Entry tags:

August Event Log: Part I

Who: Everyone
When: August 9 and onward
Where: An unexpected destination
What: The newcomers go on a trip and end up far from where they expected
Warnings: Potential violence. Please label your content!

NOTE: PLEASE READ THIS OOC POST FIRST.

When the time comes for the travelers to go on the off-world trip that will help restore Thisavrou, they are not alone. Others who have settled on the planets longer and come to call them home are also prepared to travel; through the Ingress and do their part. Yet when the newcomers step through, whether they stepped through the Ingress seconds or hours apart, they will find that they have arrived at the same time, and only newcomers are in sight.

What awaits them is not a land of plenty. The land is barren, and dark storms in the sky resemble those held at bay by the Ingress complex—but much, much closer. Those who traveled on the Moira may recognize the landscape; though they have come through at a different point from the crash, they are on the Midway Hub. And there is no portal back. They are trapped.

hitting the road

Though some have been here before, the Midway Hub is not as they remember it. The storms fill the sky, leaving it dark and ominous even when they are not sweeping across the landscape—but they have clearly done so in recent times, and often. While never a lush land, large patches of ground an acre or more wide looking nothing more than utterly dead; the thistle that naturally grows is brittle, black and unable to be consumed even with the usual preparations to make it edible, and here and there animal corpses are found twisted into unnatural poses, but seemingly uninjured. These places are particularly concentrated near the broken Ingresses litter the landscape. While Midway Hub as a whole may seem naturally arid, these dead spots leave no hope that anything can possibly live there again.

The travelers have two options: stay where they are, or move on. While it might seem that they've been tricked into coming here and been left abandoned, those with the technological ability to do so may detect a sign of hope: a familiar energy source, far in the distance. Although none of the Ingresses they pass will ever work again, the faint energy shows that one still-functioning Ingress lies far in the distance, days away.

Although technological scanning or impressive memory of the landscape indicates that they are not separated from their destination by one of the gates that divide the land, they are also far from the shelter of the facility at the center of the Hub. Any attempt to travel in a direction other than that of the energy signal will result in a strange disorientation after several hours, bringing individuals back to their original path as though they've gone in circles. Meanwhile, though travelers will feel the need to slake their hunger and thirst through any natural water sources they discover, wildlife they can hunt for food and any supplies they have on them, if they don't find sustenance, they'll find that they will never pass out or reach the point of starvation. Instead, they'll be left alive and awake but feeling utterly hollow.

storm front

At regular intervals, the energy storms above descend onto the land, bringing not rain but violent clashes of negative energy and thunder so loud that nothing can be heard above it. The passing of the storms leaves some strange effects. The ground is warped and rotted by their touch, even solid stone degrading to a spongy surface. The air is tepid and oddly charged. Prolonged contact with air or ground will not supply energy, however — it drains it from organic and synthetic life alike.

Those who remember their last trip to the Hub, or simply explore in the right direction, may come across the cave complexes with their glowing surfaces and streams. The light is dimmer now, a sickly green, but drinking from the streams will still restore the energy lost, for a time. This time, however, the lethargy that inevitably follows is much more severe, and the drinkers are left with a raw, empty feeling leeching in from the wasteland around.

Those who are exposed to the storms, either by finding themselves in very close proximity or even closely observing them for too long as they approach, may lose their sight, or hearing, even much of the ability to feel touch — whatever sense they used in observation. What lingers in its place is a numbness. A hunger. And as time passes, the time between storms decreases; what seemed like hours between the storms becomes scarcely one, and their intensity grows.

wild life

Sentient beings are not the only ones affected by the storms; these creatures, attracted to sound and able to track by scent, and these panthers, which once looked normal but have been twisted by the storms into more monstrous forms, are numerous enough that travelers must be constantly alert for their presence. Though natural predators, the threat the creatures represent is not itself natural. They are also more aggressive. Some strange instinct drives them, not a need for food. While the panthers themselves can be caught and their meat cooked, it has little taste, offering nutrition but not satisfaction.

old familiar places

Although it's difficult to track the passage of time without day-night cycles, after what seems like more than a week of the travelers' unexpected trip, the storms abruptly come rushing in at the group of travelers, as if they're herding the group to move faster toward their destination and the Ingress energy that awaits them. The true nature of that destination becomes clear when debris appears on the horizon; the energy comes from the wreckage of the Moira, the interstellar ship that crashed here months ago.

Despite the trauma of impact, large sections of the ship remain surprisingly intact, though few of them are properly vertically oriented. If travelers are able to make their way inside the damaged sections of the ship, they'll find familiar territory, if they are one of those who traveled on the Moira, as well as shelter—something that's increasingly necessary as the storms seem to center over the ship, leaving little hope for survival outside. Useful items may be scavenged from the ship if they are willing to explore, but no personal items of any kind remain.

Strangely, the deeper travelers go into the crashed ship, the less familiar their surroundings will seem, regardless of their orientation. The inward-leading paths into the ship become generic metal, and as with the travel on the surface of the planet, they may find themselves back where they started. And no matter how far they go or how hard they try, they will find themselves unable to make it to the Ingress chamber itself...for now.

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"Okay, well."

She sighs. At least he's not throwing things in her direction or anything. She looks at what he's doing, interested.

"...What are you trying to do?"

The lag (and stare) draws out another moment. Then,

"Power."

Object, not subject. Not action. Syntax error, out of place. Rinzler shakes his head, cancelling the term.

"Searching for it."

The last word hesitates a little, but that try at least rates nearly complete.

"Oh," she says. "You know, those of us in human bodies who haven't been eating have been fine without it." Well, not fine, but she hasn't started starving. "I have this idea you'll be okay if you can't find a source."

Sound rises, helmet twitching sideways again. "Won't derezz." Regardless of the environmentals. "Run for longer. Without."

Another error. Multiple? He's losing track. Losing focus. He stares at the end of the row, all terminals dead. Closes the box, and loops the phrase twice before he allows it to output.

"I don't want to pare down."

She nods slowly. "Okay." She's never known Rinzler to use the personal pronoun. But this whole situation is weird. "I'll help."

The opaque helmet had been turning past Tex—toward the half-buried generator further down the hall. At that, though, he glances back, noise stuttering.

"Why?"

He regrets the question as soon as he asks it. Still, it's too late to recall.

Why? he asks, with a skip in his usual purr that sounds shocked. Her posture changes a little, her head cocking, arms crossing. Rinzler truly is exasperating at the best of times. She's done nothing that would make them out to be enemies, and he's the only one who's been antagonistic between them.

"If you don't think we're friends anymore, well, that's not on me," she says. Her tone is a bit forceful and rushed. "I don't want to see you uncomfortable. Okay? Tell me what you've found so far and I'll help. Otherwise, I guess I'll just leave."

She pried into his mind. She joined the glitch in taunting him. She took so much care to emphasize their differences—that she was made to be a person—after telling him they were alike. Still, Rinzler's stare doesn't source from those files.

When had Texas considered him a friend?

Is it some kind of joke? Possible, though neither nonverbals nor tone appear to match. Rinzler doesn't understand at all. The drain sapping at cognition isn't helping, but...

There's a minute, subtle shift, frame drawing closer in his hunch.

"Cached power: missing." The words are quiet. He nods down the hall, toward the debris-covered machinery. "Generator status unknown. Junction box offline, all contacts."

"Okay," she says, a little more subdued. "I'll look for the generator then. See if I can get it up and running. Where have you looked for it?"

A momentary hesitation... and Rinzler nods again down the hallway. There.

It's half-buried in debris, but visible—along with the conduits feeding to the junction box Rinzler was testing. He—or they—just need to clear enough half-collapsed ship to access it and get it working. Or find another source.

Rinzler steps toward the task, mask slanted just enough to watch in his periphery.

She looks, and then heads over. There's a mess in the way, and after taking some time to walk around it and observe what pieces are on top of other pieces, she starts lifting things out of the way and making a pile off to the side. It's a complex tangle, and it's slow going. But eventually, Tex clears enough debris to get to the box connectors.

"Rinzler," she calls back to him, even though she knows that he's been watching out of the corner of his eye the whole time.

Rinzler isn't far. After shifting some of the larger debris in the way of the path, he disappeared around the back of the unit, checking for leaks in the fuel tank. The low ticking rumble cam be heard echoing throughout the process, but he'll step back into sight within seconds of Tex's call.

Voice lags a moment longer.

"Damaged?"

"Mm..."

She leans in and uses her helmet's night vision to counter the low light here. The ports, which would allow someone like Rinzler to plug in and get power, are slightly askew. It appears they're all attached to one panel, and the last port was bumped by some falling debris.

"One of the ports is busted. The rest of them are off center, but I think they're okay."

She stands again and looks to him.

"You'll have to test it to be sure, though."

Rinzler doesn't argue with the assessment. Still, the lag draws out, fingers curling a little at each side. The reluctance is palpable when he eventually does nod. Texas isn't wrong. She isn't wrong, and she had helped, and however long that might last, he shouldn't waste it. He needs the power.

There's just one difficulty.

Someone like Rinzler was never meant to exist in the user world. Someone like Rinzler is a construct of electricity shaped by the rules of code, apparent physicality aside. And the entire world Rinzler comes from is designed to function across a potential difference of just a few volts.

User generators output several hundred times that.

In the user world of Inugami, Rinzler connected to a power socket once. It had been an accident, he had mostly been a user, and it had still put him badly out of commission. Rinzler strongly suspects this is going to be worse.

"...Resistor?"

The user is encased in metal. It's unlikely she has anything on hand.

"Resistor?"

She looks at him for a moment, then shakes her head.

"I don't know what we could use for that. Have you ever plugged into this generator before?"

Rinzler shakes his head, voice skipping with just a little irritation.

"Don't plug."

Program. Not robot. Rinzler eyes the port skeptically for another moment before turning back into the wreckage: yanking up the inactive power conduit to pry out one of the wires inside.

This is definitely a good idea that will not get him derezzed.

"What do you do, then?" she asks, watching, interested. She has no idea what he's doing is improvising a solution that could overwhelm his system.

Oh, that improvisation factor should become clear in short order. Namely, when Rinzler hauls a chunk of ceramic pipe out from the debris. Resistor get?

No. But it's... something.

"Charge by contact." He pulls out the length of wire and begins wrapping it in a long helix around the ceramic shape. "Can absorb energy across differential." A crouch to inspect the ports, and carefully, touching only the ceramic, Rinzler feeds one end of his exposed wire into a port.

"Liquid intake also possible in-system."

"Wait, wait, wait." She reaches out and yanks the wire out of the port. "You've never done this before, have you?"

Far be it from her to have Rinzler electrocute himself on her watch.

The words draw a look. The yank, a bristle. He'd just finished getting that into position!

"Have."

Sound skips behind the rough edge of his vocals, irritated and defensive. He wouldn't have survived a decicyle in the user world if he didn't know how to charge off their devices. Not to mention he worked on ship repair for a full year.

"Limiting voltage."

...somewhat. Enough? Maybe.

She lowers the angle of her helmet, which is always how her teammates indicated a glare back in Freelancer.

"Look. I don't want you to mess yourself up by jury-rigging something untested. That's not something I want to have happen on my watch."

She holds the end of the wire toward him.

"If you know what you're doing, okay. If not, just stop."

Rinzler glares right back. What did the user expect him to do? His transfer conduit was in another system. The caches he'd stored here were gone. Scans were dead, and with them, any method to test output from a distance. And especially with no way to tell how long they'd be trapped here, he wasn't going to leech off Yori's supplies.

And he didn't want to pare down. Not here. Not like this. Not when he could think, and talk. Not when he had so much more to safeguard than just Clu.

...he'd always hated being automatic.

He takes the wire back. Steps back from the user's reach. Re-wraps it, and holding only the ceramic, manages to insert the end into the live contact of the port. A metal plate protruding from the rubble should function more than well enough to ground. Rinzler steps on it. Eyes the user.

"Recommendation: don't watch."

He'll give her a moment, if she chooses to walk off. He won't, if she moves toward him. Either way, Rinzler connects the circuit: touching the free end of his makeshift resistor to the back of his hand.

Power arcs with a sharp crackle, and the program drops.

She watches. Stands stock-still, eyeing him, even after he says that.

When he drops to the ground, she grits her teeth.

"You stupid fuck."

He appears to be still awake, but he's sparking with electricity. She reaches out quickly and yanks the cord out of the port and drops it with an arcing throw, to get it away from his form.

"Don't tell me not to watch you just so you can do something stupid."

Edited 2017-09-16 22:22 (UTC)

Contact with the generator breaks as Rinzler collapses, but considering how much the program is arcing, getting that wire unplugged was still a good plan. Conversation, on the other hand? Is going to take a while.

Noise stutters in harsh clicks, Rinzler's entire shape glowing from within as charge crackles through the enforcer's circuitry. Even through the obstruction of his suit, finer lines of light are visible—as well as cracks that seem to split and seal, shell both too damaged to hold together and too charged not to.

If inputs are even functioning enough to hear Tex's commentary, Rinzler doesn't give much sign. Internals are scorched, processing scrambled, charge bleeding much too slowly through the points of contact down to ground.

That was a bad idea.

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August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

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