onemind: (Default)
THE N E S T ([personal profile] onemind) wrote in [community profile] station722016-10-09 02:41 pm

[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.))




doggo: (01)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-18 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)
[There's about a thousand and one stories to prove her assessment, all of them distant enough to feel unrelated. Sirius' smile is quick and spare.]

Force of habit.

[He tracks her gesture and thinks of the winch of Kavinsky's finger against his temple, boring in.]

I expect I'll work out how.

[Which is a (difficult) no.]
snaphiss: (hehehehehe)

[personal profile] snaphiss 2016-10-18 09:41 pm (UTC)(link)
[Mara wonders how this man will react to a voice in her mind. It's as easy as breathing for her, but the reactions of others... she can never quite predict them.]

[She tries to layer her influence lightly, unobtrusively. It's a strain, but not too much of one.]


( Focus on my voice. )

[personal profile] tropism 2016-10-18 09:48 pm (UTC)(link)
He'd had plenty of practice, yes.

[ giorno sort of wishes he had something like that from back home, too. he likes having the advantage. ]

But not - connected with everyone, I suppose? More of an individual ability? How curious. What was it used for, mainly? [ he doubts it was a necessity. maybe for control. ]
headinjuries: i pet it. like i was pocahontas. (i made friends with a raccoon.)

[personal profile] headinjuries 2016-10-19 03:37 am (UTC)(link)
Well, no.

[ After a moment's consideration - ]

Not by far, actually.

[ He's still deciding what the strangest thing he's ever run into is, but he's pretty sure Rocket Raccoon is pretty high up on the list. ]
shiro2hero: (stoic anime protag pose)

[personal profile] shiro2hero 2016-10-19 04:22 am (UTC)(link)
I'm... working on it. Pulling it back. I shouldn't let it spill onto anyone else.

[Especially a new arrival. Sure, the apology was accepted, but he still has to take responsibility. He always does. That's who he is. Who he'd had to become. It isn't your fault, I should be better.]

[A slow shake of his head.]


You get used to it. I don't know if that means 'gets better'. But everyone tells me it does.
doggo: (15)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-19 03:21 pm (UTC)(link)
[He admittedly should have expected this. Something like it, anyways. She doesn't seem the type for idle questions, a virtue he might otherwise appreciate.

The press is careful, restrained. Carried along under the surface. Sirius' defence kicks up anyways. Better at Occlumency than Legilimency, easier to grasp the nuances of guarding against intrusion than the hours of effort required to infiltrate a mind.

But it's only a voice. Sirius' expression has tightened and closed off. Eye narrowed, he stares at Mara.]


All right.

[As in, enough. He gets it. Deliberate in the way he answers aloud, rather than responding in kind.]
doggo: (29)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-19 04:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Not connected, no.

[Sirius' smile tints toward the grim, and he rolls his shoulders in a quick sharp shrug, like he's trying to shake off the thought or the question or something else. He's thin enough that it looks like an effort.]

And used for nothing good. Mainly. Which is why fortifying against it was more important.
doggo: (30)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-19 05:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[He shrugs, like, there you are. Thin enough that even that looks like a bit of an effort and, in fact, is. Sirius uses the gesture as a momentum, inspiration to have another look around at their less than inspiring surroundings.

Kaivnsky. His gaze sharpens as the tug recurs; he looks back at the kid.]


There's another one of these. [The pod, he means. Communicated by a jerk of his chin.]
snaphiss: (snarky 90s heroine)

[personal profile] snaphiss 2016-10-19 06:48 pm (UTC)(link)
[Mara quirks a brow, with more curiosity than sympathy. A bad habit, left over from too much combat; she has a tendency to view weakness in an analytical light.]

Is that some kind of offense on your planet?
doggo: (01)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-19 07:40 pm (UTC)(link)
[Despite everything, Sirius' smile jumps back quickly. Grim, but still there.]

'You get used to it' is about the lowest recommendation there is. You can get used to anything.

[Unfortunately. Or fortunately. It's difficult to say.]

S'ppose it helps a bit to think of it more like, nowhere to go but up. Only that's usually proved wrong as well.
doggo: (24)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-19 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Is it offensive, d'you mean? Yeah.

[He knows what she actually means by that. He meets that look of hers as blankly as possible, mouth tight at the corners.]

As far as a punishable offense, that depends on how it's used. And who's using it, and to what end. But personally I've never really enjoyed having anyone muck about in my head.

[Especially not now, with everything is so scattered and difficult to keep mental hold of.]
snaphiss: (454345)

[personal profile] snaphiss 2016-10-19 08:47 pm (UTC)(link)
[As dryly as humanly possible,] Don't worry, I'm not particularly interested in your deep dark secrets.

[They turn the corner, and there it is, the bearings. She holds the door open for him.] Here, it's a way of contacting others, no more, no less. Others will try to use it.

[Unspoken is the understanding that she won't. Not if he feels so strongly about it.]
doggo: (29)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-19 09:14 pm (UTC)(link)
[well they're great secrets so your loss

Sirius hangs back a few paces to first give the place a once-over, as if he'll be able to pick anything out about it at a glance. He's always been good at picking up on the wrinkle of a charm, subtle clues that pull at his attention.

But this is all very different, and so when he finds nothing much, he ducks in after that wary pause.]


Others like your Sith?
snaphiss: (6574563)

[personal profile] snaphiss 2016-10-19 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Others like everyone. The distinction is in what you send.

[She holds back a snarky quip about how glad she is that it meets his standards for accommodation. As it seems he's slept in a graveyard in a monsoon for the last year, it feels a little like beating a dead bantha.]

[In the end, he's still in the Nest with her. His weakness is her liability.]


Try to send something to me.
polyphonos: (beta)

[personal profile] polyphonos 2016-10-20 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
[Every piece of it is a fair assessment - why bother asking him questions at all when she might easily know the answer? For the sake of discovery, she thinks but doesn't say. Better to ask than to know. She quite likes the concept of fostering curiosity. It's a good habit to have.]

You're unfortunately wrong on both accounts, but that's understandable. No, we don't own the Station; we just live in and maintain it for your use. And we did come here like you and your broodmate did, just a long time ago.

[She smiles, a pervasive warmth to ever visible facet of her: a cloak to cover some greater beast.]

What's your name?
cur: (136)

[personal profile] cur 2016-10-20 03:48 am (UTC)(link)
[ Even without the hiss of a spell in the connection, the intent's plain on Sirius' face. Remus braces against it on instinct, but his mind is distracted, caught on that one odd, stray thought, Peter, searing and new and out of place. Peter's long dead, past tense; Sirius' words match, that admission of guilt, but the flood of purpose behind it doesn't.

Confusion cracks his focus, and the spell hits — starts to. He feels the sharp tug at his ankles just before instinct pushes back with the counter-curse, barely keeping his balance as the invisible hooks give, the aim of his wand briefly faltering. The retaliation's more vindictive than strategic. Petrificus Totalus, visceral and harsh enough to ring out clear in the connection, anger seeping through the cracks of his control. ]


Enough.

[ There's a plea in that single word, somewhere beneath the tight anger. Because if this isn't enough, he'll have to do worse; stronger spells, more violent. Nothing Sirius doesn't deserve, surely, but also nothing he's resorted to himself. The thought's incongruous, frustrating in a way he can't focus on just yet. ]
spideys: (031 ❖ clue in.)

[personal profile] spideys 2016-10-20 04:46 am (UTC)(link)
Guess it made for a soft, if smelly, landing.

[ Peter's joke is mild at best, not really meant to do more than lighten the mood, maybe. This guy looks kind of like he'd been through Hell and back. He could probably use a stiff drink, if Peter was the kind of guy to think of things like that. ]

Well. You're here now. And other than the hands ... you - uh. You okay?
shiro2hero: (okay so if i'm not a furry)

[personal profile] shiro2hero 2016-10-20 06:00 am (UTC)(link)
[The look on his face is apologetic. And tired. And sympathetic all in one. The kind of look you tend to manage well only when you've had too much practice in making it.]

Yeah, I know. But it's all I've got to offer.

[Unfortunately.]

I hate to say it, but, I'm pretty sure there's more ways to fall down, now that we're all here.
tropism: (pic#10538135)

[personal profile] tropism 2016-10-20 06:52 am (UTC)(link)
.... you've experienced it.

[ an individual ability with most people being able to use it. how ... convenient, but he'd never let him know. he doubts that sirius would agree the way he is now.

the important part is to get sirius to safety. ]


Well. I can't guarantee it won't happen here. We get all kinds of hosts.

But it's not something taken lightly, and we tend to protect our own.

[ rather kindly, ] Let me take you to the Bearings.
doggo: (04)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-20 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
[First year stuff, full-body binds and dangling one another by the ankles. The curse doesn't hurt when it jams through him; what hurts is the shunt of Remus' intent and conviction, a bitter flood that Sirius doesn't know how to manage.

There's a violence in the way his limbs snap tight under paralysis. With his jaw winched tight, there's no counter-curse that he can growl out, there is nothing he can do but stare up at Remus, dark and wide-eyed and mad.

If he were thinking more clearly, perhaps he would have just said, straight off, begged Remus to listen--but he has never been much for begging, and everything feels-- off, there's not much sense to the pattern of his thoughts, and seeing Remus had only confused it all more, he hadn't reckoned on that, too possessed with the same single-minded thought that still sears at him from inside out, he's at Hogwarts.

And looking at Remus now, from the floor, only reminds him of everything, the war, James, Peter, standing in the garden at the cottage smoking a cigarette, with the late summer sky obscured behind a cotton mass of clouds, pulled over the stars and the moon and everything--a heap of rubble, splinters from a door--the clear night sky out the narrow window in Azkaban, cut high on the wall--and taste of the air, and the sea, and Peter, again--Remus will not kill him, he would have done it already if he wanted to kill him, he can't kill him, Sirius is kept perfectly still by the curse but he's throwing himself against it anyways, and if he can only make Remus understand--careening from one image to the next, to the next, like falling down the stairs. The fissures of panic bleed into anger, deepens like bruising in with Remus' emotion and floods up raw through the threading of connection.]
doggo: (39)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-20 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
[Brilliant. One of his favourite things. Practicing. At least the energy required of mild irritation saps some conviction from larger emotion.

All this is to say that Sirius shoots an unimpressed look back at her.]


Didn't know this was a lesson.
doggo: (06)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-20 03:52 pm (UTC)(link)
[It unsettles him, a little, that warmth. Or rather it feels persuasively calming, which unsettles him. Like he's being wrapped in a blanket and made to sit down somewhere, when everything in him scratches against that. Nerves and restless impatience. A muscle jumps in his jaw.]

Sirius Black.

[He answers anyways. Broodmate flickers the thought of Kavinsky in his head, but as he's out there, somewhere, stray and relatively safe and tugging at the line of connection, Sirius can safely put him away for now.]

Who's we, then. You and your-- brood mate?
doggo: (29)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-20 05:19 pm (UTC)(link)
[Sirius goes on staring, because the remark doesn't scan as a joke.

Not that he has any real experience with jokes as of late, but he used to have an expert opinion on just that sort of thing, so it counts for something. His half-realisation comes a little too late to comment or say ha or anything. Instead his look thins out, with a tint of sarcastic amusement.]


What d'you think.

[Is he okay.]
doggo: (23)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-20 05:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Right. [Sirius doesn't need any more tired, thanks, but all the same. His smile crooks at the corner of his mouth again.] You're not very good at this, are you.

[Which honestly almost makes him more comfortable, so there you are.]
doggo: (21)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-20 05:57 pm (UTC)(link)
[He certainly knows enough about protection, especially insular protection. Whether or not it's enough to put faith in remains to be seen. Same goes for whether or not he's capable of that sort of faith any longer.

Apprehension kicks up again at the offer, as nice as it is. Sirius shoots a glance over Giorno's shoulder, as if mapping out the distance.]


Might want to stay out a bit longer.

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