"High noon" still has a resonating historical significance not lost on the people of New Amsterdam. Old cowboy movies, complete with John Wayne standing in a dusty, old street are imprinted upon people's memories, helping them recall a simpler past where grudges could be settled with guns. By 2511, these movies have been remade countless times over with different set pieces, but nostalgia continues to be an ever-present factor. It's not nostalgia that drives the UNA soldiers and Morningstar agents into position during this hour, but the time itself serves as a reminder. A call to a different time and a different past.
Outside, the sun burns bright, but people sleep soundly, shades drawn securely over their windows to create a false darkness. This is why the UNA strikes at noon: their targets will be vulnerable, comforted by the presence of daylight only a drawn shade away,
Across town, Morningstar's agents are preparing for their own strike. One of them makes a joke about the non hour. He's told to shut it. They have fifteen minutes. Is everyone ready? Their uniforms are black, tightly fitting. Each of them pulls their mask over their faces. Up ahead, there's a wall to scale.
Fifteen minutes and the plan goes into motion. Each agent knows the costs of this mission. Their last one ended up with numerous dead – lost – with no reward. UNA soldiers are far more threatening than the armed guards Morningstar faced on that day, but the reward is more sure. Worth the risk. They're secure in what they need to do.
Then it's time. Across the city, the UNA soldiers descend in perfect unison. Separate but thinking with one mind, one goal. Eliminate a festering problem, one that only stands to grow in a world haunted by chaos and trauma. It's their job to set things right. To restore order to a world that is currently without.
About forty five minutes in to the widespread assault, El sends out a message to everyone in the safehouse. This time, zeir communication is immediate, without the steady scrolling of text. Prepared in advance:
Hey, so. Emergency everyone. Come to the safehouse ASAP. Morningstar agents are in trouble, including a number who have helped you behind the scenes. Gaby will tell you more once you get there.
Once everyone shows up, crowded inside the part of the safehouse with the cots, Gaby gives everyone the rundown. The risk. The place where the rest of the agents are – this last bit of information being shared with an uneasy edge, arms crossed and body language giving off her discomfort. There are other people at risk, people who can't fight, who try to undermine the corporations with their regular lives, doing their best to keep the people they care about safe from their rebellious activity.
After she hands out the gear, she insists that it must be returned. But Gaby isn't stupid. Her desperation is inherent in her decisions, in the information that follows: exposing most of the inactive safehouses, giving away the addresses of the people likely in danger. Every Morningstar contact in New Amsterdam is likely at risk. So far, agents in other megacities aren't being targeted – yet. But this operation could be a model for future UNA efforts to eliminate the Morningstar threat.
The safehouses are spread across the city. Typically present in disheveled and forgotten pieces of real estate, there will be squatters and homeless alike taking up space as they move inside with the agents. This may prove a risk, and they may need to be bribed to go elsewhere, offered food and supplies. Other safehouses will be beneath bars, convenience stores, and through the storage room in less expensive apartment buildings – businesses and buildings owned by long-time Morningstar agents, kept ready in the case of an emergency like this one.
None of the safehouses will be prepared for living with the exception of cots and communal restrooms ready for use. This is a problem, but not a priority. She'll ask that everyone get out there and save the lives of the agents. Bring them and their families in safely – the rest can be figured out after that.
> RESTORING ORDER
Given the limitations over real estate and space even in a city as large as New Amsterdam, every citizen lives in an apartment building. The great majority of them were meant to be built quickly, similar layouts and designs behind them. A quick bit of research will get anyone the floor plans for these places – they're publicly available, ready for potential tenants. Most of these places are no dreamhouse, however: small and contained, they show the lifestyle of the typical Morningstar agent.
Any of the agents with a child – and there will only ever be one per agent, with the restrictions on childbirth – will have a roomier place, with better furnishing and more space for a child to run and grow up. These places will afford the family within better privacy, and many of them have drones and advanced robotics to help maintain the household, even caring for their child and keeping the door locked as the UNA soldiers move inside.
Where it's viable, the majority of UNA soldiers will move through the front door of these buildings. Never numbered over five, these soldiers will take the endless staircase up, erasing what little chances there are to run into anyone along the way. The knocks are just a cover to soothe the close-packed neighbors. Not all are fooled, and that's where the calls to the NAPD come in – though the UNA is prepared for this, too. Ready to assert their jurisdiction. Rather: their bosses are prepared. These soldiers have their orders and beyond that, only follow their orders with their formidable physicality and swift training.
But they are physically assertive: most of them are tall, seemingly without gender within thick black, metal armor. Despite their size and their robotic carapace, they are human underneath. Their extensive armor doesn't slow them down, instead seeming to propel them forward in a fight, letting them predict their enemies' moves as the mask they wear provides diagnostics and likely attacks on the fly. They carry extensive weapons and supplies, all to wear down any opponents. When they fight together, their actions are perfectly complementary.
They won't start a fight, but as soldiers, they are prepared. Though they enter through the front door, they intend to leave through a window, into a large flying vehicle outside, ready to hold the targets and bring them to a temporary dropsite. They don't expect any assailants, anyone to provide trouble – but they wouldn't be very well-trained, well designed if they couldn't expect or deal with the unexpected. They won't shoot unless someone forces the matter. Their training means their stature should be enough to put down most threats.
> A WELL-LAID TRAP
Confident and well-trained, the Morningstar agents have the plan ahead of them all mapped out. They know the shifts, the patrol patterns, especially at hours like this one. Fewer, right now, but they aren't nonexistent. Several strike teams spread out, ready to move to dismantle the UNA soldiers on site as needed. These are combat-trained agents, but five versus three UNA soldiers, or two, or even one still leads to odds where they don't win. Morningstar knows these soldiers intimately, has studied and discerned their few weaknesses. But these UNA soldiers are formidable opponents.
UNA Soldiers en route to Morningstar's goal will be handled with an eerie lack of follow-up. No reports of reinforcements incoming. The swift-moving Morningstar agents are too focused on their goal, which is close now, to worry about the implications. Besides, their information told them most agents would be away on training exercises. Reinforcements being delayed is no surprise.
Each agent has their own reason for being here, for believing that Morningstar needs to be more proactive, more forceful in fighting back. They aren't career soldiers, but people who thought that they could wield a gun and change a world that hides its problems under false promises and shimmering gloss. Many are impatient, frustrated: they were given a lead on weapons in June. They weren't mislead then, at least not intentionally, but what they got instead was a bus full of disoriented people. This cache is real, verified, and vulnerable, housed here temporarily before being moved for some unknown operation.
Once the Morningstar agents are all inside, the concealed UNA soldiers left at the base line up in formation. Perfectly tailored for the fight ahead, they move onto the site. Any agents on lookout duty will see the UNA moving in, ready to lay waste to anyone in there. This is a trap, they message frantically. The very real weapons inside are meant to mock with false hope.
The UNA aren't worried about Morningstar making off with their toys. After all, this is just as planned.
> INTERLUDE
Numerous officers pass by the holding cells in the NAPD's twelfth precinct, talking softly about what can they even do, muttering to themselves. Others pop a squat nearby and call it a well-earned day off. Let those soldiers take care of whatever mess they're cleaning up. That's not their job.
It's around this time that a third, unidentified group, takes advantage of the chaos. Well-dressed despite what is a late hours right now, they head into the precinct to take care of a dangling loose end. They show credentials that link them to New Beijing's governing body and personal security, they claim the men temporarily known as Tak and Alexei. As they're brought out of their cells, they're injected with the same compulsory drug as always, leaving them veritable walking zombies at first, leaving them unable to speak or act as they're given orders that tell them to do otherwise.
The records of these men will disappear with this action, the two of them swept away into the back of an expensive four-door sedan. The whole incident erased. Two somehow anonymous men didn't kill semi-innocent bystanders during the festival. As long as the records can be trusted, that was a fantasy. A whimsy.
Morningstar cameras will see this sedan stop near the current safehouse, near the typical entrance, and order Hei and Jake out. "Stay here. Sit down. Don't do or say anything until someone comes to retrieve you. It'll be a bit – they're tied up right now."
The man in the passenger seat in the front rolls down his window, leaning forward on his arm. His face is concealed, utilizing technology that's not the same but not dissimilar to what Morningstar has at their disposal. "Try not to do anything else too stupid, will you? The cops are gonna have a bug up their asses about you idiots."
And then the sedan rolls away, lifting up and passing through the city. Morningstar cameras will spot a specific – or perhaps the more apt word is "suspicious" – lack of license plate.
> MEDI-UNITS
Each of the safehouses were designed for the worst case scenario. There is a medi-unit in all of the safehouses, a large and complex machine that can heal most ills, but given the expensive nature of their design and the risk of using them, they're not used lightly.
The medi-units are reserved for the direst of needs. come into play. Dependent on a person's time of death to bring them back to the living, they need the exact time so that someone can clock it in and prepare the restoration process correctly. There are many risks in lacking that information – someone may come back damaged, unhealed, hurt in some way. They may not live for long. Assuming that a body is brought in with a time of death, they'll be directed to a safehouse with a free unit.
The person is kept in a medically induced coma while the machine repairs their body. What dreams someone experiences will be at the end point – which can be between 48 and 60 hours – as they slowly surface, starting to return to the world of the living. As they surface, their mind will be encumbered by images of bright blue lights glowing, swirling, communicating – but language seems thoroughly out of reach.
Once the medi-unit opens, the person inside will be thirsty. Desperate for water. But there will be no other signs of the wear and tear on their bodies.
> FINAL OOC NOTES
Please refer to the OOC EVENT POST for this event for all OOC info, including suggestions for directions on how to engage with the event and the questions thread for any questions regarding this event. The outcome for this event will depend upon character plans and actions developed in both this OOC post, and any additional plots brought to the moderators. Please feel free to submit any game-changing plans to us under the questions thread – but we will be reading all comments on the post!
The Operation will continue until September 11, IC time. An aftermath wrap up post will be made on January 26 which will detail the resolution and fallout of the event.
As a reminder, there is one power level up available for this event. This will be granted for a thread of at least 5 action/log comments containing your character utilizing their power in some way. They will need to reach the 5 comments required by FEBRUARY 23 to be eligible. Submission will be handled on the wrap up post.
Our Activity Check will be posted tomorrow, January 20, at 9 PM UTC. It will run for seven days and close on January 27. We will not post a warning list.
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meadowlarklogs2019-01-19 09:58 pm
hi i'm soRRY i'm here !!
The decision's conscious, but it's quick. Johnny turns heel on the fleeing agents and bolts for the dumpster, swinging his gun over the strap on his shoulder to pull himself up with both hands, leaning over— ]
Rey. [ She'd fallen quickly, and recognition had been unsteady; it's an unhappy confirmation, concern and focus clear in his voice. ] Hey, don't move. Are you hurt?
[ Stupid question. It should probably be how is she hurt. ]
no subject
Something is broken in her chest. Fractured fully. She looks down and sees blood, wet spot of darker, brownish black in her tactical gear, just below the injury in her shoulder from where she'd been shot. It's a mess. She's a mess, and she's bleeding all over the trash.
It's never been like this. Not this much blood. She didn't even know it could be like this. ]
Ribs. [ She finally gets out the word, though she can barely inflate her lungs. They're the worst of it, she knows. Then, even frightened and dizzy and dazed, she says, ] Run.
[ He should go. What if those UNA soldiers come down here to make sure no witnesses survived? But no. They'd have no reason to assume she could have possibly survived it. It should have been impossible. ]
no subject
There's no real traction in the bags and filth, and he sinks awkwardly into the trash next to her without bothering to get better footing. He isn't running. He isn't going to pick her up, either. Instead Johnny frantically yanks the gloves off his hands and lets them drop. One hand seeks out hers; the other slips under the collar of her jacket, trying to get skin contact. He doesn't know if that even matters. He hasn't tested it enough yet, but now isn't the time to find out.
The blue light kindles out of sight, buried beneath tactical vests and dark layers. The empathy bond sparks to life with it. The surge of fear and worry's first, parallel to cold, hard control, trying to keep his focus. ] I've got you. Just— hold on.
[ Doubt, too. It's an icy thread, rising up as he waits for his power to kick in. It takes a few seconds. Then it's there, a sharp twist in his chest. It builds, frustratingly slow, white hot pain setting up house at a leisurely pace. It won't feel much better on her end. Hot, more than anything. Like cauterizing a wound, nerves fraying before they can mend. ]
i never get to use this icon, also welcome back to weirdly sexual tags with tifa and melissa
His fingers touch skin, and her breath scrapes along the inside of her throat as the connection opens. Fear of her injuries -- they're worse than she's ever had, much worse -- but bewilderment too because no one has ever stuck around to try to do anything about them. If someone were doing this on Jakku, it'd be because she had something they wanted, and they were hoping to take advantage of her weakened state.
Johnny isn't.
The searing pain is so hot it's cold, rolling up her spine, and her eyes roll back with it, a guttural noise coming out of the back of her throat. She twitches, arches, as her two cracked and broken ribs start to realign. It's a sickening noise. Meat and wet and crunching. They realign, and she can breathe again.
Not deeply, she learns as she sucks in greedy gulps, but she can breathe. She reaches up with her good arm again then, getting a grip on his, holding onto him, meeting his gaze through some concerted effort. She's not sure what she's trying to do. Steady herself, maybe. Something is happening, something that doesn't make sense. Her body shudders with it. ]
just murder your character more (also oops)
Johnny's response is to grin like an idiot, even as his brow creases with pain. He can feel her small breaths under his palm, air rasping steadily through her throat. It's an improvement, even if the rest of it debateably isn't.
His free hand's there to meet her desperate grasp when she reaches out, taking a firm grip at her elbow and holding her steady. He holds even longer than she does, aside from the inevitable grimace; he knew what to expect. Except last time he tried this it was a paper cut, by comparison. He isn't expecting all of it.
Like the sudden, sharp throb in his shoulder, mirroring where the blood's thickly coating hers. He's watching her, keeping his focus up and keeping her focused, but he can't help the quick intake of breath when a wash of black rolls over his vision. Johnny holds on for another second, then reluctantly breaks skin contact, flinching back just enough to put a thin line of air between his hand and her neck.
Whether it's that or simple restraint, the transfer's cut. The heat surges back like a wave and then spreads out, soaks in, dissipates. Johnny fully intends to say something clever or ask her if she can move. Instead he falls back against the wall of the dumpster with an awkward thud, breathing heavily, grip on her arm still tight. ]
honestly ur right
When he slumps back with an uneven clang against the metal dumpster wall, Rey goes briefly slack, staring up into the seemingly endless stretch of skyscrapers all around. There are so many bright lights here, and none of them stars. She misses what the stars looked like.
Which, she supposes, means she's going to survive. It's a coherent thought, even if it's besides the point, slightly dissociative. She groans and sits up, struggling as the pain continues to lance through her ribs, her shoulder. It's not healed all the way. Her lungs won't inflate fully. Her shoulder is still bleeding, less now -- mostly stopped for now at least, just not closed up -- though her ribs have stopped bleeding entirely.
Her fingers fumble across her chest, find purchase in the holes of her shirt and vest where her rib had been jutting through the bloodied fabric, only slightly. It's gone now. She looks at Johnny. ]
You ... [ Healed her ?? ] You heal people? [ That's so much more fucking useful than floating rocks / ? ?? This is unfair. ]
no subject
He's aware of his shoulder, too, though it's less severe — a dull, pulsing pain, none of the sticky discomfort that means blood. Whatever had transferred, it hadn't broken the skin.
It's an inventory that makes the word "heal" seem woefully insufficient. He lifts his hand and holds it flat, waving it in a so-so gesture as he sits up straighter, grimacing through the effort. ] I... delegate.
[ Is that even the right word??? Not really. His voice strains slightly as he leans forward, collecting his high tech gloves from the garbage they're both sitting in. ] Redistribute. But it worked, right? You think you can walk?
no subject
[ She gets up onto her knees, wincing, and scrambles to straighten in her delight. Then she helps pull him up. Standing on top of soft bags of garbage is not ideal. They don't really hold weight well, and it's a slippery process. One of her hands has to hold onto the edge of the dumpster. She's ignoring about thirty aches and pains and still clearly hindered, badly wounded, but --
She's moving.
And she's positively delighted by his power. It doesn't occur to her to notice that he's transferred it. She doesn't catch his meaning. So she's not delicate with him in pulling him to his feet, not at all. She's the hurt one, after all. If she can push herself to do it, it's within his range. ]
no subject
Johnny's slower to get up, right up until he isn't because she's eagerly hauling him to his feet. He winces with the effort, leaning hard on the edge of the bin as he straightens, sucking in a quick breath. Again, he's had worse, and it technically is well within the range of his tolerance, but— ]
How about a nice steady jog.
[ Running's a little optimistic, and not even because of the cracked ribs. He feels— off. Lightheaded. Like blood loss, or that weird, hollow feeling that's left behind when adrenaline drains out. Johnny slips his gloves back on as an excuse to put off jumping out of the dumpster for a few more seconds. When he speaks again it sounds casual, offhand. ]
The family got out, by the way. A few seconds before you got out through the window.
[ Seems worth noting. ]
no subject
You're hurt.
[ She's doing math. From here, it's easier to parse out. She reaches forward and prods deliberately at his ribs -- on the same side where she'd been injured far worse, only moments before. The same side that still aches. If she'd done it to herself, she'd yelp out in pain, so ...
She'll address the bit about the family later. Honestly, she'd figured it was a lost cause the minute she'd gone out the window, so that's a relief. ]
no subject
He'd be content to brush the revelation aside. Instead he looks at her, clocks the confusion and concern, and decides it'd be a waste of time. ]
Like I said, redistributed. Kind of like shitty, budget heals. [ A beat. He really isn't trying to sound cagey, but— ] Maybe not a dumpster kind of conversation, though.
[ ... actually, the dumpster's fine. The UNA soldiers are potentially less fine even if the coast is currently clear. ]
no subject
[ Not a 'trying not to get caught in the UNA trap snapping shut' conversation either. It's best delayed for another time, as they both need to get to some kind of safety at this point. She frowns deeply. She can't be sorry that he did it, since he'd probably saved her life, but she does feel some guilt for putting him in a position where he's now injured too. ]
We should make ourselves scarce. Clear the area before they find us. We're not going to be able to help anybody else like this.