ARRIVAL LOG 002

[larkers]

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: July 4
WHAT: The second arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Coercion and loss of autonomy. Further notes at end of log.

> ARRIVAL LOG #002

Awareness comes to you in blurred snatches, cloudy fragments of sound and light, color, sensation. Hazy and difficult to grasp on to, but slowly aligning into focus. A series of regular, rhythmic beeps. A medicinal, astringent smell. The sensation of movement, a low hum and accompanying vibration under you. A murmur of nearby conversation. Your eyes are heavy, hard to keep open, but in the glimpses between slow, dark blinks you see three people in black body armor seated opposite you, and next to them, a woman in dark gray scrubs. "They're coming to," one of the guards says, nodding his head towards you. The woman looks over at you, smiles gently. "Don't worry. We're almost there." You realize there are two others next to you. All of you in white scrubs, hair recently cut but at various stages of growth, restrained by straps across your chests, arms, feet, holding you to the bench under you. To your left, an armored interior door, two more people visible, the movement of streets passing through a windshield. You try to open your mouth to speak, but it's as if your tongue is coated in tar, and you manage nothing more than an empty parting of lips. The vehicle stops. The guard opposite you unbuckles your restraints, helping you to your feet, your limbs feeling wooden and heavy, slow to move. The back doors are opened, city sounds flooding it, daylight hurting your eyes, making them water. You aren't given any time to adjust, the guards carefully helping each of you out, the nurse looking each of you over, quickly and methodically. She gives a nod, and she and the guards climb back into the van, the doors closing behind them. The engine powers up again, and then they're gone. You're left alone in a city alley, with no idea of where you are or why you've been brought here. There is the hum of a crowd nearby, at the other end of the alley from where the van departed. Around the corner the narrow, relative quiet of the alley opens up into a large city square - filled with tarpaulin shelters, beds, and hundreds of people. ◉ Though entirely capable of independent action and thought, new characters will find themselves completely, unquestioningly compliant to any verbal statement which could be taken as a command or request.

> THE SHELTERS

You may be used enough to your neural implant interfaces by now to recognize an incoming message, but this one doesn't wait for you to access it. Flashing up demandingly to the left of your vision, the text spills rapidly, as if El's typing it as you watch: You're not going to believe this, but an unmarked van just stopped and dropped three more extremely confused looking people in white in the city. Right next to Overbough square. Someone should get over there, pick them up before they walk into the shelters and some concerned citizen calls the cops. Seriously. Overbough square is to the northwest of the city, surrounded by low-rise office buildings and a department store which closed its doors some months ago. It's now being used for emergency housing of those displaced from their homes by the attack on June 27. Based in the old department store, the building has been filled to capacity and the shelter has spilled out, filling the large square with beds and people. Tarp coverings have been erected to try and protect those beneath from the harsh sun, but do little to break the summer heat or the warmth of so many people grouped together. Attempts have been made to keep the space organized, but with the huge amount of people staying here, there seems little rhyme or reason. Movement and noise is a constant, with volunteers and emergency service workers carrying supplies, setting up new beds or coverings where possible. There are families looking for beds, people looking for lost friends or relatives, officials calling names over megaphones, and kids running haphazard through the mill, playing tag, shouting out to one another. An overwhelming space for someone new to this world. A difficult space to navigate for those trying to spot three specific individuals - even with the distinct white scrubs and shorn hair. Better work quick, as with this many officials already working in the area, it's only a matter of time before even this crowd can no longer disguise the unusual new arrivals.

> THE SAFEHOUSE

Access to the safehouse is a hatch hidden behind stacks of empty storage shelves in the back of an abandoned supermarket in an outer district of the city. The immediate area is similarly abandoned, empty stores, flanked by several blocks of dive bars and clubs which cater to more niche tastes. A place where people can come and go unseen, or, if seen, not spoken of. A dark haired woman called Gaby is ready to greet the new arrivals and get them settled in, brusque and no-nonsense. ◉ The safe house is a large open space, filled with rows of basic cots set up to sleep a large amount of people. Basic, but outfitted with everything necessary for daily life. A few doors lead to back rooms for storage, medical care and a large communal bathroom, and past the long rows of cots there is a communal kitchen, fully stocked, and an eating area. Privacy is at a minimum. ◉ New characters will be asked to pick their beds, and provided with a change of (second-hand, mismatched and somewhat threadbare) clothes and basic toiletries. ◉ There are 23 NPC occupants of the safehouse, natives to New Amsterdam. Some are individuals, but there are several families with children of various ages. They've adjusted to sharing the safehouse with these strange outsiders, but are still somewhat cautious of answering too many questions about themselves or their situations. ◉ Morningstar agents visit the native occupants regularly, but keep their contact with player characters to a minimum. It's made clear that should they have any queries or requests, they should speak to Gaby or El. ◉ The drugs making new characters compliant will remain in their systems for a few hours after their arrival at the safehouse before finally beginning to fade. They will be gone entirely after a night's rest. In the meantime, they may want to be careful of what others say to them. ◉ New characters will be given rudimentary access to the network on arrival in the safehouse, but will not have their ID set up yet. They will be able to make posts and replies, but their messages will be anonymous and they do not have inboxes yet. ◉ New characters will not be allowed to leave the safehouse until July 7. These 4 days are for them to adjust, learn about the world they've arrived in from their fellows, and for El to speak with them and work on setting up their IDs.

> FINAL OOC NOTES

Welcome to Meadowlark, newbies! You're now free to post to the network and logs comms. To reiterate, your characters will have no IDs or inboxes, nor be allowed out of the safehouse until July 4 (September 13). At that point it's expected they'll have gotten a good idea of their new situation from their fellow characters, and will have discussed their background and job potentials with El in order for their false IDs to be set up. If you have any questions or ideas about how you'd like to get your character involved in the world, or if they'd like to join Morningstar, please head over to the plot engagement post and drop us a comment! For questions specific to this log, there is a thread below. Please check out our September calendar rundown for a look at things happening this month. As a reminder, AC for new characters will be 10 comments across 2-4 threads, while current characters will need to provide the full AC of 20 comments across 2-4 threads. AC will be posted on September 20 and close on September 27. If you do not reply to AC, you will be considered idled and dropped from the game. We will not post a warning list.

> NAVIGATION

Comments

[strove]

I will. [Allies would be important moving forward. People with some familiarity with technology and a city at all would definitely be able to help her, Murphy, and Bellamy. Clarke knows it's not good to look at people as allies and not potential friends. Once, they would have been easy friends. They would have been thrown into this together. But the part of her that was isolated following a constant threat of war feels like she can't be at ease yet. No one's had cause to show their true colors. All of that will change with time.

At least with the delinquents it was different. There was always some sense of who had done what. That doesn't exist here. Clarke knows she's withholding information.

But there are hints of what she's shared, and what her aims are overall.]

Right now, I'm just trying to find out what happened to us. Anything else doesn't matter. Any insight on where to begin would be ... nice, especially since I'm used to there being ... fewer potential culprits.

[saviorexe]

[Where to begin? Markus hardly knows himself, but it’s an unsatisfactory answer. New as he is, his mind reaches for possible square ones for them to plant their feet on. Derived from rational thinking, if nothing else, and still leaving them with a broad spectrum to narrow down, but—]

Whatever’s happening, it obviously isn’t a simple case of kidnapping. We’re all from different worlds, different walks of life. Some of us are a different species.

[Androids stuffed into human bodies, for instance.]

What does that sound like to you? It sounds like power, technology so advanced we can’t hope to comprehend it, and an inordinate amount of money. A large organization. Something like that, they have to leave digital footprints for us follow. How can they not?

[This is not an insubstantial operation. There has to be a trace of warping time and space itself somewhere imprinted on the city.]

[strove]

Truthfully, that's where I began, but this entire ... [System? Enterprise? It's hard to say. She pauses, shaking her head.] Never mind. I'll be blunt. Money doesn't exist for my people back home. We trade. And when people act, it's to show they're stronger than someone else and use that to keep their enemies in check. Everything is ... simpler.

[In that way, Clarke can't help but think about ALIE's solution for the Earth. Too many people was the initial problem, but as a machine, she only thought in steps, solving one before the other.

If Raven were here—a constant, unstoppable mantra—it would be easier to look into this without outside assistance. If she were here. She would already be online figuring out the search algorithms to get them in to where they need to be.

Instead, she looks elsewhere. Markus is just one of many at this point.]

Lacking familiarity means I get what you mean conceptually, but not necessarily beyond that. The first thing I did was look at test results for as many people as I could, and the drug they're using to keep us compliant is something made in house. At a lab. There may not even be a paper trail in its development.

[saviorexe]

[She's at a disadvantage, then, coming from a world like that. But quick to remind himself that despite apparent means of trade and shows of strength, Markus himself isn't much better off.

He knows how to start at unravelling clues as much as she does. Detroit had its technology, had its impressive technology (he's proof of that, alone), but nothing like this city. Nothing at all like what he witnessed on the short trip over here, drifting along in Connor's shadow like a lone fish caught in a net. Doesn't know how to navigate the intricacies of centuries' technological development, and the irony doesn't escape him.]

I'm at a loss when it comes to money, too. I don't have enough information about how this world operates, not yet.

[He'd have to get his feet wet. He'd have to expand his skill set beyond what his core programming once dictated (and still sticks to his personality), and all that he's become since.]

But that's all the more reason to learn. Did you find out anything more from these test results?

[strove]

Not yet. I know Katelin—she's one of us—I know she'd like to have a look at them under a microscope. Otherwise, I think we might need a geneticist to really look at them and see what's going on. We looked for the drugs first because it was the easiest place to begin, and I was hoping someone would be foolish enough to use something ... I don't know. Common. For here, at least.

[Wrench's suggestion that this is all the product of a mad scientist's dream comes to mind here. That certainly seems to be what's at play, but that's because they can't see the how or why. Clarke doesn't understand the goal.

Or why they needed this many people to accomplish it.

Or what they gain from sending them out like this.]

Ideally, we'd check to make sure you guys aren't carrying any biological agents on your person, but ... [No labs.

And they've already made contact with them.]

[saviorexe]

[The idea is one that makes Markus' frown run deeper. His eyes glance away, a mote of worry that could easily transform itself into a weighted guilt depending upon what happens from here on out.]

I had thought that... we might be more of a liability than anything else, after we arrived. But Morningstar has chosen to trust us and protect us, anyway. Hopefully that trust isn't misguided.

[In terms of biological agents on their person. Or trackers. Or anything else that wouldn't bode very well.]

I don't want to be the cause of any more trouble.

[strove]

No, I don't think you would. [Not from how Connor spoke about him, however briefly. She feels like she can trust them to both have good intentions. It's an odd feeling, but not one that's necessarily purely trust. It's what helps her keep her distance. It keeps her grounded.

It means she has allies.]

We'll know soon enough if it's any other way, but even then, I have my doubts. Still—I could see about drawing blood and getting it tested. I'd have to check to make sure they stocked up on that, but it might offer you some peace of mind moving forward.

[saviorexe]

That might not be a bad idea.

[What mysteries lie in Markus' blood, android-turned-human? What on earth would his even reveal?]

Peace of mind, and quelling a few curiosities. Actually, if you end up doing this, can I ask a favor of you? I know it might sound silly.

[strove]

If you're going to ask for a whole run of tests, I'm not even sure I can read them. I'd ask them to look for biological agents, and to get another look at the drug in your system. I wanted to do that with Connor, but I didn't even know where to begin when it came down to it.

[Which is a lot to say, because he might not even ask that. So, she adds, looking a little chastened:] If it's not that, then go ahead.

[saviorexe]

[Well, she's... half right.]

...I was going to ask if you could run a test for allergies. Food, specifically.

[Because, you know. Food is very important to live if you're human, but it can also accidentally kill you if you don't know your body that well.]

[strove]

[Oh.]

That's ... actually a good call. For both you and Connor. It might be interesting to see if anything unique comes up, considering.

[So, fair. Completely fair.]

[saviorexe]

[There are some things that you immediately think of when you used to be a caregiver. Markus is intimately aware of just how fragile a human body can be; and now he owns one.]

I can mention it to Connor, I'm sure he'd be just as willing. Having this body comes with a few more complications than what I'm used to, so better to get any potential issues out of the way first.

Thank you, by the way.

[strove]

You're welcome.

[Sincere. Clarke is divided between two mindsets. She both does good, but does it for a reason. But sometimes that reason is to do good, knowing that people need someone to follow. To count on.

You were born for this. How many times has she heard that?]

I think we're all scrambling for a place to start looking to figure out what happened to us. I just—we all need to know that. In time.

[saviorexe]

[From one leader to another, then, though Markus has been here for less than a day and still requires guidance from those who have been present longer — never mind the similar want to lead by example, by offering stability, etched into his core.

At least Clarke seems like the dependable sort. Of rational mind and careful thought. He can appreciate that.]

Together, we’ll find answers. Persistence, cleverness, and a little bit of luck… and eventually one answer will lead to another. It has to.

[strove]

It will. [There's no doubt in her mind about it. There has to be a way out of this.

But Clarke knows that she's been wrong before. That she hasn't always had the answer. That's a burden she has to carry when it comes to it.]

We have no choice but to make it happen.