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meet head-on
"Here I am at the end of the road and at the top of the heap.."
So far, things have been sort of normal for those aboard the Moira. Some of the crew have begun researching the Ingress, which has produced some interesting things as a result. There has also been the incident with Navigator Mana being separated from the ship while others have been deal with something worse as well as the on-going problem with Ploiatos. However, all of this isn't the problem.
The Ingress begins to work as it should after combined efforts from the crew and is honed in on the Midway Hub’s specific signature, but traveling there isn’t exactly easy. Since the Ingress hasn’t been working properly for so long, as the energy of it surrounds the ship, it enters the Moira into what the creators had called a “timeslip”. Looking outside the ship, this can be described as a multitude of different things. Inside the ship is a completely different story. Effects from Ploiatos have not disappeared, and some of them have even amplified due to the timeslip. Pieces of the ship are beginning to rot away and entire sections of the floor might just disappear from underfoot. Also, one other thing: ALL rooms have been unlocked, including a space that holds all of the missing shoes “taken” by the Ingress. ☄ LET’S DO THE TIMEWARP (AGAIN) The timeslip is not kind to those riding it through to its destination. Looking out any window will reveal worlds growing, thriving and dying in the blink of an eye. One may even glimpse faces of those they know in various states, perhaps even fragments of events that have not happened or maybe never will. Time is weird like that. But there are other things to be wary of in the time slip. Insomnia strikes without warning, and sanity will begin to trickle away as well. Some may even fall prey to body alterations as they travel through more damaged areas of the ship. Bodies may be altered by the energy of the slip, aging rapidly or changing in strange and uncomfortable ways that can’t be properly explained. These changes will happen suddenly and fade away without warning, but there is no getting used to it. People are not meant to be caught unprotected within a timeslip like this, and with the ship falling apart, there is nothing to keep them insulated from the side effects of the vortex.
They say if you stare too long into the abyss that the abyss begins to stare back, but in this case, even averting your eyes may not keep you safe from the dangers on all sides. ☄ HE ATE MY HEART Inside the timeslip, one thing is clear: anything and everything can happen. First Mate Egan will tell anyone who asks that this isn’t typical, which prompts Ira to tell the crew to exercise caution until they reach the Midway Hub. What should take seconds feels like weeks inside the slip, and packing for departure is encouraged. Outside the ship, time flits by, passing disorientingly fast, and for the first few days, it is the only notable malfunction.
Three days in, the crew encounter the first slip monsters. They come within hours of each other in two waves, and when they’ve boarded the Moira, they won’t go until killed or the ship has reached the Hub. The pool will have a new guest, the hallways are over run with small creatures, and the vents are swarming with massive foreign things. The slip is a dangerous place, and all crew are allowed to use any means necessary to stay safe. (All slip monsters can be used by any players; the monsters can attack each other, crew, themselves, the ship. It’s a literal monster throw-down.) ☄ ISN'T IT IRONIC? DON'T YOU THINK? As the Moira reaches the Midway Hub, the ship shudders out of the timeslip‐what should be a graceful stop is anything but. The ship shakes, the vibrations unending and splitting metal. The Ingress machine thrums, a heartbeat felt in every inch of the Moira as the energy crests out of the boundaries the creators had fashioned for it. Blue swirls of light curl up and out, breaking open the ship from the inside out. It begins to plummet, and evacuation measures are, once again, initiated.
Crew are instructed to get to transporters and crafts, leaving nothing and no one behind. The ship is breaking, falling fast and rough through the atmosphere surrounding the Hub. Evacuation pods are primed, anyone in cryo will be taken to the Cargo Bay for transport (unless alternate arrangements were already made), and the hatch in the Bay is opened for crew to escape through. The coordinates for meeting are sent to all crew, not far from where the Moira should touch down, and all medical staff are asked to be ready and waiting for when the ship lands. ☄ GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM Those who have already evacuated and have landed on the foggy, dark expanse of terrain that the coordinates have guided them to will see nothing around them except for the bright light of the Moira as it breaches the atmosphere and crashes into the rocky surface of the Midway Hub. One of the Captains, Thán, chose to stay on the ship until the last moment to make sure all crew were evacuated and was injured in the process. His reading on the IC Directory blips in and out, signaling that he’s somewhere in the ship’s rubble in need of immediate assistance. The MIDs stop functioning after the initial crash and other than reading vital signs, won’t come back on for a few hours (the network won’t work correctly in that time frame, sending videos and messages that it shouldn’t or not posting at all). The other Captains will ask for someone to take a head count and to report anyone who might be missing while all others will be directed to carefully seek out crew in the rubble and to gather any cargo that they can. Take inventory, set up a medical tent, check transporters and crafts, help crew, and stay together until everyone is accounted for.
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thisavrou_log2016-11-15 09:40 pm
and Rapture's true missed business opportunity~
Rinzler wants someone else to blame.
Shepard told him about the virus. Rinzler hadn't trusted the user, but he hadn't disbelieved her story either. It just wasn't enough. Viruses corrupted, viruses destroyed, and if he'd been so stupid as to turn his back on one, it's no surprise that it would take advantage. That he'd be killed. Derezzed if he were lucky, and infected if he weren't.
...he had trusted Nihlus with his code.
Brittle metal scrapes along the floor, a helpless, hopeless writhing. This close, it's impossible to miss the empty gap where the user's arm should be, and phantom aches prickle through the program's shell. He remembers the careful pressure on his shoulder as Nihlus patched the damage Clu had done. He remembers waking to the agony of burned out circuits and ragged, empty stumps that should have been his legs.
("Shhh. It's all right.")
Nihlus hadn't killed him. Hadn't turned him to his side. He'd crippled his function and stolen his disks. He'd closed the loophole Rinzler had taken for a voice and caged him up to choke on his own errors. Back into his nightmares, with no escape but to crawl and beg for Clu to take him back.
Clu had. Rinzler is here, soaked in the blood of one defeated threat, weapons fused to each hand as he looks down at another. Rinzler is standing on strong legs, and there's no reason at all why they should be trembling beneath him. Power flares through his circuit lights, hums through his disks. Air cycles in suffocated gasps behind his helmet. He has to move. To fight. He's burning with the need.
Tension snaps and crackles past its peak, a disk slamming into the vent assembly to rip it aside like so much paper. Nihlus is curled underneath, and shoulders twitch, seething and unbalanced as the program snarls down. Speech is too far out of reach.
Why that?
for real!
Should have. Should have.
He keeps thinking he's planned for everything by now but it's always the little things that slip past and ensnare him. A galaxy was burning some universes away because of his failure to put together answers that'd been right in front of him- and he'd dared to think that he had any right to try and keep anyone here safe.
The shriek of steel being shredded above him makes Nihlus tense reflexively, but he doesn't move beyond that. There's a heavier weight holding him down now, heavier than rusted metal and ductwork, a lead-weighted collar that chokes down every answer he tries to give.
What can he say? What won't sound like lies or excuses? None of the answers meant anything when he couldn't differentiate between himself and the person who'd cut Rinzler's legs off. Those hands had been his. Those thoughts had been his. There's a horrible ringing that was still resonating through his skull, through his spine, sharp and clear through every nerve, so bright it burned.
It'd just been mere hours ago from Nihlus's perspective.
The only difference now was the cold, vast emptiness where the Voice had been, the edges of it spreading out, growing, filling up with self loathing until he feels like he's about to crack. All he is now is the remnants still somehow existing in the After.
"I should have seen it coming," he whispers.
no subject
(
...that's a—)He doesn't want to.
The words are pointless, out of place. The words are wrong. Shoulds have never mattered (not for him), and whoever's faults are on display, it's not an answer. Noise rolls out in a storm of rage, but the program's stance is less coiled now than simply bent. Contorted. Jagged. Rinzler cracked apart a long, long time ago, and whether the user is himself or just a copy, he remembers what he did.
That has to be enough.
Disks merge to a single, singing edge. The program's empty hand comes down, digging into the crevices of the user's armor as he drags Nihlus up. Neither of them have a face today, but Rinzler's stare is fixed and palpable: no search, but a demand. Look at him. Fight him, or leave, or answer the question, but Rinzler will have some satisfaction if it breaks them both.
It takes much more work the second time. Circuits flicker, disuse and effort producing a static scrape.
"Tell me."
no subject
Then Rinzler speaks again and he can't let go. Can't make himself look up. The stare burns into him and he can't look up.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Pushing weight onto the injured leg, Nihlus grits his teeth against the pain and lets it ground him.
Tell him why.
Unbidden, everything rolls over him in a tidal wave, crushing, suffocating and inescapable. But the moment he tries to navigate it voluntarily, the freshly broken edges cut into him in a completely different way. It was like reaching into vat a filled with razors and acid.
WHY-
"The gun would've been too loud."
Even as he says it, Nihlus doesn't understand the words. He'd taken Rinzler's legs, what had stopped him from slicing through the rest? Why is everything else so clear but not this? The program had been dangerous to the Monolith in every possible way: unable to be affected by it, unable to be drawn in and so obviously willing to destroy it.
And yet.
Dragging in a sharp, agonized breath, he reaches again and it's-
Just-
Noise.
"You were already Enlightened."
There's something in Nihlus's voice, something disconnected, a rot in his undertones that was beginning to match the Moira's own growing gloom.
"I didn't... want you to die."
no subject
...that can't be it.
Nihlus had attacked him. Nihlus had left him alive. The user had gone much too far to question that intention—if the damage he'd dealt would have killed a lesser program, there was no reason to cage up dead code. But Rinzler had been in no shape to be useful, and no mind to do anything but fight. The only way to change that—the only reason to hold back—
(Gold lights, the crunch of voxels, warm reassurances hissed in his ear as his disk—)
No, no—
Those memories are not permitted. Some of them aren't even his. But error correction has been wrecked for cycles, and Rinzler's been fighting back the files since he came online. Since he found himself alive and broken, locked up in a cell by a programmer who took his disk. Noise rattles up in an uneven clatter, lights shivering this time with a spark of blue.
He forces all of it away. It's not the same. Nihlus hadn't edited him. Rinzler had checked, kept his disk undocked even once it was recovered, let Clu and Alan-one pick him apart before he stabilized and synced. But if there had been more time, if the user had been able...
Rinzler doesn't—
Doesn't ask.
Slowly, fingers uncurl from the armor. Slowly, the program takes a step back. His disk is still lit at his side, shoulders drawn in an aggressive, angry set, but the bent frame looks less ready now than simply listing. Tired. His helmet dips a little, then shakes from side to side. It's not rejection. He knows. Nihlus hadn't wanted him dead.
But he should have.
no subject
Rinzler steps back from him and he forces himself not to try and reach out, hand hanging in the space between them as the seconds ticked by. Eventually, he places it against his lap, claws curling into a fist hard enough that they would've cut through his palm had the glove not been there.
Would he have eventually given Rinzler death, anyways? Once the Voice had eaten through everything, burnt the last traces of his doubts away, would he finally have realized that the enforcer was too dangerous to keep around?
Or perhaps a fate worse than that? What would he have done if he'd succeeded a week ago? Kept Rinzler some kind of facsimile of alive, deprived of limbs, caged and chained down- just for the sake of keeping him 'safe'?
He remembers that panicked whorl of thoughts, staring down at dimmed circuitry then- just before he'd started cutting. Before he'd taken the disk.
The disk.
"I'm sorry," Nihlus whispers again, softly, voice shaking with self loathing and a quiet, bone-deep horror. He doesn't know what else to say. Doesn't trust himself to say anything else.
There's a wretched, monstrous little part of him that knows exactly what he'd have done to Rinzler, given enough time to crack the program's admin code.
no subject
He'd been so afraid, he'd given his code to a user. Trusted a user.
A user who might have done all of that again.
If Nihlus had, he wouldn't have to process the mistake. The thought flickers through cognition, chased by a wave of revulsion and sheer loathing, and Rinzler jerks his helmet to the side again. He doesn't want to hear the apology. He doesn't want to process the what-ifs. He doesn't want to see the pathetic trembling (and he's shaking too) (and none of it's new, none of it's different—so why does it still hurt—?)
He's not supposed to. The command is just as powerless (and certainly, it hadn't stopped him yet), but Rinzler seizes on the excuse, on the memory of Clu's fuming rage as he'd pieced Rinzler back together. He should have known better. He knew what users were like, he was to stay away. He shouldn't be here.
It's small. (It's cowardly.) But it's enough to break the choking, awful lock. Rinzler takes another step back. Then another. His disk burns itself out in his left hand, and he ducks his mask and turns away. He's gone from sight in seconds.