station72 | [hatch log] into the garbage chute, flyboy(s)

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[hatch log] into the garbage chute, flyboy(s)

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :43 - :44
SUMMARY: New hosts hatch on the Station; their arrival on Concordia is bumpier and smellier than usual.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP and nothing will ever be the same again. A moment ago you were somewhere familiar - or familiar enough; now you're lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber lit by a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. You can't shake the sensation that you've been asleep for a long, long time.

The sluggishness of coming out of a deep, dreamless sleep persists all the way until you disconnect the tube running from the compartment's rear wall to the base of your neck. Then things get loud. A wave of emotion fills the void. Fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety; maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. Somewhere, someone else is feeding their thoughts and emotions into your mind. On the plus side, it's easy to follow that digging, familiar sensation to each other. After all, you're part of the same brood. You belong together.

Welcome to Station 72. Sirius and Kavinsky will have one day aboard the Station to acclimate to their new reality before they're whisked away to Concordia to join the rest of the young hosts. Get to know one another, ask some burning questions; in a day's time you'll be boarding a shuttle and going somewhere far, far away.

MEANWHILE IN CONCORDIA, the host's espionage efforts are coming to a head. Preparations for infiltrating Public Security HQ are in full swing, a handful of hosts are planning to get in close with Representative Goram Saffit himself and there's currently a semi-functional android taking up one of the beds of the Bearings apartment block. Honestly, there's more than enough on everyone's plate without piling new hosts on top of it all. But that doesn't stop Nirad from disappearing when he's called to return to the Station. Presumably, this means everyone better get ready to debrief some new arrivals soon...

     ON THE STATION, there's a hum in the air - or the mind, rather. Follow the buzz and it'll lead to the Hangar Deck where a slick brick-shaped black transport is waiting. The source of the mental hum seems to be a young man: Nirad has come to collect you. He'll answer any questions; in fact, he seems happy to talk and length about absolutely anything. The boy's apparently the rambling type with little to no filter between his brain and his mouth. The combination of talking and mental hum can be disorienting. Once safely aboard the transport, the ship’s landing platform descends through the floor of the hangar. It snaps into place in the airlock. For a moment there’s a beat of perfect stillness, a shiver of anticipation. Then the transport is flung through the shaft and ejected into the wild black of space. There’s a nauseating lurch in your belly as it bursts through the delicate shell of the multiverse and snaps into real space above the blue and yellow marble of the planet Opia. Somewhere, thousands of miles below in the city of Concordia, the rest of your brood is waiting for you.

     A BUMPY LANDING
The stealth ship slices down toward the planet until it fills the entire viewscreen. "All right, everyone out," Nirad announces, unbuckling his harness and jumping to his feet. Uh. What?

He leads to the port side of the transport ship where there's a small series of circular ports. They're roughly shoulder width. At a touch of a button, the ports open out to a series of escape pods. There's only enough room for one and it looks like you'll be lying on your back the whole trip. "Hop in. I'll launch you and then follow you down in my own. The pod's stealth tech should keep you invisible to the locals until someone comes to find it, but don't forget to scrap the pod when you're out of it. We can't risk someone finding it laying around." A pause. "Sorry, by the way. Usually we'd just land the ship but it's getting kind of obvious."

Hopefully you weren't expecting a nice, easy trip down to the planet because this is dark and joyless. The escape pod has no windows. It launches from the transport ship and rockets downward at the behest of the planet's gravity. Everything shakes. It's desperately cold, then violently hot and then-- something gives. The sound of something whistling. A jerk. The escape pod trembles as the anti-grav jets at the base deploy. It's a last attempt to soften the landing, then the pod drives down into a mountain of debris like a tent stake into muddy earth.

Congratulations, you've landed more or less safely in Concordia's only open air landfill.

     SEARCH & RESCUE
It's three in the morning and maybe you're asleep in Bearings or maybe you're burning the midnight oil; either way, Carata is in your mind telling you to get up and get ready. "The new hosts have landed. Let's go pick them up, shall we? If I were were, I'd wear some clothes you don't really care for."

Time to go digging through the city's biggest ~~dumpster~~ transfer facility!

The escape pods will have to be unearthed and opened from the outside to rescue their inhabitants. Once free, be sure to dismantle pods and scatter them through the piles of debris. Eventually all of this will be recycled, but we don't want anyone finding mysterious alien technology in one piece now do we?

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new and recently returning hosts; any threads on the Station should be closed to newly awakened hosts or Station-based NPCs. Any threads on Concordia can be open to both new and old hosts!

If you have questions about the mission specifically, direct them to the most recent calendar post HERE. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE; you might also want to take a glance at the MISSION CONCORDIA BRIEFING. For all other questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages.))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

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[Sirius doesn't need to cut him off so swiftly; they all have that guy. In apology, Kavinsky could let Lynch's face flash, beautiful and sharp all about every feature. He might weave the memory of him wanting everything from Ronan in a feverish hungry that was never sated. All he had was the taste on his tongue and then nothing as he was left behind, vowing that Ronan would remember him like a brand pressed into his eyeball until it became seared, white goop. But Kavinsky doesn't share Ronan, because he only thinks of him in response to Peter being violently snatched away from his mind. Then it's more Sirius, it's more the ever sweet, dark passage from wake to sleep.

Kavinsky steps closer. Magic. The stick is a wand. The man before him wants to know him and Kavinsky's never needed to be unknowable, he simply was.]

Where'd you learn to talk? Mom and dad actually do it for you, or you paid enough attention to how things work you figured out how to do what you needed to get by?

[Sometimes very close to the wire, as in Kavinsky's case, where he's shown up in the final hour with little more to do than offer support.

Or break the pod, as he's now aiming to do. There's plenty of makeshift weapons within the junk; pipes and rusted hunks of metal that could scrape at the capsule's better make. He picks up a piece with a rather sharp edge and starts to wedge it into one of the pod's few seams.]

What do you do, man? How do you bring home the bacon?

[Kavinsky's already experienced fundamental replacement. There used to be a heart in his chest, a soul curled around it, a pile of organ-like metaphors clustered within him. He's replaced them with gasoline and lit matches. The idea of a metal arm doesn't bring with him any panging sense that he'd miss his flesh limb; he just thinks of all the ways he could manipulate the metal. What if he had a buzzsaw in place of a hand?]

Is this a do as I do, not what I say thing, man? Your argument's weak when you're doing all that.

[Sick. The crunch and bite. The way the pod is so simply dismantled.]

Are you telling me what to do?

[It's a layercake question; fluffed layers between the richness of inches of frosting. Seems all sweet and innocuous, but the goal is to poison, to aggravate diabetes, to break three months of solid dieting. The nicest Kavinsky has been is a question that ripples with poorly stacked tiers. He doesn't wait for the V-card to swipe his answer. Even if he speaks, Kavinsky will continue through and over him.]

I was already gonna do that, man. Chill out. Take ten, I'll work on the pod.

[ And just so he can be a defiant little shit, ]

Yeah, I am.

[ Which is a dare in itself: what're you gonna do about it? The guy's knee is practically broken and Petre's displayed only one of his many destructive tricks. He could take him on in a second, he's sure, but then he's never been careful enough to consider what other tricks people might have hidden up their sleeve.

Then he has to remind himself: no killing other hosts. That's generally frowned upon, however new and useless they might be. ]

Fine. I'll take you somewhere later.

[His knee's able to carry his weight, which is all he really needs it to do. He didn't shatter the bone, merely banged and bruised it. A good couple nights of sleep and he'll lose the slight stilted way he's walking. Regardless, Kavinsky carries himself like a champ, not a victim. He's been hurt before worse than this, so it's inconvenience, not trouble.

Within the dreck, he recovers a pipe of sorts that hasn't been worsened by rust to the point of losing its heft. He takes a couple practice swings with it, pointedly keeping his balance over his good leg so as not to fall right over. Serviceable.

He approaches the pod, eyeing it like a man at his feet that's done something to harsh the vibe.

Finally, he acknowledges the other boy again.]

Are you gonna buy me dinner, too?

[Clang, clang. Pipe down on the already wrecked pod. It's not the most... effective way of getting the job done.]

[ Meanwhile, not too far off, Petre finds himself something large and metallic to sit on, dropping heavily with a sigh. Boredom comes easily now that someone else is doing the job for him, and he's the kind of idiot who hates waiting around. He gets restless. He complains a lot. All in all, nothing changes from his usual behavior. ]

Sure. But I get to pick what you eat.

[ Petre eats the weirdest shit in town. (But he won't make Kavinsky eat people, at least.) ]

I'm not calling you daddy.

[Well, maybe if he made a really good case for it, but right now K's lacking inspiration.

The word-- dirty, stupid, naughty, funny-- brings forward flickering thoughts of Gansey and Lynch. Daddy and mommy. The joke that stuck but Lynch never appreciated. He deserved it, since he couldn't unglue his mouth from his prince's ass long enough to see what better paths lay before him. Kavinsky can't say he regrets it. He has so little regret. Not calling him a fag, not dragging him into the woods. He might regret showing him how to get precisely what he wanted out of his dreams, because once Lynch knew his secrets, he was done with him, but at the same time it meant he carved some niche for himself.

He'd had a role, at last. If they couldn't be together, they could at least be bound in their separation with the chasm between them more of a vacuum, sucking up the whole living world into its belly.

Except, had he run away? Had he disappeared into the stars? He tilts his head back, staring upwards into the expanse of the night sky, unrecognizable from the one on Earth. New constellations.

A sudden longing is broadcasted, sputters, disappears. Forget Lynch. Forget that long sought after closeness. He has something more here.]

Daddy?

[ The face he makes is just. The face of a teenager who has obviously never heard it in the dirty-to-funny context, wondering if Kavinsky's just an idiot or if he should feel offended for being too dumb to get it. His confusion is washed off the shore when he feels the rise of a different current, something murky and intricate. Stringy algae that can't be picked apart.

It draws Petre right back in. Vulnerability interests him, it gives him an angle from which he can enter a person's head, twist inside it. A defense mechanism that lies on offense. ]

You're thinking of someone. Who is it?

[No, he doesn't want to talk-- not talk, but offer that up. Not Lynch. But actively avoiding consideration of Lynch is like inviting him in with a complimentary potato at the door. Because Irish. A shaved head. A mouth that Kavinsky had spent a lot of time looking at behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. Shoulders that has this angry roll to them, and there was always those tendrils of black ink peeking up from whatever dirty shirt he'd been abusing that day. Lynch's hands on the steering wheel of BMW, Lynch's hands on the wheel of something precious and stolen.

It was never gonna be you and me.

He scoots the thought away, he buries it in the yard. No big deal, he tells himself. Nothing he couldn't work with. A surprise at the time, but it doesn't hurt, it doesn't matter, it's no longer a shock. Lynch loved Gansey's cock just so much. He didn't care that Kavinsky could--]

No one here.

[He masters himself. Sort of. He hefts the pipe up high over his head and arcs it down until it hits the pod with the sort of force that rockets through the rest of his body. Again. Sound and violence and he is so sober he wants to vomit. That can be fixed.

He rubs his nose against his arm which is trembling from the exertion he just put it through. If it quacks like a cokehead...]

Get out. I'll find you later.

Edited (def wrong icon) 2016-10-23 20:51 (UTC)

I didn't choose this.

[There is, for all his starry walls and careful control, venom in that one word. Bitterness and salt. Of course he hadn't chosen it. What part of his life has been in his control, lately?]

[What part did he get to decide on?]

It was done to me -- I don't know how or when.

[He pauses in ripping apart a panel. Regarding tight, glowing fingers.] Or why.

There's something throwing a wrench in the technological progress here, apparently? And we're supposed to make sure things keep going.

[ Breaking up the pod. Right, can't let the locals find it.

Blowing it up would probably attract more attention than they want, and especially with the plans to break into Public Security almost in motion, Sam's not about to risk anything that might give away anything about the Nova Force. If it's on scanners or it's been seen or anything, people are going to ask all the wrong questions when he busts it out to be their distraction.

So he grabs a pipe instead and moves to the opposite end of the pod, where he's not going to risk smashing Kavinsky's fingers. ]

But then there were a couple of bombings, and I think most of us are more invested in making sure that doesn't happen again.

[She doesn't - know.

But if he thinks hard enough about it, she can sense it between them like the taste of ash and gunpowder residue floating in the still air. She might get a piece of his meaning, and that's usually close enough to trigger her own innate skills. It's easy to seem so sure, so certain in the right environment and with the right data at her fingertips.

Maybe it's easy because she is. How much does it take to go from seeming like she knows everything, to actually knowing it?]

As far as we're aware, no. But sometimes it take young hosts time to manifest their abilities. Perhaps one of them will have an ability much like the one you do now.

What, now you're bothered?

[ Ever the salt on the wound. Petre sits back without worry, ready to move just in case Kavinsky decides to get creative with that pipe - he does look the type, after all. Just thinking back on the chaos that drew the demon to him in the first place... it wouldn't be a surprise in the least. But he likes it. He'd like to see more. Maybe even turn it against him. ]

Ask me nicely.

[Sirius' attention begins to drift, slowly, tapering off as the offer of help turns into cleaning up. He looks back the way he came, considering the ground, the unfamiliar shapes of the buildings. Recognises it for some sort of city, town, something, nowhere he knows.]

Back at the place we're all meant to be living in? [Rough amusement. He drags his attention back around again.] Weirdly chummy.

[Restless, he flinches first at that calm before he settles, cagily, like a dog lowering itself into a crouch. Wary enough that he could bolt, even if he doesn't want to, if the persuasive quiet feels like a pat on the head.

Calm.

It's nearly enough to make him forget how strange it is, what she's saying. It doesn't matter; he should prioritise.]

How many?

[Restless, anxious, his eyes jump over Kavinsky's face. Smooth planes and angles and contours. Easy and alien both.

Of course there was no school. What little discipline Sirius had was mostly learnt by necessity, grim wartime adherence to procedure, but they were never an army. Hogwarts did not shave much of his edges or teach him to listen. But there was order, there were rules that went deeper than Filch's rules, important things--and if he thinks of Peter again it's a thought tinted dark with violence, traitor, twisting up like a thorn in a mire.

Even his most illegal magic seems sensible and tame compared to the thrill of this untamed shit, dreams, eddying water out of which anything can be plucked. Sheer assured confidence that borders on the obscene. Sirius is looking very hard in Kavinsky's eyes now. He realises; he does not look away.]

When you came here, you were dreaming.

[No dementor thing beside a lake. No dark night. He's already getting better at this: the question will stir the shallows that make up Kavinsky.]

[Bandages are for real injuries, not for split knuckles that will take Sirius a few moments to heal. Or would, if he felt at all like he could manage relatively complicated spells, and trust the stolen wand to do the work it's meant to do.

He's flexing his fingers thoughtfully when the second part of that offer comes along, and his attention jumps up as he turns the words over. Decides they're sort of a joke. Offers a quick grim smile, or something rather like a smile, anyways.]

People often need help with washing their hands?

[There's a flicker of amusement buried in there as well, enough that it doesn't come off as aggressive. He might be at ends, but he's not at his total end. Yet.]

They'll heal. [He'll heal them, when he can.] Show me to a sink and I'll wash up.

[Interest is like the mental equivalent of a shiver that pricks up a dog's ears. Something briefly lively, for all that it's ages old.]

What sort of flight?

[Ah. She pauses, something preternaturally still in her expression as she seriously evaluates the question.]

It's difficult the give an accurate number. Some of the consciousnesses are remnants and parsing one from the next is a needless reduction. [Simply put: it doesn't really work that way. He's asking her to sort half remembered childhood memories, or to count every hair on her head (including ones she's broken).] But for the sake of an answer, lets say two hundred, give or take thirty.

[She smiles at him. It's pleasant.]

That doesn't include you, of course.

[Immediately there follows the feeling of having been outsmarted. It's that near smirk that really does it, the echo of smug success and the clear dismissal. Sirius' mouth twitches the way a dog's lip would curl into a growl; he lets it be a cool smile instead.]

Thanks.

[And goodbye.]

[Yeah. Sirius' silence is that agreement, with his fingers still pressed to the back of his neck. Tracking the unspooled threads with sharp cut ends. There's no camaraderie in knowing he isn't the only one that's felt this, but it does imply an end.]

Can't wait.

[--Or something. He drops his hand to his side again.]

No schedule to it, and no way to predict it. Just a load of waiting. And doing whatever it is we do here.

[He doesn't flinch outright, but the flinch is there, in his head, a twist of his nerves. But--]

Yeah.

[--He agrees, anyways. Self defense has never been an issue for him, but then again, he's never escaped from prison and found himself dragged to some otherworldly place, so perhaps it's better to use there's a first time for everything as his ongoing philosophy.]

Thanks.

[The narrow fissure in the rock is all Kavinsky needs; the man has shown a break in his barricade and Kavinsky is full of ways to bargain it wider.]

Who cares?

[Of all the things to fixate on, cyborg's picked the most alarmingly cool thing to be upset by.]

It's yours now.

Edited 2016-10-26 00:10 (UTC)

[Kavinsky welcomes the new and exciting along with something that feels ultimately familiar and primal; him and someone he's convinced to join him wrecking an item once beautiful and functional. Back to the classics. The basics of his craft. He has no idea of how the pod is put together, so he's making a guess of figuring out weakpoints. The other boy may have a better idea of the mechanics.]

Bombs.

[Delightful.]

I can help with that.

[The wrong kind of help. He grins.]

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[hatch log] into the garbage chute, flyboy(s)

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small comfort I GUESS

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