"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
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[ She snorts. That's what she thinks of that. It's easier, somehow, now that his hands are in her hair instead of on her. She doesn't know what to do with her hands, though, so she just keeps strangling the loofa. ]
I'm not kicking you out of your bed. I promise I'll be fine on the floor. [ She's only barely gotten used to sleeping on a real bed in the first place. ]
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there might even have been something a little gratifying in seeing her twist it in her fist like that. )
We'll share. I need to keep an eye on you, anyway. Looks like you took quite a knock to your head.
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[ She turns then, letting up on the loofa. It's stupid. They're wasting water. But she puts a hand on his arm, and all that comes through the blue-light bond that glows between them is reassurance. She's touched by his concern, but also realizing that his unnecessary fussing isn't just a facet of his disposition.
He's really worried. ]
I'm alright. Really. [ She knows what it feels like -- to be paralyzed by the fear of losing him. She'd reached out to him when she'd lost Finn and Poe and Tony and Marcos and clung to him almost pathologically, despite all her still present reservations.
She's not even fighting to sleep on the floor at this point. Just worried about where this is coming from. ]
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and here, in New Amsterdam, where the displaced come and go in waves, the possibility of losing her in some is even higher. )
A concussion is nothing to laugh at. ( he should move her arm. he should, but he doesn't. inhaling slowly and finally looking away, reaching for that damned loofah more to have something to do than out of a pressing need. ) It will make me feel better, if you did.
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She'd been the one to worry him by coming here an expecting him to give her a place to recover. He at least deserves her efforts to dispel some of that concern, in return. Thinking about it in that way makes it easier for her to disarm herself. She lets her hand slide down his arm, off of his.
Then she leans back to rinse out her hair. ]
Okay. Together.
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he is quiet for awhile, then. picking up the shampoo bottle and repeating his previous action — squeezing out some of it onto his palm, tipping her head back enough that he can begin to work it into her scalp. for some reason, his attention catches on the loofah — still twisted in one of her hands — and despite himself, buffs a soft laugh. )
I think you've throttled the life out of that thing.
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Reaching out, she hangs the poor loofa on the faucet. Decides to stop choking it. ]
I don't know what to do with my hands. [ He's doing everything. She's just here to be present for it and let him, and Rey doesn't know what to do with that. It's sad, actually. She doesn't know how to be cared for; she's always needed to be useful instead. ]
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he plucks the loofah from the faucet, reaches for the bottle of body wash. ) You wet it, ( which he demonstrates, leaning over her to run it under the spray, ) apply the body wash and scrub.
( which is what he does next, starting with her neck and then sliding the loofah along the line of her right shoulder. )
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I've cleaned myself. [ Just to make sure that's clear. She has in fact showered before -- mostly since being here, but that's not the point. ] I just use my hands.
[ And now he's cleaning her -- hence, she doesn't know what to do with her hands. And he's apparently not using his, so she's no longer able to write off the earlier groping as a distraction in the midst of something functional. That's apparently not even how he bathes. ]
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Not ideal for exfoliation, though. ( he allows himself to admire the slope of her shoulders, the constellations of freckles spread out across tanned skin. he knows, now, that it's every bit as soft as he thought it would be.
he blows out a breath, knowing that this will haunt him for a good long while. )
Do you want to try? ( offering the loofah to her after he's satisfied that her back is as clean as it's liable to get. )
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[ She mutters it quietly. It shouldn't be such a difficulty, turning that down. Fatigue has hit, her body aching and injured and overworked. But it's more appealing than she would like to admit. She turns to punctuate the decision, allowing the water to rinse suds off her back. But she's close enough to him in these cramped quarters that turning almost puts them chest-to-chest, pressed together.
Her breath is short. It's not just out of caution for her ribs. She looks over him again one more time. Hair slightly damp from ambient spray, chest splashed and shining, he's a lot to take in. But she focuses instead on how ridiculous it is that his pants are thoroughly damp. She leans her head back and rinses out the new shampoo while the body wash cascades down her back.
And she's done. A good thing too because not long after the soap is gone, when she's just appreciating the warmth, and his closeness, the water shuts off. ]
Karking water rationing. [ She grimaces. None for Ben in his own house because of her fussing. And their mutual distraction. ] Sorry.
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it’s messy, like everything about them has always been, but he welcomes it even though his cock is already hard enough to be almost blinding and they’re both soaking wet. )
It’s all right. ( his hands are at her shoulders—steadying her, steadying them both.
he exhales a warm, shaky breath; moves his hands. )
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It's not the concussion that makes her dizzy and slow to react. It's the uncertainty. She knows that they're teetering on the brink of something that she's not properly equipped to process or make decisions about. Her eyelids flutter, and when they open, she's staring up at him in faint wonder.
She can't figure this out right now. She does what she does best and avoids thinking about things that require her to process her own feelings, and focuses instead on a concrete task at hand. ]
We should dry off.
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he pulls his eyes from her face ㅡ so he isn't tempted to linger on her mouth and thoughts of perhaps kissing her again ㅡ to the counter, where the towel is currently resting. )
You first.
( it's an offer made less out of chivalric intent than it is because he had only thought to bring one towel. )
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She hasn't had need, yet, to learn to wrap it around herself. Instead she towels off her arms, her torso, wrings the worst of it out of her hair. She gives up on her legs. It's safer not to try than to aggravate her ribs again. So once she has done the bulk of this facing away from him, she turns and passes the towel into the shower through the door for him.
She grabs the shirt he's brought her from on top of the sink, unfolding it. It takes some finagling for her to get it over her head without raising her arms properly, but she manages out of sheer stubbornness. The overwhelming size of it helps. Ben's shirts must be at least four sizes too large for her, and when it hangs around her properly, it skims the top of her thighs like a tunic-dress, swallowing her. ]
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glancing back as soon as he catches the pained wuff she makes as she slips the shirt over her head. sees the towel, finally. slung over the side of the door. he reaches for it. )
Bed's near the far window. ( the window is his sole indulgence, truthfully. knocking his rent up several brackets because of the passably decent view. ) If you want it.
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It stops her from arguing the point of taking his bed. She's too tired, anyway. Too sore. Too unused to having anyone do anything kind for her, and here Kylo is, doing all of it. Taking care of her. ]
Thank-- [ She gets choked up. Blinks something back, swallows the watery sound. It's a lump deep in her throat now. But after a pause to center herself, she talks around it. ] ... Thank you.
[ Best to leave it there. She turns and evacuates the bathroom like it's on fire, heading for the bed. She crawls onto it, laying down on top of the covers instead of under them--it's a heatwave, after all. Her hair soaks one of his pillows as she nestles down against it. Every breath hurts, lungs straining against a cracked ribcage. ]