A CURRENT FLOWING

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: Everyone (really)
WHERE: Outside of the Memory Bank, On the Lam, The Stealth Ship, and Station 72
WHEN: DAY :052/DAY :001
SUMMARY: Things don’t go exactly as planned. When do they ever?
WARNINGS: Violence, death, allusions to weaponized suicide. Will update further if necessary.

THE RIGHT PEOPLE:
Erastos Loke & Friends
When you finally catch up to Erastos Loke - his paper, his pens, his elegant furniture and his heavily-lidded eyes - it doesn’t take long to get him to talk. All he needs is a little persuasion or a lot of torture? Or, wait. Maybe we got those two mixed up. Either way, he starts to give the strike team intel once the screws are turned on him.

You’ve already begun to suspect most the information Loke gives over. H+H1 has stayed hidden by avoiding any strong organization and by staying extremely low-tech. Additionally, the most powerful members have been quietly manipulating Concordia’s politics and security to keep the actions of the organization obscured. They’ve tipped off Gorram Saffit, they’ve mislead and blackmailed the police. When you begin to press Loke about who gave them the devices that have allowed their bombs to become so deadly, he tells you frankly that he doesn’t understand them. They were given to him by a man - or someone who looked like a man, he clarifies, when Carata asks - who he had assumed to be some wealthy foreigner until he realized he couldn’t find any evidence of the gentleman’s existence. The mysterious stranger had given Loke the devices which consisted of two dozen small parts that could easily retrofit almost any bomb and allowed them to bypass Concordian security systems looking for highly modernizes tech. Prior to the stranger’s involvement, Loke had already been working with a number of his H+H1 associates - the stranger had sympathized and supported them, and the devices provided the power they needed. Who else has access to these devices? No one. Only Loke.

Unfortunately, when the hosts ask further probing questions about the mysterious stranger’s identity - Did he say who he was? Where he came from? - something goes very, very wrong. Erastos looks briefly stricken, then dabs at his nose. It’s bleeding? Quite a lot, actually. He barely has time to cry out before he begins bleeding from his eyes, his nose and his ears. Then Loke drops to the lush carpet beneath his feed, dead. Oops.

Before the hosts have time to react, an alarm starts to blare through the townhouse. Apparently Loke has a second security system tied to his vital signs. Suffice to say, your cover probably won’t survive this long. It might be a good idea to get the heck out of dodge and make your way to the rendezvous point for extraction.

IN THE GAP WHERE IT SPARKS:
The Memory Bank & H+H1’s Bomb Squad
Thanks to the Batman + Prep Time and the Jr. Technophile, the bomb planted by H+H1 deep in the depths of the Omega Memory Bank is successfully located and disarmed although not without cutting it dangerously close to the wire.

Unfortunately nobody gets the chance to wipe the sweat from their brow. The H+H1 bomb squad knows the exact moment the bomb was supposed to go off, and they know exactly when they’ve failed. So even though Sirius and Company seemed like they could handle three average everyday people, they don’t get the chance. The lead Bomber makes the subtlest move towards her pocket - and triggers a secondary, smaller explosive on her person. The three members of the bomb squad are eliminated (hope you were standing a safe distance away, Sirius n’ Co), and while the collateral damage isn’t anything to sneeze at, it’s far from destructive enough to destroy the bank. Further, the explosion isn’t laced with any EMP blasts. While the hosts may not even be injured, the explosion definitely trips the Memory Bank’s fire suppression system as well as its local alarms. Soon (very soon), Concordian Public Security and Fire Teams will be on the scene. The hosts won’t want to be there when they arrive.

SHEPHERDS AND YOUR CROWNS OF STARS:
Escaping Concordia & Returning to the Station
With Loke dead and the secret of the Enemy’s retrofit tech gone with him, and H+H1’s plot to blow the Memory Bank hamstrung by the efforts of the hosts, it’s time to get off planet. Lets be honest: your cover identities were never going to survive this. Luckily, between the minor explosion and a jail break causing riots under the city, Public Security can’t exactly rally their forces to come chasing after the hosts. They have much bigger fish to fry. Carata and Nirad made sure that all the hosts - Loke’s infiltration squad, the bomb disarmament group and the prison breakers - knew where to meet up after their respective assignments: a concrete channel for runoff where a familiar bus is waiting to sweep you all away to the outskirts of the city. It’s less pressing to be invisible now. No one will be left on the planet to suffer the consequences; any comatose members of the Nest have been carefully packed into the bus too. Isn’t that nice?

Once they arrive at the outskirts of the sprawling diamond-glittering city, a point of black in the sky elongates and expands as the stealth tech strips back from the ship that once brought them all here. With straggles wrangled and comatose friends carefully stowed, everyone boards the ship and rockets off from Opia’s surface. Concordia with its high rises and neon, its holographic advertisements and its press of humanity, its ever present buzz of synthetic paired with organic, falls rapidly away below the ship until it’s merely one bright point of many on a densely populated planet. And then Opia too drops away, becoming a dark marble in a deeper, blacker space. When the stealth ship jumps away, it does so with a nauseating jerk.

It’s a short trip back to the Station, the closest thing any of you have to home. Cathaway and Prince are waiting there to collect their equipment (though any additional souvenirs are yours to keep) and to welcome them back.

It’s been a long time and there are new faces to greet you. Time to get caught up. Set your clocks to DAY: 001.

---

((OOC Notes: Feel free to play any of these events out. We’ll dip in with NPCs and so forth if it seems necessary/y’all ask, but feel free to take control of anyone if it lends to your threads. Backtagging and backdating is, as always welcome.

As of this log, all hosts have (more or less) safely arrived back on Station 72; all hosts - newly hatched and old hats - may now interact. YAY!

If you have any general questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[shiro2hero]

Why can't you?

[Maybe it's naive. But doesn't everyone deserve to be able to let go a little? If he does, why not someone else? Especially in a moment like this. His tone doesn't turn accusatory. It stays as quiet and careful as he can make it.]

[He's here to try and help. Not argue.]

If I do, why not you?

[The are are hands on his arms and he's a bit confused at the gesture. But attempts to return it, anyway. Out of solidarity. Or what he thinks is, anyway. He relents, a bit, glancing away briefly.]

I'm not trying to force you. I guess I just don't understand.

[unsea]

[ For a moment, he regards his broodmate. Trying to find the words that will explain the centuries of difficult lessons that were learned by fire and blood. His inability to feel, to comprehend, to sympathize. Shiro's hands are on his arms as well, and he finds himself agreeing with the other - it feels weird, uncomfortable. Unwanted, perhaps.

However, he doesn't pull away. He's not one to shy from physical contact - even though one of his hands drifts up, away from Shiro's arm, and pulls at the dark collar of his uniform. Hauling material aside to reveal a long, old scar that brushes along his collarbone, licking at the hollow of his throat. A relic, from a time long past, that he's allowed himself to keep. ]

Because we are all looking to have advantage on one another, be our intentions kind or cruel.

[ It's very clear, from that scar, that someone has attempted to kill him before. That someone had been close enough, to nearly succeed. ]

To be capable of feeling hurt is to be vulnerable. To be weak. Never again, [ he repeats. ] I'm done.

[shiro2hero]

[He's less surprised than he thinks he should be, seeing a scar like that. Reading the meaning behind it. He wonders if any of his own mean the same thing. If they're from attempted murders or just the fighting. Things he can't remember.]

Never really thought kindness would end in attempted murder.

[Because there's no hiding anything here, is there? To him, kindness is... kindness. A smile or help, or someone telling another person they're going to be all right. None of it seemed like it lead to death.]

[... and the concept of killing out of mercy never occurred to you, Champion?]

[His eyes drop from the scar to the hand still on his. Something about that last statement chafes. It sounds too familiar to something else. Something he sees in nightmares. He shakes his head slightly.]

I'm sorry I can't agree with that idea. I can't cut myself off like that. [He won't. On the other hand, however, forcing people likewise isn't in his nature.] ... But it's your choice.

[unsea]

[ He hasn't seen all of Shiro's scars. The one that bridges his nose, the strange mechanical arm, the nightmares - those, he has. He understands the one on his face, the turmoil in his dreams. The arm is outside of his expertise, but it interests him. If this had been Ravka, he would have the durast and the healers review Shiro's situation - and discern if they, too, could craft such things. New limbs for soldiers too wounded to mend without a healer's mind melting at the effort. ]

Kindness is, by far, the easiest way to kill.

[ It's eerie, how flat his voice and his eyes are, in this moment. ]

It's all right, [ he reassures, squeezing Shiro's hand. ] I knew you wouldn't understand.

[shiro2hero]

I hope I never believe that, too.

[He lifts his chin a fraction, more. There's something close to acquiescence in what he says, how he says it. In the flicker of his thoughts. Agree to disagree. Stubbornness in the set of his expression.]

[Something sharp steady in the face of the flatness of his broodmate.]

Then I guess I can't expect you to totally understand where I stand, either.

[That's all right, too.]

[unsea]

[ His fingers tug, gently, at the tuft of white hair on Shiro's head. White with stress, he supposes, judging by the dark color of the rest of his hair. It'd be nearly a playful gesture, if the mood weren't as somber and desynchronized as it were. ]

Don't worry, Shiro. You'll never be like me, you'd die long before you do. Old age, hopefully.

[ He might mean it, to be honest. It's one of the nicest things he might say, at a time like this. ]

Never forget, you're kind.

[shiro2hero]

[He blinks, his eyes flicking up to track the tugging fingers. He really should consider cutting that. Or dying it. Maybe that's an option here. Trying, if nothing else, to get it back to the way it was before... trying to get his life back. If only the smallest piece.]

[Instead of commenting on the tug, he just, flatly, blows the puff of hair back out of the place it got tugged into.]

At this rate? We'll see.

[See, look, he can have some black humor too.]

You say it almost like it's a bad thing.