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

[onemind]

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 )

Comments

[100mitsubishis]

[Kavinsky knows as well as Sirius that there's more out there. For the threads, Kavinsky arranges a game of cat's cradle, fingers digging in and arranging everything into manageable loops. Sirius is the only thread here, tugging and winding through his heartstrings, so that's the most important to pluck and lie flat.

It isn't patience. It's priorities. If he was on the station alone, Kavinsky wouldn't be nearly so well behaved. The presence of another, particularly one bound to him in some substantial way, is how he remains cool and disaffected. His attitude is maintained by an audience; solitude drives him nuts.]

What's your plan?

[I'll help. Because if Sirius wants something, Kavinsky could start to want it, too. He's sure of that. This is the most he's ever felt for another person, and while it's a fabrication-- someone else's design-- it's under his pursuit. He'll redress it until it's unrecognizable as anything but his own.]

Stab everyone with the stick? Cool shiv, by the way, but I've got something better.

[doggo]

[Shiv is a word that he processes squarely, blankly, puts it away as he doesn't know what it is. The lap of feeling bowls it over and under anyways. Eager helpfulness. Intent. It's as fortifying as it is overwhelming, and he keeps as much of it away from himself as he can, though the temptation to wrap it around himself is tempting.

He glances back at Kavinsky. He doesn't have to. Far too aware of him.]

What.

[What's better. I doubt it would be the snappier reply. Sirius can't quite muster it, but the sentiment darkens his request all the same, sceptical around the edges like a bruising pattern. Go on and show off, then.]

[100mitsubishis]

[He never wastes a chance to meet Sirius' gaze. They read far beyond a look, their communication as much spiritual and cerebral as anything else. Kavinsky's fluent in the language of the body, the set of one's jaw, the carrying of weight, but this is so much deeper. He waded before, now he plunges in for the best dive, the kind where he can get so overwhelmed in the undertow that he doesn't know which way the surface is anymore.]

A gun, for starters, but what do you want? I can get you anything.

[And he will. That is a sworn promise. Sirius can have anything he'd like.]

[doggo]

[For all that meeting Kavinsky's eyes is like licking powdered salamander, Sirius does not flinch. He's faced down worse than the intensity of this connection. He can manage. It's not even that bad, or perhaps he's only getting used to it.

Which means he feels rather than hears the ring of sincere truth, a plucked strand. The hair on the back of his neck prickles, though not uncomfortably. Sicker than that. Like climbing up on the parapet of the Astronomy Tower and looking down, a pitch that clusters in his gut and between his eyes.

Anything. Like Christmas. Like Diagon Alley. Birthdays. Hogsmeade. Expensive gifts that meant very little; cheap gifts that meant quite a lot. Sirius has stopped walking. It seems the right thing to do.]

What d'you mean, anything. I don't want a gun-- [He does admirably with saying it like it's not completely foreign, thank muggle films for that; it still comes out a little oddly.] What I want isn't here.

[Peter. A thought with the force of an erumpet, burned deep with revenge. Sirius tightens, like an angry dog, but he can't shake loose from Kavinksy's coil of sincerity, so--]

Show me.

[100mitsubishis]

[He's willing to show Sirius patience, a graciousness he doesn't bestow upon most. Kavinsky likes it fast, fast, fast, speeding down the highway or a smaller suburban street at breakneck speed. He wants to forget to pay off the traffic cop on duty and outrun them while he laughs and snaps at the air. Always in motion, the downward crash of a waterfall with an unforgiving jumble of pointy rocks at the bottom. He could show that to Sirius, if the man wanted it, but he's burning so hot even those crazy depths couldn't cool him down.

So it's patience, saint-like. It's a constant stare, like the whole of the alien craft can't do a thing to interest him more than the man before him. Sirius. Who can't say 'gun' as if he doesn't fully comprehend. Judging by his scraggly state and dress, it's hard to say what causes the disconnect. Kavinsky hasn't dived deep enough to divine the answer.

He does feel-- see-- understand Peter. Whoever that is, he'll help Sirius pick him apart if he so much as asks. Sounds like a picnic.]

I have to sleep.

[It's odd. He only ever told Ronan about his power and Ronan had the same tool at his disposal. Kavinsky lives recklessly, but he doesn't want to be used or end up in a lab; he's taken the precautions he's needed to. But for Sirius to betray him that harshly would mean to betray himself. The bond between them is insurance.]

Then I'll dream it for you. I could dream you that guy, even, but it wouldn't really be him. But if you want someone to stab, man, I can do it.

[He'll share. The spiraling fall into darkness. The lucid dreaming. The thievery. Waking up with what he needs in hand. The process of ultimate creation. He's the god-mother of a hundred white Mitsubishis, a couple dozen guns, a lot of fun toys, a lot of fun substances.]

[doggo]

[Something about the precision of the connection that snaps between them tells Sirius that the statement is not a statement of need, I'm tired, but a statement of-- something else. Something more. Something that glides graceful under the surface, a kinetic force all self-assured.

He knows the last part at least. A strand of resonance which rings true, just like the hurtling speed. Before he was this, ground to a fine edge, wasn't he a little bit that? But always hotter, which is why he growls,]

No.

[--at that guy. Realises what he's telegraphed, slams down on the connection like he can sever it with force and intention. Peter isn't to be shared. That revenge, he wants alone, visceral.

(But it is tempting. But he won't take it.)

His free hand opens, and closes. His grip tightens around the wand in his hand. Underneath it all he feels tired, fucking tired, but there isn't time for that, and stood across from him is a kid with intentions, eager to help, to-- dream. Yeah. He can pick that out. Darkness. Stealing. Creation. Cars, and speed, and between that and the dizzying thrust of his own anger Sirius nearly feels sick again. He grits his teeth.]

It's, what. Magic?

[Wandless, wordless. Deep under the surface of consciousness, a darker depth to plunge into.]

Where'd you learn it?

[100mitsubishis]

[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?

[doggo]

[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.]

[100mitsubishis]

[Is Sirius swimming through his memories, a flying fish that has to break the surface once in a while to travel? He's picking up bits and pieces, but not the whole story. That's his fault. He hasn't given in enough for them to share as much as they need to. Thank God that Kavinsky's figured out what they ought to do and left his door wide, wide open. Propped there with a bunch of textbooks he never deigned good enough to read.]

Whoa. No. I was high, but I was awake.

[Then, he's doubtful. He might've been dreaming, though normally dreams are under his control. He issues both the supply and the demand. Was he asleep? Would Sirius know better than he, an outside observer combing through his mind? Kavinsky's plenty sure he was awake for the event, if sincerely out of it.

No, he must've been awake. He definitely stuffed Lynch's brother into his trunk.

Backseat? No, trunk.

It's a fuzzy memory when it comes to details.

He lets Sirius know he likes the way he stares. Seems like he's finally ready to start dismantling something.]

[doggo]

But there was a dragon.

[Dragon, rendered grossly. He ignores the warm bloom of appreciation he gets back from Kavinsky but goes on staring, trying to pick this all apart. Dragon.]

You haven't got dragons.

[But Sirius has, and that was like no dragon he's ever seen before. Familiarity with the species does a kind of mental edit, repairs flesh to bones, strips back on coils of muscle. More noble than rotting. More deadly than disgusting. It drifts him a little into Kavinsky's head--thoughts, consciousness, whatever, like stepping foot over a threshold. He snaps himself back when he realises, and his eyes return to grimmer focus.]

You want me to see all of this?

[100mitsubishis]

I've got swarms, but they were all up here before that guy showed up.

[Up here-- in his mind. Kavinsky dreams of all sorts of monsters, those that wear human skins and those that slither on scaled bellies. Sometimes he's a mere observer and sometimes he's their master, but the dragon Sirius refers to was neither. Kavinsky's dragon wouldn't have so much of its flesh sloughing off and it wouldn't hesitate so long before turning on him.]

You can see it all, man. All you have to do is ask. And you can show me, too. What kind of dragons you got.

[Kavinsky's reaching out again, hands at his sides, but the rest of him cloying and wide in presence.]

[doggo]

Normal dragons.

[Normal dragons. To a muggle, this sentence would be preposterous. But that's not what Kavinsky is. Nor is he a wizard. Sirius' gaze flicks up to the kid's forehead, physical manifestation of the effort of seeing it all, as if it needs to be read out of his head instead of just known, the way Sirius could know it. All of it is there, barely out of sight, obvious in shapes and impressions and the clean lines of better dragons, dragons that might eat you no matter that you have, somehow, created them. The glory of self destruction. The high of consumption.]

What are you, then?

[It feels better, to do the work of asking. Who would have guessed that he would want to do this formally, stilted conversation in place of sparks? But there has been so much quiet, and the more that Sirius speaks, the more he remembers who he is. And in contrast is Kavinsky, present and very well known, to himself, gagging for Sirius to-- know, things. It all gets vague there.]

You're not a wizard. You knew all of this, this-- creating. So what d'you call yourself.

[Words that he will know, intrinsically, words that will paint across his head in colours the moment Kavinsky says them.]

[100mitsubishis]

[Kavinsky's fantasies are realities waiting to happen; he can make his daydreams real by simply slipping past waking fancy to unconscious artistry. Wizard is a silly word that makes him think of little pewter statues in shops that want to convince you psychics are real and tarot cards can predict the future. The fact the word is nigh mundane to Sirius isn't lost on him. For Sirius, it's a regular noun, like man, like woman. Wizard. Something Kavinsky is not, because he's never gone into mystical alleys or attended schools with staircases that swap direction on a whim.

That's what Sirius is. A wizard. Not a trinket or a man in a robe with a beard down to his knees, but a wizard in another fashion. Magical, but not abnormal. Part of a group. A many.

Kavinsky's starving for the scraps he's given, but he can't take them all at once or else Sirius will start to think he's desperate.]

I'm a thief. We're rounding out the party.