[closed] stay for as long as you have time

[bloodbinds]

Who: Ava (bloodbinds) and Deacon (ersatzeverything).
When: 5/20.
Where: Amissis-Re, through the Alter-Ingress.
What: Ava and Deacon leap through one last time and find the worst of both worlds.
Warnings: Descriptions of gore, mild spoilers for both games.


It's on the platform that she initially sees the passing of the Host and their world. She thinks she's jumped in and gone home, and what she sees is so much worse: not her world but someone else's, and the tragedy that befell the Host's planet mere moments before it was gone. She wakes again in the same spot, uncertain and shaking, and it's only then that she decides she has to go back to her own. If this is what is happening, then the things she's done and the steps she's taken to assure her own future... Is this what will happen to Los Angeles too?

It doesn't matter, in the end. Ava returns to the platform ready to jump again with Deacon this time, even as some part of her says to go alone. Deacon's given her enough trust to let her go with him back to his own world. Can't she extend the same to him? Still shaking, she walks with him through the portal...

...and comes back out in the dark streets of downtown Los Angeles, standing in the middle of the street. Except there's...no one. Not a soul to be seen. All the lights are out and some cars have rotted away, decayed on the side of the road. It looks almost like Deacon's world but with all of the landmarks of the Los Angeles she knows so well. LaCroix's old penthouse still partially stands, the stone stained and several glass windows broken on the bottom floors. The air is all wrong, dry and heated, and Ava feels sick just standing there even in the darkness. The buildings don't look quite right, some of them overlapping and leaning together at odd angles, like someone's taken photoshop to a picture and made it look like a Salvador Dali painting.

She can't stop staring, horrified at all of it. "Maybe... Maybe this was a bad idea." If this is what the world is going to be like, how is she supposed to fix all of it? "I didn't expect it to look like this."

Comments

[bloodbinds]

"So they don't empathize with people like Gen 3s do, right?" Which means they can make decisions without being able to process a full human experience. It's pretty sad, she'll admit, and she doesn't know much else to say. "Do you consider them people, then? Or just...androids created by the Institute?" She doesn't really want to go into an argument about organics versus synthetics - the Moira has enough of debate these days - but it's still a question that's been on her mind.

Ava snorts, nudging him with her elbow. "Ugh, you're awful." Her eyes, however, linger on the arm still there. "Do you guys bury your dead or...use their parts?"

[ersatzeverything]

"I've learned not to ask whether Gen 2s are people or not. It's the sort of thing that starts up fights back at HQ. It's a hard question, like trying to pin down exactly when in the evolutionary path those old hominids became people and not apes."

He shrugs.

"When they shoot at me, I kill them. I kinda wish I didn't have to."

He looks at the face in his hand. Almost human. Almost, but not quite.

"Even humans don't always bury their dead any more. A lot of the time retrieving a body is too risky. It's just not worth it." The agents at the Switchboard, the ones who didn't make it, all left to rot. It's just how things go.

"But if, like, Glory died, and it wasn't too dangerous to bring her body back, yeah, I'd give her a burial."

[bloodbinds]

The more she knows of his world, the more she hates it. He has to kill his own kind, things created to emulate humans...but first, to be slaves. It's pretty disgusting. The world is dog-eat-dog and she's seen that more and more since her death. She hates how bitter it's made her even when it's allowed her to see how much of life is about survival. Just like now.

"You have to do what you have to do, right? It's your life or theirs." She doesn't know his friends but she's glad Deacon looks after himself in that capacity. "You'd think people would have better things to fight about in a wasteland where you could die of dehydration or starvation. Or radiation." Instead, it's better to make slaves and then take away their autonomy instead of, you know, make better machines to cultivate clean water and food. Or make sustainable resources. "How many people are in your...group?"

[ersatzeverything]

"Not as many as there used to be. The Institute hit us pretty hard again not too long ago. Not as bad a massacre as the Museum. We learned our lesson from that real well, to always have an escape route. But we still lost a lot of people. We're, like, seriously understaffed and we can't find a decent temp agency to help us fill our personnel shortage."

He drops the destroyed Gen 2's face.

"I had a recruitment plan in the works before I left. Dez thought it was kinda crazy, but I hope she doesn't drop the idea without me around pushing for it."

[bloodbinds]

"The museum being the one I saw." The aftermath, anyway. Makes more and more sense. The Institute is like the boogeyman that wouldn't die and instead continues to dose itself up until it's a hulking giant. Completely unpleasant. "And no one has any idea where it is? There are no...hidey holes or secret passages, no notes or trails to follow?" Then again, people who are able to create androids seem to have more aces in their sleeves than what seems to be fair. "So it sounds crazy but totally worth it, yeah? That's the impression I'm getting."

Ava's eyes go back to the ladder. "Look, I know where we're going to come up but...I can't guarantee it's any safer. I'm hoping it's going to be. But just keep your eyes open behind those shades of yours."

[ersatzeverything]

"Nothing, nadda, zip. We've tried to find the Institute's HQ for over twenty years. It's like the fucking thing's invisible. Hell, maybe it is. It wouldn't surprise me."

So even a crazy plan is worth a shot.

"I wanna recruit someone over two hundred years old. Cool, huh? Like, so cool it's frozen." He smiles at his inside joke. The vault, the cryostasis. He's been researching, watching.

"I always keep my eyes open. I wear shades all the time because some people find it unnerving, me not blinking and all, sleeping while looking awake..."

[bloodbinds]

"Do you have that kind of technology or...power where you're from?" Some vampires can hide themselves, sure, but a whole building? Not even the Camarilla have those kinds of tools. She hasn't ready of any magic that would allow such a thing, either. "It's not underground? Or...in the sky?" Look, as far-fetched as that might sound, Deacon's world has ghouls and fucking Deathclaws. Ava feels she's allowed a little imagination.

But to Deacon's crazy idea? She gives a little snort, though not entirely disbelieving that he'd concoct something so strange. "What're you going to do, dig up some old fossils and scrape the DNA off of them to make a person? Where are you going to find someone who's two hundred years old?"

And, more importantly, why is it such a specific age? What happened two hundred years ago?

As she ascends the ladder, she shoots him a look from over her shoulder. "Please. I know you blink. Seen it myself." Wouldn't put it past him to be able to go without, though. Creepy sort of thing to do. Ava pushes the lid of the manhole up a few inches with relative ease, looking out for a moment. What she sees doesn't look exactly safe but it's far and away better than where they were. She pushes the lid completely off and climbs up. "Come on, coast is clear."

[ersatzeverything]

"I don't have that kind of tech. The Railroad doesn't." There are Stealth Boys, but they couldn't hide an entire building. They can't even hide a person for more than a few minutes at a time. But he's been keeping quiet about his Stealth Boy for now.

"But the Institute? Maybe. In the sky wouldn't surprise me either. Or invisible and in the sky, like a giant disappearing airship. That'd be awesome. If, you know, they weren't our sworn enemies. That just makes it unfair."

He follows Ava up the ladder, towards street-level again.

"My two hundred year old person is buried underground." He's having too much fun with the cryptic answers.

"And yeah, you got me. I do blink. It's programmed in. I don't have to blink. My eyes don't need the moisture to function, the blinking and the wetness is all cosmetic, so I'd be amazing in a staring contest. But it takes effort to override the autonomic systems."

[bloodbinds]

"But the tech is viable. That's a hell of a lot more than we had in my time." And it's scary to think of what can be accomplished in just a few centuries. "It's a shame you guys can't get stronger backers. I know you're a secretive organization but a little funding wouldn't hurt to keep you safer." If people cared more about synths, maybe.

Ava gives him a skeptical and almost frightened look at his answer. Is he talking about a vampire? Does he even know what one is? She doesn't ask about that, tries to play it cool. "First of all: the eye thing is super creepy. Why did you have to tell me that?" Really, really creepy. She offers her hand as he gets to the top of the ladder. "Second...are you resurrecting a dead person? Shocking a mummy back to life so they can help you? Who is this person, anyway? Some kind of hero?"

[ersatzeverything]

"Next time I go recruiting for the Railroad, I should try to find us a sugar daddy. It'd be super useful."

But finding people with those kinds of resources is difficult, and finding one who cares about the fate of synths is nigh impossible.

He grins at her dubious expression in response to his comments about his two hundred year old person. "There's a vault in the northwest, underground, designed to protect people from the fallout of the war two hundred years ago. It's sealed up, but I've done some digging into old records and stuff and the people in that vault were cryogenically frozen. I've been keeping an eye on it for over a year now. If I could get someone from the Old World on our side they'd have knowledge and abilities that the Institute wouldn't see coming."

[bloodbinds]

"Go for the old high rollers, if you know any. When they bite the dust, you guys can have a cut." Isn't that the point?

Ava's expression doesn't change much, though she becomes somewhat more relaxed in knowing that he's not looking for some Antediluvian buried in who-knows-where. "I never thought something like that would work. I mean...it's been hinted at even in my time that maybe it'll work but-- You guys have the technology to actually revive a person?" And then to set that person on the Institute? She's not sure she can agree with Deacon's methods...but he knows better than she does. "What if you grab someone who's just a housewife or a mailman? They're not gonna know how to fight."

[ersatzeverything]

"Good idea. I'll use my gold digging wiles to nab us a lonely old coot who wants a young...ish thing to hang on his arm. If it helps us destroy the Institute, I will totally wear a French maid outfit until the millionaire kicks the bucket."

If he ever gets back home, he should tell Dez. She'd get a laugh out of it. And probably think it was only slightly less wild than his current actual plan of recruiting a frozen vault dweller.

"The vault should be able to reverse the freezing. And even if they've never picked up a gun, that's something that can be learned pretty quickly. Old World sensibility, not so much. But in any case America had been fighting for a long time before the Big One hit, and military families were pre-selected for entrance into this one vault, so I've got good odds of getting someone with honest-to-god military experience."