her. That much she was certain of. The brunette bombshell sucked in a breath, chuckling softly. This was insane. One security system and they were so dead. She'd watched enough deep sea horror movies to know that. Still, insanity was the new normal these days.

 

"So... Can we *poof* down there directly with that info, or do we get a warm up swim before knocking on Utopia's door, Sir?" she asked, glancing at Ryan.   

[Shameless]

Ryan felt an odd itch in his mind, something was off, an just not right.     He was glad he was on his feet on the ground, because it was like he was in the Gyroscopic like lest years ago, and he scowled.  "Anyone else feel off?"  He shook his head,, and scowled.   "I think We are going to go for a swim.  I can transport us out above the tunnels if that's what we want, but we'll have to swim into them from the surface."

He still had Emily's clothing, and was trying to avoid staring.  He was a much older man after all, and she was a friend.   

[Nina]

Emily completely unfazed with standing in front of the team au natural, as they say, nodded agreement with Cassandra, "If you can get us close even on the surface it will make it a lot easier on all of you plus it will save time."

[SalmonMax]

"Wow! You are super naked," Deezy observed, unabashedly ogling Emily. "Give me a second here. I brought some luggage I gotta unpack."

 

She was wiggling out of her clothes as she talked, but the sleek skin revealed was that of her wetsuit. When had she put it on? It was entirely possible she'd just created it around herself a moment ago. The luggage was a pair of hardshell cases that she'd brought with her to be teleported, each fairly large. Opening each one, Deezy revealed within several metal contraptions that she started pulling out and setting up. The first two looked kind of like thigh-length boots made for a robot. The second two were harder to place until she hooked them together, at which point it was clearer that they were made to fit along someone's shoulders and down their arms...with some kind of line that dangled down their back.

 

Deezy stepped into the 'boots' which whirred and clamped around her legs. She then settled the other rig over her shoulders and stood up, making little shrugging motions until the back-line aligned with a socket at her waist that the boots had incorporated. The line and socket connected, and the whole array of gizmos seemed to come to life. It fastened clams around her arms and shoulders, and a sort of helmet covering the back and top of her head slid up and over into place. A clear 'bubble' then slid down over her face as well. Lights blinked on, and Deezy consulted a set of instruments built into the system's left forearm. It wasn't quite an 'iron man' type suit. Her arms and legs had plenty of metal over them, but weren't completely enclosed. Her torso had something that looked more like a roll cage around it, albeit much slimmer and lighter looking.

 

She ran a quick, abbreviated pre-operation check, flexing her arms and legs, bending over to touch her toes, and walking around in a brisk circle before deciding to give it the green light. Then Deezy noticed everyone staring.

 

"What?" she asked. "You didn't think I was just going with basic wetsuit, did you?"

 

Deezy turned to look out at the ocean then and everyone could see words and images appearing on the inside of the clear 'bubble' around her face. After a few seconds she nodded.

 

"Okay! Did a quick fluid dynamics analysis on the water out there! There's several depressions and a lot of turbulence. Our target should be the biggest one though. I've got a bearing for it, so...just follow me! Last one in, et cetera et cetera!"

 

And she ran out into the water...her movements weirdly natural looking, despite the exoskeleton hugging her. It did at least mean she was heavier than water though, because she just kept running until she was gone under the tide.

 

 

[Exile_Jeane]

As Deezy moved headlong into the surf like some kind of spastic kaiju in her exosuit, Cassandra restrained herself to snickering behind one hand. She was all too happy to wait and see if they were cheating the horizontal part of the dive before dashing into the surf given her, ya know, total lack of diving experience. She nodded happily at Emily, a big grin on her face and going through a few basic warm up stretches, "Loving the confidence. I could probably pull the look off but skin tight wetsuit is probably as close to that as is safe for me now even if we weren't about to go swimming in cold ass water. You wouldn't think it, but half way down California, you get that freezing current. Much less fun than you'd think to splash around."

 

She chuckled as she realized she was babbling, clapping her cheeks twice for that little surge of endorphins, "Sorry. You of anyone know that, Miss Thompson. Ready when you all are." 

[Shameless]

Ryan sighed.  "Deezy come back, Let me make this easy for everyone.  Give me the direction and how far out."    Emily gave him a general reckoning and Deezy something more specific.  Ryan focused on where they indicated had indicated, and at least they'd be find for a surface drop.   Far out at sea, the warpgate opened with the entrance there beside him., and he nodded.  "Alright, let's do this quickly.  I can't help with the dive, but we can cut out alot of time this way.   It'll be just like walking off a diving board."  

"One express trip into the sea."  

[SalmonMax]

Deezy paused, and did a double-take, then laughed and sloshed back to Ryan with an apologetic grin at Emily.

 

"Sorry! I was going over all the tech stuff in my head and only half-listening. Forgot we can just teleport there! Hoo!"

 

She gave Ryan the bearing and distance to what she'd spotted, which lined up pretty well with Emily's own findings.

 

From there...they were as ready as they were going to be. Deezy gave Ryan the thumbs up, then squinched her face in anticipation of the transit.