station72 | mental link, day 22

Entry tags:

mental link, day 22

( Got some information for you guys - Annie was good enough to get some of her makeshift spycams going, and we set ‘em up with the leaders of the envoys. Activated them last night. )

[ There’s a curl of gratitude for those who went along with his plan, for those who spun stories or distractions or contributed to convincing the leaders of the envoys that the trinkets of Annie goo were part of a mourning ritual. Is he gonna talk about the fact that he basically disappeared after that until they boarded the airship? Nah. Instead, he jumps right into it. ]

( Didn’t get a lot from the Carpathans or the Meradans, unless you wanna know what the inside of Saridian Black’s room looks like or what other gifts people’ve been giving him, or see more of the Meradans trash talking each other while playing games.

Got the same Second that Annie saw last time, who’s friends with the Seconds I know, and this time he was with Ysiddia Cabrielle. He’s her son, and they were talking with a Second from one of the other Houses about the murders and the Circle having its work cut out for it when we get to the Red Coast.

And the Descendents - pretty sure we got a couple of them talking about the murders. They were wondering if “they” were discovered, who discovered them and what their intentions were - might have something to do with the last time we spied on people through Annie, and she saw the Carpathans that got killed talking about new friends. That, and blood debts and someone named Casiria, and that no one in Black’s retinue could know about it. Didn’t know this until a little bit ago, but guess what information got passed onto Black’s retinue? )

[ His mental “tone” is deliberately neutral there, but the difference from the usual warmth to his mental link is probably pretty telling. ]

( One other thing, about the circle that was found burned in the ground a while back when we were still running around on the ground and the tracks next to it - Rhan said the circle doesn’t look local, but the tracks appear Rabadocean. Hard to pin down more than that so far, except they don’t really match the Hypyrians. )

[ Is he fixating on that a little too much, to be thinking about it still? Maybe, but he's not gonna let it go. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Wow Rust way to make this feel like an interrogation. Sam takes it in stride, though, because at least it's better than the people who ignore it. ]

( Whoever else they told. Anyone who gives enough of a shit to listen to this instead of letting go in one ear and out the other, like a lot of people the last time I tried to make sure everyone was on the same page with what we know. )

[ That's exactly what this is.

And were it another kind of interrogation, this might be where he'd say: I'm listening now. Let's get on the same page, Sam.

But it isn't, and Rust's less and less convinced Sam knows anything worth knowing. ] ( But you got no problem with them flying solo on this. ) [ He can't resist. ] ( They tell you how they got him the info? Not in person. ) [ Unsaid: I fucking hope. ]

[ What the hell do you even want from him Rust, Sam's got no idea. He pulls his attention from the Nest at large to focus more on Rust, settling in for what he suspects is gonna be an extremely frustrating conversation. ]

( You mean like I'm their babysitter and I can dictate what they do and who they talk to before they do it? Yeah, man, I got a fucking problem with people meddling in politics that are none of our damn business and getting people killed. Not much I can do about it now except add it to the rest of what I've learned. ) [ This whole damn mission is a complicated mess of spy shit and meddling in people's lives that Sam frankly wants to be done with. ]

( They rigged up a thing to look like technomancy to drop off the info. )

[ In turn Rust drops his fragile glass walls, and for a moment they glitter like an empty bottle smashed on pavement.

Behind them: unwavering scrutiny. He wants answers. Simple, impersonal. Other considerations have been swept aside. He won't be drawn into conversation, doesn't care what Sam thinks when what Sam thinks doesn't translate into action (except, except...but that's a long hall with no end in sight). ] ( Rigged it themselves? )

[ The barrage continues. ]

[ Hey, Pidge is just gonna chime in here. ]

( Uh, no. I think... I helped. I had one of those little bugs and I put it together for them so they could power it. I didn't know what they were going to do with it, though... )

[ A moment's bitter satisfaction, anger tinged with righteousness. A swell of contempt for Sam, who either didn't know because he didn't think to ask or because he didn't want to know. ]

( Who's this? ) [ Blunt. He doesn't recognize the voice, squeaky-bright orange with the texture of graphite, the accompanying sensation of fingertips on a keyboard. ]

[ Wow, blunt. Pidge's irritation flares. Her mind is turned on Rust - all smooth edges and squares and analytics, like lines of code or the interplay of fingers running over a computer keyboard. There's a sensation of being explored, piece by piece, as if she's examining each word (all two of them) for evidence. ]

( I'm Pidge. Who's this? )

( Rust Cohle. ) [ He doesn't have time to like or dislike being pried apart, barely enough to register appreciation for the geometries of the mind doing the prying. Elegant in a way that seems to slot neatly with the Hyrypians' intricate technomagical devices.

Rust's thoughts are harsh fluorescence, papercuts. A nail pick pick picking at a scab. Dread pouring forth. ] ( Katie. ) [ He can't breathe. Can't stop himself thinking of the twist and rip of a knife in a body.

Whatever he feels it's violent, mind stalled out, hands itching to break something. He shoves it off, still violent. ] ( Ain't your fault. ) [ Not gentle, not reassuring. He impresses it on her, the force of his anger behind it. ]

( Rust. Got it. )

[ Sort of. She can feel the way his mind works, feel the harshness, the dread, the twisting of a knife. Anger and something that needs space. An urge to action. She tries to keep it walled off, metaphorical arm's length. ]

( What's not my fault? Your mood? )

[ He cuts her off, like a breath drawn in sharp and held, a bloodless limb going slowly numb. ] ( That they died. ) [ The words, too: bloodless.

Guilt and self-loathing well up, the Nietzchean retort faithful on its heels. He who despises himself nevertheless regards himself as one worthy of being despised. Rust slams down a wall, a slab of featureless concrete. ] ( That we used you. )

[ There's a moment of intense confusion and a bit of hesitation and sorrow and apologetic feeling. ]

( ...you didn't know they were going to get murdered. )

[ A part of her feels bad for being quite so accusatory. ]

( It wasn't your fault. )

[ He hits his limit: every choked-off part of him clamoring for blood. He'd claw his way out of himself if he knew how.

The wall, his makeshift little barrier, collapses. Behind it anger, hot as the muzzle of a freshly fired gun. Fragmented memories: a baby bawling, then suddenly silent. A fat motherfucker regarding him with lazy malice from behind a desk. The brush of a filthy blanket against his skin.

He does the only thing he can. He waits it out. ] ( They told you that, huh. They're full of shit. ) [ Dull, succumbing to plodding inevitability.

He hates it, the sadness and regret coming off her, when there's Misato shouldering past it, Sam offering his wishy-washy evasions. Annie'd all but belched in his face.

She can yell. She fucking should. ] ( Mind telling me how it happened? ) [ Hard to disguise pointed questions like this, harder still when he's incapable of holding anything back. Who was it, lurks beneath the words. Who the fuck was it? ]

Edited (a stray bracket) 2017-12-28 19:32 (UTC)

[ She should yell. He's right. But she doesn't know what to yell about. Or even if she can really blame them when they didn't know. But they still got two people killed and that doesn't sit well with her. Killing in a battle is one thing. She's done that. But getting two people killed because it's convenient? Something wrankles her.

Makes the spark inside of her glow with a bit of anger. ]

( They asked me to build them a drone that twe could power. I had an insect that Misato snagged for me. So... I did it. I don't know how it went after that. )

[ Good with her hands. Good at solving problems. Good at seeing how everything clicks into place. ]

[ That flare of anger, it shouldn't register—a match thrown on a bonfire. But it does. Rust's stricken, momentarily, by the knowledge that they're responsible for this.

How will she end up? Stretched taut between these minds, the pull of everyone's self-interest. What they've done to her can't be undone. ] ( Both of them. ) [ The feeling of someone finding their voice, the shadow cast by some monstrous emotion. Them, he says, but Misato's name is in his thoughts like an indictment. ] ( They both came to you. In person? )

[ He latches back onto the questioning, clings tight to the sense of procedure. ] ( How'd they put it to you. They wanted a favor? ) [ Belatedly: ] ( You can show me, if it's easier. )

( Shepard asked me through the Link. Annie showed up in person. That's all. It was just supposed to be a part of the mission. )

[ She's not sure how she feels about all of these probing questions. She's still a bit mixed up about it. How does one deal with being an accomplice to something that ended up with someone being murdered? ]

( It happened. I can't change it now. Right? )

( Shepard. ) [ His anger turns matter-of-fact, routine as the daily allotment of shit he's expected to swallow. An image, vivid with scorn, of her brandishing a shotgun at him. Silence thick in the air, ready to rupture.

Ought've broken her arm. ] ( Fuck's— )

[ He remembers his audience. There's a moment's stark deliberation—press for more, find out the extent of Shepard's involvement, or write her off. Katie's question not intruding on his thoughts. ] ( Course not. ) [ He says, automatic, when he gets around to it. He almost offers to get her their names, the names of the dead—marvels in the next second at the insanity of it. As if that's what she needs, names and faces to go with the guilt.

He has to extricate himself from her. ] ( Wasn't nothing you could've done. ) [ His mind goes quiet, thoughts stifled. A wilderness between them, Rust stranded in his own hopelessness. At length he says: ] ( We're all part of a single organism, yeah? Branches, nodes. Consider this a lesson in that organism's functioning. )

[ A shotgun. Weird. Pidge doesn't quite flinch, but the sensations and memories aren't really what she needs or wants and she tries to keep them blocked off, even with their mental connection sending words and concepts back and forth. ]

( I already knew how it worked. I just didn't get how people were ready to ignore collateral damage. )

[ Which is depressing enough. ]

[ There's a sudden, sharp surge of anger as he hears Katie chime in, that anyone would use her like that - then he lets it go, because getting pissed isn't gonna help at the moment.

That, and he and Katie've had a tendency to end up in an anger feedback loop in the past. ]

( I just knew it was different from what Annie and I put together to give to the leaders of the envoys. )

[ Rust vanishes, blips out of the conversation, however this works. He talks to Katie, whose confusion and distress linger in his thoughts vivid and discolored as bruises.

Everything else is empty, hollowed out. ]

( They knew. You know that, right, Sam? ) [ Leaning hard on the name. ] ( Not for certain, nothing's certain, but they had a pretty fucking good idea how this was gonna play out. Went and made a little girl do their bidding anyhow. )

[ The thing is - he blips out, maybe, but Sam knows exactly what he's doing. Katie's his broodmate, and he can feel her anger and distress almost as easy as if it was his own.

It rasps at his skin, the way he says they made Katie do their bidding, as if she was some naive, stupid little thing who could be easily swayed to do whatever anyone wanted. But it's more than that, it's - Rust is a cop. Rust's got his own issues, and Sam knows that, and he doesn't know what kind of a place this is all coming from - it's probably not the way Sam's taking it, but he can't help it.

Rust is a cop, and he's treating Sam like Sam's just another criminal for what - for not reacting appropriately to something he just found out about, for passing on information he learned, for knowing Annie and Misato, for fucking existing? - and Sam's had more than enough of that on his own world to last him a life time. ]

( You want a gold star for figuring that out? Sounds like that's something you should be talking to them about, instead of sitting here getting up in my face for trying to keep communication open. )

( Mmm. Wanted to be sure we were on the same page. ) [ Rust says blandly, Sam's bristling anger less affronting than his prior carefully cultivated neutrality.

Thing is, if Katie isn't some naive, stupid little thing—why treat her like she is? Why lie, by omission or design, then fall back on ignorance as an excuse?

If this was...not the right thing to do—the right thing to do is nothing short of a bullet in his own head, he's more certain of that than ever—but a considered plan, if these lives were worth sacrificing, why insist you never had the slightest idea they were at stake? ]

( Katie thinks otherwise. You gonna tell her? Keep communication open and all. )

Edited 2017-12-29 04:10 (UTC)

[ Sam's been angry, most of the conversation and some of the others - sharp bursts and a low simmering burn that he hasn't bothered to hide, though he's tried to let go of them. ]

( You wanna know what page I'm on, man, I'll tell you. Annie and Misato had a plan that may or may not get us information but sure as hell got people killed, our presence on this planet is responsible for those murders and probably a lot else, and this is fucking bullshit. )

[ Anger simmers stronger when Rust brings up Katie, made brighter by a tinge of protectiveness, the kind more fitting to an older brother reacting to someone talking about his little sister. ]

( Of course I am. She always knows what I think, and she always makes her own opinions. She's smart as hell, she doesn't deserve to be given half the information of a plan and have to work with that. )

[ They're broodmates. Sam doesn't hide much from her - except things Shiro related, out of respect for the fact that that's awkward as hell - and even though he tries to keep himself shielded on a general basis, when they're talking they always tend to pick up feelings.

It's gotten them in trouble in the past, especially where anger is concerned, but that's none of Rust's business. Neither is the fact that Sam hasn't really thought of how much he relies on that extra input when talking with those he has a strong connection with, but that - that's something he can work through later. ]

Edited 2017-12-29 22:53 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

mental link, day 22

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject