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

i'm an innocent

[deployed]

[ Years ago, Bellamy made a costly mistake. Aurora Blake had paid very dearly for Bellamy's foolish attempt to give his sister the gift of a single night of dancing. Bellamy had watched her float, sucked into the nothingness of space. He doesn't know who the Darkling has committed to flame, but Bellamy still can't help but remember the last moment he had ever seen his mother before Shumway had pressed the button that ripped her into the oblivion of space. He meets the Darkling's gaze without attempting to shake his hand free. ]

I think I can figure out the control panel.

[ The guards had training for operating the airlocks. This station is wholly alien, but there's some base similarities that Bellamy's been able to exploit. He steps back, tugging the Darkling with him. ]

Here.

[ The Darkling's grief feels faintly like Octavia's. Bellamy would offer the same to him as he had to his sister; he'd bear up through a fight if that was what the Darkling needed. But for now, it's just a single gesture. He indicates a button in the bottom left corner of the panel without making a motion to push it himself. ]

lies

[unsea]

[ With Bellamy's guidance, he draws closer to the panel and reviews the button that Bellamy had pointed out. He's the first one with knowledge that even remotely relates to such contraptions, and thus, the first honestly useful soul who's wandered into this maze of the dead and the mourning. Silently, the Darkling's elbow shifts closer to his side, trapping Bellamy's hand between his body and his arm, as his free hand reaches forward to press the button.

He doesn't hesitate, nor waver. Presses it firmly, and holds it as the airlock's doors seal shut. Securing the area and her smoldering remains, before venting it quickly into the black abyss beyond the Station's walls. It's such a peculiar sight to the Darkling, who watches the moment unfold with distant, unsure eyes. Perhaps it is like throwing the ashes to the wind, and letting them scatter down the mountainside. Perhaps it is like trailing them across the sea, until they grew heavy with water and sank to the silt and sand at the bottom. Regardless. It's done.

He turns to Bellamy, finally.

And then turns further, pressing his back to the wall of the eerie, oppressive hallway, as he sinks down, down, down. Until he's sitting on the ground, his hand locked and laced with Bellamy's. It's clear he is still unwilling to leave this space, he's not in complete control of himself. A tug on Bellamy's hand - sit with me, the gesture requests. ]

[deployed]

[ The Darkling doesn't give the moment any ceremony. But maybe there's no possible way to commemorate this kind of loss. Even without fully understanding the complexity of what the Darkling was grieving, Bellamy knows that committing someone to the oblivion of space will always be difficult. No prayer or pomp could soften it.

Even as the Darkling turns aside, Bellamy's gaze lingers on the dissipating ash outside the window. The pull of the Darkling draws him back. He doesn't need to ask. They don't even need the brood-bond for this request. Bellamy hadn't been certain how much comfort he was meant to offer, but he sinks down beside the Darkling obligingly. Bellamy settles close, hip to hip. ]

I'm sorry.

[ For intruding, maybe, but also for the loss. The Darkling had carried this with him through the whole of their time on Concorida. Bellamy understood the urge that would push him to keep the loss to himself, but he's still sorry for not reaching out sooner. ]

[unsea]

Don't be. To be found was an inevitability.

[ One can only hide one's mind for so long, before something such as the yawning, howling chasm of loss and grief tore through the barricades and sought out those that could attempt to comfort, to sympathize. It's a terrible thing, that the Darkling had lost his own ability to do so many years ago, and yet can now recall how awful it felt, due to Bellamy's proximity. His broodmate is an open wound, and periodically, someone or something dips their hands into him and fishes around for the things that make him sing with compassion or agony. He's so young, so vulnerable. Lucky, even. The Darkling looks upon him, and sees a small, brief lifespan.

Maybe that's why he finds it easy to speak to Bellamy.

( Maybe that's what he has to tell himself, now. As he's begun to see that too-clever fox that he had once cherished - reflected in Bellamy's manner. )

He speaks: ] Her name was Baghra. She gave me life, and taught me everything that I know.

[ Mother. Mentor. ]

She died, just before I was urged to abandon my world and come here - to the Station. I could not leave her there.

[deployed]

I didn't think we could bring anything.

[ The observation is a deflection, a brief stall before Bellamy considers what else he's been told just now. The right words are important to offer, but Bellamy had never had to comfort anyone after the loss of a mother. He can hear the echo of the word in the Darkling's mind, and it plucks at his own memories of Aurora, sucked into space with a scream and then silence.

Octavia had already been gone. Bellamy had returned to an empty room. He'd never had to try to offer solace, but he wants to try now. His hand tightens on the Darkling's, anchoring him here while Bellamy's thoughts trip towards sad poetry, spinning out between them. ]

I didn't know, when we woke up.

[ Maybe things would have gone differently. The pair of them had been equally disgusted by their circumstances and the invasion of the Hive. But Bellamy would have tried to offer comfort then. It might have at least sped up the inevitable. ]

[unsea]

Whatever was upon our person and whatever we could carry.

[ Everything he wears is everything he has left of his world, and Baghra's body was all he could take hold of, in those tense, brief moments between either accepting certain death and the death of his world, and living on, in the hope of protecting all he held dear. Bellamy bleeds memories and emotion into him - a woman falling into the black, the ache in his chest as he recognizes the attachment Bellamy has to her.

Mother. ]

It wasn't relevant. We were new to one another, then.

[ They had been discontent and unwelcome in one another's mind; but now, he holds fast to Bellamy's hand. ]