station72 | [MISSION LOG] BRAVE NEW WORLD

[MISSION LOG] BRAVE NEW WORLD

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: Day :000 - ???
SUMMARY: Leaving the Station; the arrival and first days on Concordia. Concordia pt.1.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

IT'S EARLY IN THE DAY and something feels strange. It’s not unlike when a new Host - not one of your brood, but close enough to feel the tug - comes awake on the Nesting Deck. But it’s just the initial tug. There’s no noise, no hum of confusion or volume. Today, it’s just there: a sensation of presence that a moment ago wasn’t. Soon after follows a prickling awareness of urgency. A small electric bolt through the mind. Cathaway doesn’t use words in the mind, but her meaning is nonetheless easily understood: come to her on the hangar; your presence is required.

On the hangar there is a sleek, low profile transport ship. Before it stand Cathaway and Prince and in their company is a stranger: a short woman with warm skin and dark hair, wearing unfamiliar colorful clothes and a quick, pleasant smile. You’ve never seen her before, but you know she’s a Host.

“This is them?” Her voice is light and sweet. Prince, occupied by a databank, glances up at her then nods once. There’s a tension in his shoulder and through his jaw - a distinct contrast to Cathaway and the stranger who lack both.

“Lovely.” Her tone is breezy and easy, delighted. “Hello, it is so nice to meet you all! My name is Carata. My partner and I have been away on duty for a few months, but it’s become clear that we need backup on our assignment. We are hoping you can help.” Carata motions to the mission equipment in neat kits at her feet. There is one for each young Host.

Prince folds his pad down into its smallest form. His expression is set and serious.

“You will be joining Carata and Nirad on the planet below to assist them with their mission. Your datapbank will provide you with information about the planet and the city where you will be stationed. This mission is covert and the planet itself has no contact with other planetary races, so you will need to do your utmost to blend in.”

Cathaway sharpens slowly beside them: a dull pencil being sharpened to a point as her attention curves back to this place, this instance. She unfolds her hands. “You’ll be provided with an earpiece that should allow you to interface with the local technology and a fake identity for your cover on world. Please mind both carefully and be sure to keep your databanks offline. It would be inconvenient if they were networked while on planet.” From the way she says it, it sounds like ‘inconvenient’ might be an understatement. “This mission shouldn’t be inherently life threatening. Your primary goal is to investigate the anti-android movement. Carata and Nirad will be able to tell you what your databanks do not.”

“You should listen to them,” Prince adds. “Rely on their experience and knowledge to help you succeed in your task. Be mindful, and treat them with the respect they have earned.”

At this Carata laughs. It’s a bright, joyful sound, her hands coming up to clasp in front of her chest, “Please, teacher, you are too serious. I am sure they will do very well. Come along then! Gather your things; we must leave as soon as possible. I do hate to leave Nirad alone for too long.”

Turning her back to the Hosts, Carata takes Cathaway’s hand for a moment Nothing is said, but there’s the distinct impression of something passing between them. They release their grip, then Carata turns to Prince. She places her hands on his shoulders and goes up to her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. He doesn’t return the gesture, but those with sharp eyes will note he does lean down slightly to make her job easier.

Gather your gear, get anything from your rooms you might not want to leave behind. In two hours, everyone attending the mission will be buckled or strapped into the transport as Carata readies the ship for takeoff. She explains, neatly and concisely, what they believe the enemy to be doing in Concordia. Then, with a turning of the deck, the ship is freed from the embrace of Station 72.

It will be a long time before you see this place again.

     I. THE WHEELS ON THE BUS
The flight to Concordia is surprisingly short. By the time Carata's finished her explanation, you've passed into a new universe. It comes with a strange wave of something akin to nausea. Outside the transport's starboard viewports lays Opia in all it's glory: a beautiful blue marble speckled with sixteen landmasses and swathed in thing clouds like spun sugar. From this distance, clusters of light burn from specific points on the continents like a map of grounded constellations. As one of the great megacities of Opia comes curling from around the edge of the planet, the transport ship begins to descend.

Atmospheric entry is smooth. The transport drops at the outskirts of Concordia on what is, hilariously, some kind of large parking garage. It has engaged the most sophisticated of its cloaking technology to do this and Carata urged everyone to disembark quickly so the ship can return to orbiting the planet before it's detected.

"It will be back," she says flippantly. "When we've finished our job."

The ship departs. It's quiet and still for a handful of minutes; Carata seems unconcerned and gives little in the way of direction or instruction. The city flashes around them - bright lights and neon masking the fading of natural light - and nearby, a roadway hums. Eventually the sound of a car pitches louder. A set of headlamps shear from the long line of cars and in moments a long, squarish transport van pulls up and parks at the top of the garage. The side door slides open to admit everyone. In the driver's seat is an android - shining metal and cheerful as it greets every host by name. Beside the android in the van's passenger seat sits a tall, dark skinned man who - much like Carata - is obviously a host.

Welcome to Concordia.

     II. HOME SWEET HOME
It's a long drive into the city. The buildings get taller, the lights get brighter, the streets get busier. There are throngs of people on the street, dogged by endless rows of neon bright advertisements. Traffic is either miserable or flowing depending on the neighborhood and trams run on tracks fifty feet or more above the roadways. Streams of people files from the pavement to the subways, countless numbers of escalators leading down.

When the bus finally stops, it's in front of a building as tall as any others. The signs here mark this section of the city as BETA BLOCK and when you get out and into the building lobby you find that the door opens for you automatically. A chime rings through the interfacing ear piece and when you enter the elevators, the only floor accessible to you is NUMBER EIGHTEEN. When you disembark, a kind voice welcomes you by home in your ear. There are a large number of rooms here in Bearing - stake your claim, everyone! Nirad and Carata already have a couple of rooms in the Southwest corner of the building, but the rest are open. Time to settle in!

     III. FEET ON THE GROUND
You're given the rest of the night to sleep (or...whatever), but by 9AM the next morning everyone is awoken by Carata's voice in their head. She's clearly not shy of using her symbiotic connection.

( Good morning! I know this is quite a lot to get used to. I believe this is your first true assignment? But I have always believed that the best way to learn something new is to jump right in. ) The words are accompanied by the sensation of someone clapping their hands together, a cheerful kind of practicality. ( You’ve been given a credit card. I encourage you to go out today and learn what you can about this place. Talk to people. Listen to the news. Be sure to remember your cover identity, and don’t hesitate to call if you find yourself in trouble. )

There is nothing pressing to the suggestion, just the sensation- light. Airy. Fun. She switches track after a moment, a thoughtful addition: ( There is also a rally in town today. It’s being run by The True Children of Opia, some minor little hate group-- ) She seems to wave off the unsavory aspects as she forges ahead, ( They aren’t affiliated with Humans + Humans 1st, but they do have very similar ideologies and it is quite probable that there is overlap in their membership. If you would rather, it is also quite likely that there will be protestors there as well, both members of Mind Life and those who are adamant about pursuing digital resurrection. Please do be careful, though, sometimes those rallies can be a little... ) An image of an oily substance catching flame, quickly and hotly.

( Whatever you chose, simply do your best to get your bearings. ) She seems to realize the unintended joke there, given the name of their current residence, and a bright happy flash of color accompanies it. What a delightful surprise. ( Prepare yourself for what is to come. Nirad and I will continue our investigation in the meantime. )

((OOC Notes: This is the catchall log for the first stages of the Concordia mission. You'll notice there's no set ending date, so use this log however you like - alternatively, feel free to start your own logs in the setting! Don't worry; we'll be keeping a close eye on things, so if something big starts to happen that necessitates a new long, we'll make sure to keep our bases covered and all of y'all updated. Just be aware that dating forward farther than :010 may get a little dicey.

If you have any mission specific questions, direct them to the OOC post here.))

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[It's not so much a door as it is a doorway, but the fact that it leads elsewhere is uncontested. The doorway opens from the Nesting Deck and into a passage which climbs upward and eventually reaches a long corridor with even more open doorways on either side. They lead to small rooms that might, if not for the varied instances of personal belongings, almost be the exact same room over and over again. Clearly these are some kind of living quarters, only there's no one currently living in them.

The Station is quiet. It's still. Nothing stirs here.

The corridor leads on and eventually opens into a large balcony like chamber overlooking a strange series of gardens, a winding stair leading down. The light here is pleasantly mottled, filtering down from the high ceiling as if projected from some reflected source. The plants are wildly varied, some vaguely familiar and none recognizable whatsoever. Here, finally, a small humming sensation in the back of the mind: like a single note reaching out to him, a tacit invitation. Come here it feels more than says.

At the center of the circular garden there is a section that's been burned black. There is a woman standing at circle of minor destruction's edge, regarding the brittle ashes of the plant life there with some thought. She doesn't raise her eyes when (if) Sam nears.]

Edited (ugh html) 2016-06-11 20:47 (UTC)

[ It's creepy, for a lot of reasons, but the first of those is the quiet, he thinks.

If it were just the weird people pods that would be one thing, but Sam's been on enough spaceships and to enough stations to know what the ambient sounds are. Ought to be. Really, even somewhere planetbound - tech takes power, generators don't all make the same noise, but he knows what kinds to expect and he doesn't hear any of them here.

It feels like a ghost town, but it's too well maintained for that. So when he wanders down to the gardens and hears - no, feels something calling him, he doesn't even think of ignoring it.

Being alone is a worse thought than any kind of danger he might be getting himself into.

He hesitates for half a beat when he sees the woman, not so much out of fear as out of a nagging feeling that he's interrupting something. But that doesn't stop him for long, because hey, getting attacked by those things and winding up here in the first place was sure interrupting something in his life. ]

Uh. Hello?

[She'd heard him from distance away - that persistent buzz of his awoken mind like the dull hiss of air whistling through an airlock puncture. Still, even this close - well within speaking distance - his mental presence hardly is so large to merit her full attention. He's a small piece in the universe, easily abstracted.

But Cathaway has practice with this: remind herself to be aware of details that might otherwise be so small As to be negligible to others. He speaks and she raises her eyes from the burned patch of garden greenery and looks to him. There's a strange quality about her gaze; it holds and reflects slightly too much light and is considerably more still than seems natural.

But very little is normal here, is it? The alien quality of her attention is at least underscored by a vague sensation of affection. Comfort is like a sun warmed blanket tossed around the shoulders. It wraps around this small corner of the garden, as palpable as the ground underfoot.

She smiles at him.]

You're awake. That's good.

[ There's something weirdly calm and inviting and comfortable radiating off her, and Sam's taken a few steps closer unconsciously before his train of thought even catches up with him and considers that he doesn't really have any good reason to feel that way.

Well, okay, she (they?) saved his life, but he saved Skaarn that one time before he wised up and chased him back down to arrest him.

And he's seen how much damage psychics can do. So he tries to push the sense of comfort off to some other corner of his mind, and cling onto the wariness instead, because that much, he knows, is him, and he's not out of the woods yet.

(Maybe not ever.) ]

Where am I?

[Where is he? There's a line that's drawn between them, fine line a single strand of thread. If she pays attention to it, if she thinks of running her finger across the taut line of it, it brings with it the taste of gunpower - burning carbon - the scent of space. She can taste it in her mouth, as familiar and as sweet as the stubborn streak in him.

Good, she thinks. Space and heart are her favorite combination.

(She is, admittedly, biased.)]

You're in Station 72. It's the base of operations for the Nest at this particular multiverse interval; you were brought here by the host that rescued you. You've been sleeping for some time.

[ Station 72. That means...just about nothing to him, but he halfway expected that, and his helmet's already silently relaying back its attempts to give him an answer that will.

Unknown location. Unknown starmap.

Yeah, he's definitely a long way from home, if even Xandar's records don't have enough information to place it. ]

How long?

[ There's a rising note of concern in his voice, this time - it's not panic, not yet, but realizing he has no idea how far away he is, and not knowing for how long he's been there - everything else is finally catching up to him and cutting through the more immediate questions. His mom. His sister. He promised he'd be back.

How long ago was that? ]

[In counterpoint, she is as calm and as gentle as a summer's breeze. She exudes a sense of comfortable warmth, the lull of an engine hum, the comfort of a well fitted harness settling around the shoulders. Be easy, hums some subconscious murmur. You're safe.]

Roughly ten days, speaking locally. [But that's not what he means or what he wants to know, is it?] Time here sometimes passes strangely, though. We suspect it's a similar frame where you come from, but it could be longer. Or shorter.

[Somewhere, his mother will be worried.]

Edited 2016-06-15 18:39 (UTC)

[ Safe.

Okay.

But does it matter if he's safe, if the people he's worried about don't know he's okay? ]

Mom's gotta be freaking out by now.

[ It's not like he hasn't taken off for a couple weeks before, and he knew he'd be gone for a while, but...there's taking a longer jaunt out to space than usual, and there's disappearing completely. It was supposed to be the former. His father already did the latter.

He can't do that to her after that. Not him too. ]

[Something slight in the collected quiet of her expression falters. It's a small version of collapse, a tentative flicker of regret.]

Yes, that's probably true.

[It's an unfortunate reality - he is safe, his family is likely safe, but that doesn't change that time... continues. The universe finds ways to cope with loss; the only comfort is that so too do people.]

We're sorry.

Isn't there some way I can - I don't know, space email her? Or something?

[ The concern in his tone is edging a little closer to panic, now, and his thoughts are going a mile a minute (which isn't really unusual for him, to be fair), circling in a hundred different memories of the same point.

His mother tossing out some hurried last minute instructions about dinner as she hurries out the door to her second job. His mother calling him from work, and he can barely hear her over the din of the diner around her, but she needed to warn him about something no matter how busy she was already supposed to be. His mother asking him to just hold off on the superheroing until ten, someone needed to be home to watch his sister. His mother, exhausted from double shifts but still staying up late and not leaving the couch in the living room until she knows he's safely back from the other end of the galaxy -

He can't do this to her.

He can't. ]

[She can feel it as the link between them begins to pull taut from his end. It's not an uncommon reaction, but it does inspire some deeper, truer regret in her. Most of the new hatches seemed to be largely self-motivated enough that this wasn't so... difficult. Lexa and Samuel Anders had been similarly concerned for their home, but they were both somehow removed in the first place - Lexa a leader of her people, Sam Anders an aberration among human flesh.

This is different. He is very young, isn't he?]

Unfortunately, no. We can't reach into your universe a second time. It might compromise our position here. We're very sorry.

[She means it. Is that any kind of comfort?]

[ It feels sincere, and in a different way than he might've said it any time before. It's not just a sense of her sounding sorry and him being fairly sure she's not lying - it feels like it's surrounding him like the air just before it rains, when it's so heavy in the air that it's impossible not to notice it. It's almost tangible.

It helps, but only a little.

He drops to his knees, one fist slamming into the ground, because anger is easier than heartbreak. Anger is mindless and all you need to feel better is to punch something -

- except perhaps not, because it's not really helping a bit here. The moment fades.

The heartbreak is still there. ]

Okay.

[ Low, quiet, almost inaudible. It's a few seconds and a deep breath more before he continues - ]

What happens now?

[ Because what the hell else is there to do, really? He's going to be upset about this for a long time, but he knows it's not going to make a difference. Sometimes, when the Hulk punches you, all you can do is get back up and get back into the fight.

(He'd rather have that again than this. It heals more easily.) ]

[It shreds pieces away. The surge of emotion strips them down to muscle and sinew; the heartbreak is some weight of a hammer falling to batter the bones. But he doesn't come untethered; he doesn't disconnect. She can sense the pulse of him, true and sure no matter the tinny quality.

She answers by sweeping forward from the burned ring of flora. The small mixed metal charms at her wrists and fingers tinkle pleasantly as she does. They would almost be a comedic affection of an aging, spindly woman if it seemed like Cathaway entertained long thoughts about her appearance. She breezes across to him and offers her hand to help him to his feet.]

Your brood is on the planet Concordia working to right a wrong. If you like, we would prefer to send you to them as soon as possible so you can assist them.

[ It's not really the answer he would've liked, but Sam's self-aware enough to know there's just about no answer to that question he would've liked. There are just answers that are varying degrees of disappointing, and he just has to deal with.

Dealing with disappointment, though, is something he's had a hell of a lot of practice at in his life.

He reaches up for her hand, hesitating an inch away for half a beat, but then following through and getting to his feet.

Righting a wrong. That's something he's had practice at, too; if he can't be where he wants to be, at least he'd rather be somewhere he can do something useful. He never appreciated what it meant to be a Nova, when it was just his father's stories, but it's come to mean a lot more to him since he took up the helmet himself. Whether there's still a Nova Corps or not, he's still a Nova.

Righting wrongs is what Novas do. ]

I guess it makes more sense than moping around here.

[ He'll still mope, more than likely. But, you know. In between the important stuff.

And he has a feeling that even outside of having a purpose, he belongs down there, not alone up here. Maybe because of that brood, even if he isn't sure - ]

...uh. What's a brood?

[A sensible approach to the matter. She can appreciate that, just as she appreciates how sure his grip is there - briefly - in her hand hand. He can mope however long he likes; she suspects that good sense, that vibrant through line of him, will persist regardless.

Good. They have need of that kind of thing.]

A brood is a collection of hosts whose symbiotes are closely related. Yours - or the others who have woken up - will be expecting you when you arrive on planet.

[Speaking of--]

A ship will be arriving for you soon.

[ Symbiotes. He's heard that one, he knows. Biology class. Something like, what was it. Organisms that co-exist in a mutually beneficial relationship, and require each other to survive -

Oh. ]

So everyone in the creepy people pods has one?

[A small smile finds her face then, punctuated by the vague sensation of-- cool water on a hot day, comfortable and delighted and-- amusement. She lifts her hand and touches the back of her neck where she shares a scar with him now from where the 'creepy pod' was wired into them during sleep.]

That's right. Everyone part of this place has a symbiote attached to their mind. It's what allows us to connect to each other and let's us live comfortably here. We also believe your suitability to it is what led you to be attacked in your home universe.

[ Without consciously thinking about it, he mimics the motion, finding the scar at the back of his head that definitely wasn't there when he passed out.

Holy crap.

You know, he's thinking, when I was a kid and I thought it'd be cool to live in a sci-fi movie, I was definitely thinking of Star Wars and not like...Alien.

Thinking, but not saying out loud. And it's kind of a bad comparison anyway, since the aliens actually killed people instead of having a symbiotic relationship with them, but it's the first one he could think of that had otherworldly life forms attaching themselves to people, and -

And he's letting his train of thought run away with him again. He's good at that sometimes. ]

Something's going after them? Er, and everyone who could help them, right? Why?

[The thoughts are veery small and too obscure for her to grasp, but she can feel the hum of his thought process twitching like a pulse under the fingers of her mind. With effort she might worm her way into his mind and know the full of it, but the vague sensation is enough to satisfy her for the moment.

It's rude to pry. She tries not to.]

We're afraid the motivations beyond the extermination of the symbiote and their hosts are unclear to us. The enemy we fight wears many faces and its goals are... [She lapses into a moment of study, regarding him thoughtfully.]] ...-- they seem to be highly variable. The consistent factor is the danger its agents present to us.

Oh. Okay.

[ He bites his lip for a moment, letting that one turn over. ]

Nobody does something that big without some kind of reason. Even if it's a stupid one. So there's not like...history, there? Before they just kind of showed up going after people?

There is history. Or must be. [A nod. It's a good question to ask, a solid line of thought. Perceptive child, she thinks.]

Unfortunately, we have no clear record of what started the conflict. We are older than you, true, but there were generations before us. It's possible our information is incomplete.

How far back does it go?

[ It seems like it'd have to be a while, for something to get that lost, but... ]

[A hesitation. Something in her face stills then, some measure of the warmth eking off her drying up. Her attention becomes very direct, beady even, though for an instant her mind drifts-- elsewhere; in a breath she is remote and strange, a shell for something else. A great creature lurking in the darkness of the sublime expanse of the multiverse who has, for a second, forgotten the necessity of maintaining this face as she courses out for an answer that might be useful to him.

In another breath, Cathaway softens. She blinks, studying him as if for the first time.]

We have been a part of Station 72 for fifty years. The hosts which guided us when we first arrived were similar. So we suspect at least a century and a half. Maybe two.

[That isn't so long, is it?]

We'd prefer to be done with it, but our resources are limited. As long as our enemy continues to attack us and persists in shredding through the multiverse to do it, we must respond in kind. We believe they do what they do - mangling universes - in an attempt to find a way to access this place or places like it. With enough interference, perhaps they could find a way to reach the Station and destroy us more completely.

Edited 2016-07-03 18:10 (UTC)

[ It's eerie, how fast she just - changes, like she's staring right through him, and then just as suddenly, it's as if nothing happened. Is this the kind of thing that's just going to be normal around here? Because...creepy. He's not sure how to feel about that.

...yeah, easier to just focus on the answer to his question.

(A couple of centuries seems like a really long time. Just trying to think back to elementary school seems like a long time ago, if he's honest about it.) ]

Okay, I guess that makes sense.

[ Mysterious. But it's probably the best he's going to get for now, and he's not particularly eager to try and...do the mindmeldy thing to see if there's any more to it that she didn't mention. ]

[It is, she knows, not an incredibly helpful or rewarding set of answers. She wouldn't blame him if he were frustrated by them. In all honesty, she has some sympathy for that sort of sentiment herself. This place sometimes feels like the skeletal remains of some greater, more complex beast.

Cathaway gives him a thin smile. She smooths the folds of her voluminous wrap down with a vague touch, a tinkle of he metal charms at her wrist.]

We apologize if you don't find our answers satisfying. In time we hope you'll assist us in learning more. For now-- [A pause. She evaluates him before her.] --Do you have any other questions for us?

[MISSION LOG] BRAVE NEW WORLD

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