"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
no subject
she spots a set of broken speakers on the floor beneath the opposite wall. presumably, they used to hang from the ceiling, and as her gaze skims upwards, she notes a broken ceiling tile that betrays the formerly-hidden junction box above. there's bound to be something in there. ]
Can you reach that?
[ she sure as hell can't, and there doesn't seem to be enough to climb on top of to get to it. ]
no subject
Ah.
frowning, he moves closer. )
Maybe. ( it'll be a stretch, though. one that even he ㅡ all six foot two inches of him ㅡ might struggle to make.
skimming across the wreckage for anything that could be of use, he returns to Daisy. drags his tongue across his teeth. )
Get on my shoulders.
no subject
she's an adult. she can definitely climb on his shoulders for a serious mission to accomplish serious things. this won't make her feel like she's back at the ymca playing chicken on some teenage boy's shoulders at all. ]
Okay, [ sure, she'll do this. why not. ] Don't get handsy, Kylo.
[ with one hand, she gestures for him to bend down, because she sure as hell ain't leapfrogging this. ]
no subject
( there's a wryness to his deadpan, though. a flicker of something very nearly amused, gone as quickly as it came. she'd caught him off-guard ㅡ and rather effortlessly at that.
he'll have to watch out for that.
at her direction, he settles into a crouch. )
no subject
if she was facing the other way, it'd be a very different kind of mission. as it is, she still has to keep a hand on the back of his head, gently nudging him in the needed direction so that she can use her other to hopefully reach up to the ceiling.
you know, once he actually manages to stand upright. please god do not drop her. do not fall over. she's counting on you. ]
Upsi-daisy, buddy, time to go.
[ like talking to a toddler who's still trying to figure out how to walk. she's so encouraging, right? ]
i can't believe i finally get to use this icon and it's for this
it takes awhile for him to pick his way across the wreckage, avoiding several stumbling blocks as he goes. now is not the time to take a spill ㅡ which would bump this from 'probably not the least dignified thing he's done in his life' to 'at least somewhere in the top ten.'
he does have a reputation to uphold. at least in theory. )
no subject
unfortunately, they also feel a little out of reach. even on his shoulders, daisy's arms struggle to reach past the crosshatched tile guides, and each stretch wobbles her already precarious balance so high in the air.
if she's not careful, they'll fall. they won't die, but it'll suck. ]
Can you stay still, [ as if it's totally his fault these ceilings are so high ] before you drop me on my head.
no subject
( somehow ㅡ somehow ㅡ he manages to steady them long enough for Daisy to manage to get what she needs. getting her down onto the ground safely takes a little more maneuvering, but they manage to do it without drawing any notice (mercifully).
then he's back to scavenging every bit of scrap metal he can find. it's a mish-mash, hardly ideal, but they'll make it work. as she said, it didn't need to be pretty it just needed to be functional.
the scrap is deposited at Daisy's feet. he begins to pull of first one glove and then the other. ) Tell me what I need to do.
no subject
You need to melt it, hothands. [ how he's going to do that, she doesn't know. she hasn't seen him utilize his powers yet. just knows he can. ] If you can melt it, I should be able to mold it.
[ she's never tried to reassemble molten metal before, so she's not entirely sure how it'll feel, but daisy's willing to wager a guess it'll be a little more exhausting than anything else she's done today. ]
And then we'll mess with the batteries. How are you with a big stick, by the way?
[ he has longer arms. if they have to jab a long taser into a soldier, she'd prefer he do it. ]
no subject
Right down to liquid? ( he's already pulling off his other glove, that shimmer of light just beneath the skin ㅡ it'll take a moment to get hot enough, regardless. )
It's not my weapon of choice but I'll manage.
( he'd trained with staves as a student. had been ... competent. )
no subject
[ probably easier if it's more putty than pourable, but she won't complain too much either way. they won't have a whole lot of expertise between the two of them anyway. they're truly #wingingit ]
Let me know when you're ready to rumble.
[ because while he sits there and babysits the metal, she's going to start scavenging for battery packs and electrical components. there's thankfully quite a bit of it scattered around, everything from a broken retro-chic video game console to a robotic vacuum cleaner (sorry, roomba-san) to even a portable dishwasher turned on its side in the kitchen. she'll have her hands full. ]
no subject
instead, lip caught between his teeth, he directs his attention back down to the scrap metal, picking up the first and working on pushing the heat out through his palms and into it. different metals have different melting properties, he knows, which means he has to keep his attention focused on the task. when satisfied, he’ll set the piece down and pick up another, exhale the tension locking his muscles and begin again. )
no subject
but who cares? no big deal. kylo's got something much more interesting — a steadily growing collection of molten scrap metal, sorted into piles of varying colors like the nerd she's beginning to suspect he is — and so daisy finally gives up on collecting in order to sit down cross-legged in front of him, a hand reaching out to hover over the closest piece of tawny gold something-or-other. ]
A fork, right? Or is it a U-shape? [ her free hand gestures in the hand, drawing out the patterns for the top of the stick. she's envisioning a cattle prod, but badass. ] For the top, I mean.
no subject
this, though. this could work. he nods, ) U-shape might be easier.
( picking over the pile of cooling metal, he locates one that should be large enough to suit their needs. he waits for a nod from Daisy before, shimmer spreading back over his skin, he begins to bend it. )
no subject
or an ox. are there oxen in new amsterdam? probably not. ]
I've got a lot of cables here. We can wrap them, maybe pull a little of the metal from the staff to secure them in place. [ one of the heavier batteries, pulled from the insides of the junction box, still sparks as she picks it up. ] If we can focus the voltage between the U-shape ...
[ a taser without the cartridge, an arc of electricity that'll shock anything that tries to break the flow. ]
This could work.