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MEADOWLARK MODS ([personal profile] larkers) wrote in [community profile] meadowlarklogs2018-10-07 09:30 pm

ARRIVAL LOG 003

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: Night of July 18
WHAT: The third arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Coercion and loss of autonomy. Further notes at end of log.

> ARRIVAL LOG #003


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. Your eyes are heavy, hard to keep open, but in the glimpses between slow, dark blinks you see the gray interior of a vehicle, rows of paired seats ahead of you.

There are others with 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 seats. A murmur of conversation up at the front of the vehicle, and a man in dark grey scrubs stands to look back over the rows of seats, his gaze catching yours but then passing, as if unconcerned. 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. Several guards stand at the front of the vehicle, moving down the aisle between seats, unbuckling each passenger and helping them to their feet. One comes for you, and your limbs feel wooden and heavy, slow to move. Doors at the back of the vehicle are opened, city sounds flooding in, echoing strangely.

You aren't given any time to adjust. The guards carefully help each of you out. The nurses, all in the same dark gray scrubs, checking each of you over, quickly and methodically. With a nod, they and the guards climb back into the bus. One lingers for a moment, smiling at you, the expression smug and unpleasant. "Going to be great never to have to see your face again," he says. One of the others calls him to hurry up. He looks upwards, briefly, gives a mocking salute to something high behind you. Then he climbs into the bus, the doors closing behind him. The engine powers up again, and the bus is gone.

You're left alone in an alley, with no idea of where you are or why you've been brought here.

There is noise, nearby. A dense wave of chatter and music, filtering largely unobstructed to you. You look up and see there is no sky, but a ceiling, some few feet above your head. The artificial lights there are visible, but dimmed, as if emulating the light of an exterior street at night. As you venture around the corner you find a long street filled with booths and stalls, a crowd milling between them all, a densely busy market scene.

◉ 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 MARKET
The message from El comes the same as previous: insistent, not waiting for any active attempt to open it. Scrolling within your vision as if being written while you're reading it, the urgency is apparent.
There's another one.

Hang on.

Scratch that, there's another two. Anonymous buses dropping off a lot of people in white scrubs, Blue Sector, Birch Street. This time they did it right on top of the monthly mod market. Less likelihood of cops, more likelihood of them disappearing somewhere really unpleasant.

And when I say a lot of people, I mean a lot. Get down there, quick.
Birch Street is less of a street and more of a large tunnel, part of the complex warren of underground tunnels and buildings which reach downwards into the ground beneath New Amsterdam. Treated like just another part of the city, the streets are just as busy here as above ground, though the spaces are more clearly delineated between those for foot traffic and those for vehicles.

Birch Street would be one for vehicles, but tonight it's been reserved for another event. The monthly mod market is a place for people from all over the city - all over the world - with an interest in body modification to come and view the latest achievements and ventures in mod development, as well as show off their own and socialize with other modders. The space is full of booths and stalls displaying a wide variety of cybernetics, genetic alterations, as well as the latest in kinetic tattooing and electronic piercings. Some of the vendors come from well known brands, while others are independents, much more willing to push the boundaries of legality to give you the fully kicked up mod you've always wanted - for a price, of course. Crowds gather around certain booths to watch mods being done, while vendors shout for an audience at others. Music wars and clashes, booming from different stalls across the street, while neon lights flash and strobe out of booths and a few open store fronts.

It's a dense, noisy gathering of people, a unique slice of New Amsterdam's culture for an outsider to navigate. An easy space for anyone to get lost in, let alone someone stumbling new and confused into this world. Not all of this crowd are friendly, and many are likely to take advantage of a vulnerable individual - and with the uniformity of their white scrubs and shorn heads, the new arrivals are sure to catch attention.
 
> 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 - perhaps more than usual, considering the large amount of people filtering into the safehouse this night.
◉ 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.

◉ While there were previously also NPC occupants of the safehouse, natives to New Amsterdam, these people have now been moved on to somewhere safer. A few of their belongings remain, discarded or accidentally abandoned.

◉ Gaby will make it clear to all new arrivals that if they have any requests or queries, they should contact her 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 22. 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 22 (October 14). 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 October 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 October 20 and close on October 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
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ʟᴇᴇ ɢᴀʀʙᴇᴛᴛ (QUESTION.)

market.

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-08 02:55 pm (UTC)(link)
[ for precious moments, stephanie remains in the alley, stumbling and on the verge of upchucking. she wills herself to stand, pushing past the ache in throat and limbs with surprising ease. (adrenaline? maybe.) while jason's looking for clues, steph cruises for a bigger find: a jacket, dark and seemingly waterproof. nice.

it takes her longer than she'd like to admit to place the familiar figure popping in and out of the crowd. bruce has a type, after all, even if jason's hair is shorter than the norm. over the years, steph has seen the old photos around the manor and the more recent pics on file. can't be, she thinks, even as she adjusts her course to collide with him (and maybe he does the same). no idea if she'll be recognized, or if he'll notice the matching pattern of her hospital gown peaking out from underneath the long jacket — she hooks a hand on his arm, grip light. with her touch comes relief against any residual pain from being dumped in the alley (not that she knows that) and a wave of her emotions, anxiety and anger subsumed by a determined calm. ]


Go big or go home, Red.

[ steal a whole jacket, not a wallet, you weenie. ]
reneger: (can you turn it up?)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-08 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
( a hand grabs onto him, and instinct screams to grab hold of whoever the hell is trying to hold him down, throw them over a shoulder and pin them down, force answers out of them. luckily for them both--his reflexes are still sluggish, he doesn't register the need to fight until after jason hears her voice. not one he's extremely familiar with, no. but one he recognizes nonetheless. then the wave of something else, emotions that aren't quite his digging under his skin, a calmness that, for a moment, overpowers the anger seeping off of him in waves.

weird how that works, isn't it. the voice issues a challenge and he hates it. he's struggling to blend in as it is, trying to nick a coat off of someone's shoulders in the middle of a crowd is a little more difficult when you're big and bulky, stephanie brown. jason sees what she's wearing, knows what she's referring to. and then there's the whole, being drugged in an unknown alley with fuck knows what going on. a rough yank tries to free his arm from her with a low grumble under his breath: )


I'm not in the mood for playing games. ( but he's doing it anyway?? shoving through the next onslaught of people and hunkering down to make himself a little smaller. there's--another man walking through the crowd that's about his size wearing a nice black coat. jason (accidentally?) rams into him, nearly knocking both of them over as the man starts yelling at him to watch where he's fucking going and jason holds up both hands--empty--to offer a quiet apology before he's bending down after the man stomps off in the opposite direction to pick up the coat he'd dropped onto the ground.

not quite pick pocketing, but he still gets to shrug it on over shoulders and shove his hands down some nice pockets.

a jacket's a jacket. )
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ʟᴇᴇ ɢᴀʀʙᴇᴛᴛ (JERK.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-08 07:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ jason's anger bites at the edges of her calm, a spike of emotion that she doesn't understand (later, maybe, when she looks back on this moment and considers the faint glow between them, it'll click). dunno what she expected, after crashing herself into the og bat-mess, but it wasn't this. way to leap first, bg.

he frees his arm easily, though she's surprised he opts for distance instead of a swing. it takes her a minute to react, mouth dropping open at the sight of him beelining through the crowd like she triple dog dared him — which she kind of did, in retrospect.

steph scrambles after him, almost jogging to keep up, and finally falls into step beside him, suited up in his new threads. ]


I choose truth, for the record. [ She has the decency to sound abashed. ] No more dares.
reneger: (& that's how i fell in love.)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-08 07:22 pm (UTC)(link)
( it fits even if it's mildly snug. good enough. there's no room to be picky. not when it's plain scrubs versus whatever the hell he can grab off of others walking down the street. the sleeves are cut uneven: the left arm extends down enough and has a hole for his thumb to slip through while the right cuts off at the wrist. it's lined with pockets even if jason can't seem to find anything in them aside from lint and trash. useless. but it's warmer than the scrubs. he zips it up to his sternum, pulls the hood on over his hair. )

Lame. ( whatever. truth's more what he's looking for, anyway. his pace doesn't slow down for her, but he does start to look for a nice corner to chat in. ) When'd you get here?
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ʟᴇᴇ ɢᴀʀʙᴇᴛᴛ (ANYBODY.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-08 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
[ honestly? even with the rough start, this is going better than she ever expected. she figured she'd meet the red hood fist-first one day, making this bickering a win for team batgirl.

given his height, jason has a better vantage point for locating a hideaway, so steph focuses on ensuring no one follows them. team work makes the dream work, y'know. with measured effort, she keeps pace, slipping her hands into her pockets to avoid another bizarre, tactile encounter. ]


Half an hour ago tops. [ Hard to judge time when you're drugged up and paranoid. ] You?
Edited (weeps typos) 2018-10-08 20:39 (UTC)
reneger: (couldn't stand the person inside me.)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-08 11:33 pm (UTC)(link)
( fist first greetings are reserved for tim and bruce. or were. not anymore. he mourned tim's death like everyone else. stood by bruce when he needed him, despite how--self centered quite a few of bruce's requests were. family's family.

but not anymore. he was always the black sheep, once the outcast--now the outcast again. it's fine. he'll--figure it out. but none of that rage has ever been directed towards stephanie. he's had no reason to hate her, to direct any anger her way. )


About the same. ( probably. god, trying to think through all the headfuzz is hard. ) Find anyone else?
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ᴛᴀʟᴇɴᴛ ᴄᴀʟᴅᴡᴇʟʟ (COVERT.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-09 08:06 am (UTC)(link)
[ a couple gives them a weird look, lingering. in a heartbeat, she wonders if either of their marks has noticed the coat thievery and started retracing their steps. minor flaw in her genius coat-thieving plan: it's easy to give out a description of the missing items and then see said items being modelled by the not-so-dynamic duo. ]

Just you. [ she sets her gaze ahead, so as not to seem concerned. ] Okay, so I'm gonna grab your arm, and you're not gonna throw me off 'cause people are looking at us and me power walking to keep up with you on your — your bone stilts [ legs... ] is suspicious as hell.

[ there's a beat for him to accept her bullying before she loops her arm through his. ]
reneger: (you know i wanna keep you around.)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-09 08:34 am (UTC)(link)
You're a few years off, kid. ( but he slouches over a little more. keeps his steps in pace with hers, lets stephanie grab onto him. he's not at his strongest right now and even if those words hadn't been worded like an order, he would have followed. they're not close, but from the same ilk. and despite any differences, no one stupid and reckless enough to stay that close to bruce wayne that long is big enough of an asshole to fuck over someone else in the family.

not when they're weak, drugged, and barely coherent as it is. the jacket lends for an extra layer between skin, too. no awkward, uncomfortable feeling shares here. )


I only throw around the big guns now, not runts.

( because damian would kill him, cass would also kill him, tim is still fun to bully but. eh. one out of four isn't bad. )
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ᴅᴜsᴛɪɴ ɴɢᴜʏᴇɴ (SNARK.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-09 08:49 am (UTC)(link)
[ runts makes her nose wrinkle, even if the other implications of his statement are reassuring. jason todd picks his battles, huh? maybe it's a future thing, if he knows who she is sans cowl. steph hopes he got his information from the gotham gazette and not, like, her bat-file. ]

Noted, big guy. [ sure, jan. ] You wanna give me the exact year, as you recall it?
reneger: (got the chance to make her mine.)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-09 05:09 pm (UTC)(link)
( managing his emotions has always been jason's weakness, but he's been getting better about it. he's slightly less prone to exploding at nothing, slightly better at controlling himself. he knows better than to punch a kid who hasn't--done anything to piss him off. knows not to hit bruce back when the entire goddamn situation was on jason anyway. )

2018.
quipper: (WORRY.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-09 06:02 pm (UTC)(link)
[ her grip on him tightens. jason has no reason to lie, so steph doesn't doubt him. still hard to swallow the seven year gap between them.

time shenanigans it is, huh. ]


2011 for me.
Edited 2018-10-09 18:02 (UTC)
reneger: (sometimes black ends up white.)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-09 06:36 pm (UTC)(link)
( seven year gap but stephanie definitely is not seven years younger than she should be. thanks multiverse. she holds on tighter and jason--looks down to where she's gripping tight, but doesn't comment on it. )

Guess we do come from different sides.
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ᴊᴏᴇ ǫᴜɪɴᴏɴᴇs (ASSURE.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-11 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[ the gap means this is above her pay grade, especially without babs in her ear. be cool. keep pace and don't panic. batgirl's been to an alternate dimension before, and spoiler staggered out of black mask's clutches.

a gal's just gotta fight. ]


It's a great big multiverse, I guess.
reneger: (deceit so natural.)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-11 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
( they don't have much of a choice but to keep going, here. it--sucks but. what else are they supposed to do? they're in untested waters and jason doesn't like the look of this at all. doesn't like how it feels either. )

I'll watch your six if you watch mine.

( probably better to figure out what terms he's at with other universe versions of people he's mildly familiar with, right. )
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ʀᴀᴍᴏɴ ʙᴀᴄʜs (CONFIDE.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-11 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)
[ immediately — ] Deal.

[ steph remains impulsive at best. plus, someone famous once said: take the devil you know over the entrepreneurs hawking robo-eyes and snake oil. ]

Let’s get out of here before we lose a kidney.
reneger: (did i miss something?)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-12 07:49 am (UTC)(link)
( have you considered: being a little smarter than this? it's fine. means jason doesn't have to lurk in corners even if he's definitely going to anyway. the arm she has held captive slides out of hers, moves to wrap around a shoulder instead and start directing her down a desolate alley.

safer here, clearly. )
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ᴅᴜsᴛɪɴ ɴɢᴜʏᴇɴ (SIGH.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-19 06:40 pm (UTC)(link)
[ sensibility is for austen heroines.

steph lets herself be steered to the alley, slipping away from him when they haven't been followed. the distance is more so she can assess him than out of any fear or discomfort. ]


So, [ she pinches the bridge of her nose. ] multiversal kidnapping.

[ that's their life now. ]
reneger: (couldn't stand the person inside me.)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-19 09:19 pm (UTC)(link)
( he's in one piece, at least. probably not too different from what steph expects, either: early twenties, bulkier than dick, a few inches over six feet tall--

angry as hell, even if he's doing his best to control his temper. not to snap at her when she had jack shit to do with all of this. )


Can't say it's a club I'm excited to join either.
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ᴍᴀʀᴄᴜs ᴛᴏ (BATARANG.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-19 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)
[ stupidly tall, shares traits with the rest of the brood... if it looks like a jason and talks like a jason, sure, why the hell not?

she's about the same, with the short hair being the only key point of difference. the coat covers the remnants of the gang war, part of the reason steph had been so keen to nab it. ]


Nope. [ the end of the word pops in her mouth. ] What do you remember? [ quickly. ] I saw hospital staff, maybe. People in scrubs. Then the alleyway.
reneger: (knew love's perfect ache.)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-20 04:40 am (UTC)(link)
About the same. Scrubs, some asshole making commentary no one wanted to hear, hospital-like smells, a van, then here.

( they're in a relatively empty area, and jason uses that to his advantage. leans back against the closest wall, lets his weight rest up against it for a moment. it's a show of weakness, but it--this probably isn't the worst idea he's ever had. it's just steph. )

What do you remember from before getting stuck here?
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ᴅᴜsᴛɪɴ ɴɢᴜʏᴇɴ (STEEL.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-20 05:06 pm (UTC)(link)
[ there's a curious lack of pain in steph's limbs. no aches from sleeping upright or being dumped in the alley, no prickling from where an IV or injection must've made her light-headed and compliant. even the fatigue seems less than it ought to be, but she chalks it up to adrenaline. steph rests one hand on the wall and cards the other through her short hair, nose wrinkling at the reminder of what's been done to her — to them. don't vom on your first multiversal op, BG.

when jason asks, she doesn't hesitate. mystery isn't her MO, and it's harmless information. ]


I was with Babs. [ and she hasn't seen a shock of ginger hair in the market, despite her keen search for it. ] On a rooftop, overlooking Sprang bridge. Summer sunset, so it must have been late evening.

[ It was nice, she almost says, but that doesn't mean anything to him. ]

You?
reneger: (paced around for hours on empty.)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-20 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
( sounds nice. hits his own personal theory as to the hows and whys of how they got stuck here wrong, but it doesn't make it impossible. steph turns the question back around on him and that's--exactly what he wanted to avoid, thanks. now isn't a great time to fill her in on all the bullcrap jason started. finished.

but he's answering her nonetheless. )


Gotham, too. Pissed off B. He broke an arm, my face, probably a few ribs. ( with an arm moving across his midsection, feeling for any traces of bruising. But I'm all healed up now.
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ᴛɪᴍ ʟᴇᴠɪɴs (SHOCK.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-20 07:57 pm (UTC)(link)
[ logically, stephanie considers that jason is removing vital context, either for time's sake or his own interests. he's a big boy now, on a violent crusade in her timeline, and batman's a concept more than a father, most days — but like hell this doesn't hit her right in the daddy issues.

she looks at her feet, grateful the guise of nausea and fatigue can cover how she blanches. his information means they were under for some time, too. ]


Jesus. [ a beat. then, evenly — ] I got out of the hospital earlier that day. Dad stuff. All the residual injuries from that are gone, too.

[ it's repayment for the personal nature of his information, not an attempt at connecting their experiences, so she plows past it. they're even now. no making it weird. ]

Why even bother helping us recover, if they were just going to dump us, anyway?
reneger: (turned all the mirrors around.)

[personal profile] reneger 2018-10-20 10:25 pm (UTC)(link)
( it hides most of her reaction--the paler than usual skin, how exhausted they all are after all this bullshit. but jason catches onto it enough. picks up enough.

he's not as familiar with steph as, say, tim is. but jason knows enough to know what she means by dad stuff. it's parents like steph's father that drive jason to slitting throats. the anger shows in the way his jaw clenches tight. but he lets it go. relaxes a bit after a moment. no use losing his shit here. )


I started the fight with B. Don't worry about it. ( it's not an excuse. it's one jason wouldn't let pass if it was anyone other than himself and bruce. hell, wouldn't let pass even if it was but the circumstances were. a little extreme. he's pissed at bruce still, too. maybe jason deserved getting his ass kicked, but not like that.

steph didn't deserve that shit either. )


Might've been the time since and not intentional. Wounds heal on their own given enough leeway.
quipper: ᴀʀᴛ ▴ ᴅᴜsᴛɪɴ ɴɢᴜʏᴇɴ (YIELD.)

[personal profile] quipper 2018-10-21 12:35 am (UTC)(link)
[ guess they're both bleeding hearts when it comes to this, huh. out of the corner of her eye, she notices the way he coils, poised to fight. there's something similar in her own balled fist. doesn't make it okay, she wants to say, but her mouth remains thin.

it won't occur to her then, but later, when she overthinks everything that happened today, she'll contrast jason with tim. he was always surprised by that sort of injustice in her life. anger followed after the initial shock, sure, but the defiant, sharp instinct comes to people who aren't surprised any longer.

for the moment, she only nods, easing upright. the tension doesn't quite roll out of her shoulders. ]


We're pretty big pains in the ass to keep under for that long. [ yeah, it's possible. no, she doesn't like it. ] Maybe we should go back, see if we missed any clues.

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