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meadowlarklogs2020-02-08 01:58 pm
EVENT #008 AFTERMATH LOG
WHERE: Lots of places—potentially? Mostly New Amsterdam as the focus.
WHEN: March 4, 2512
WHAT: Unlocking of the gates and the game's fast travel network.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Uninvited visions.
The vision itself is almost instantaneous once the last of the four gates activates, hitting the Displaced no matter where they are. It doesn't matter where that individual Displaced is: if they're in New Amsterdam, at one of the gates, or sleeping, they'll see the same vision. A flash of seven colors (red, blue, black, gold, orange, red, and white) followed by an image of a nomadic people heading up a long, stone bridge that appears to be naturally occurring. At the end of the bridge is an open, lit-up triangle that acts as a gateway, inviting them inside. Then there is another flash, followed by the nomads walking through the gate and ending up in a different, new location. And then another.
Any understanding of this vision isn't immediate. The answers won't be apparent until later, when there is an innate understanding of what they've learned and what they've unlocked for themselves. The world has opened up to the Displaced, and in some ways, it's there for them to access and even take for themselves if they so choose.
After the vision ends, any of the Displaced located at the four ruins will immediately begin to glow in all blue before they fade out of view and find themselves crammed into a new location. The relocation is immediate, and if anyone checks a map via their neural implant to see where they are geolocation wise, they'll be able to tell that they're underneath New Amsterdam. For anyone who's been in the underground cave system of New Amsterdam, they may think their surroundings are familiar, if not the same. After all, this area has been locked away for a very long time.
One more thing is apparent: they've landed on another form of gate that needs to be unlocked. After the numerous trials and puzzles the Displaced have faced, what's one more?
◉ The puzzle to solve is right beneath the feet of the Displaced on a bronze-colored mechanism. At the center of the mechanism are multiple overlapping triangles, and on the outside, there are five separated triangles that sit individually.
◉ Solving the puzzle involves connecting a daisychain of Displaced and having five key focal points step on the triangles at once.
◉ Once the puzzle unlocks, there will be another understanding: that what they saw in the vision belongs to them. Any of the Displaced outside of the caves will know what it means.
◉ With that work done, it's time to explore. The underground cave system of New Amsterdam is half-inhabited by the sprawling megacity, and half-uninhabited and untouched. This part of the cave system was locked away for centuries, and just like the other ruins, there are some relics and lost items from the past. The eras vary: some are early medieval burial sites with items like brittle, forgotten swords and shields, while others are crosses and manuscripts that refer to this location as the center of the Holy Roman Empire.
◉ The manuscripts are a mix of imagery from Catholicism and the same, omnipresent geometric imagery.
◉ The way out of the cave system involves touching a hand to a handprint alongside what appears to be a door. This print will only appear to the Displaced, so they will be able to move in and away from this location largely unobserved.
Now that the gates trip is done and the Displaced have new answers—if potentially unhelpful ones, depending on their perspective—it's time to return to their lives. Surprisingly, New Amsterdam has no festivals going on, as if it's time to now be hungover from a February that involved nonstop partying. The city has been cleaned up and everyone's returning to their jobs as if the city around them is not in a constant state of revelry.
◉ Ah, it's time to return to work! No one is required to lose their jobs, but it might take a bit of groveling for the Displaced to return to where they were working before. (With the exception of the Red Wings bar. Poor Mister Doctor Stephen Strange.) El will have sent along any excuses to any bosses who might need an explanation. Ze's used to this gig by now.
◉ What about those cities left behind? No one planned on abandoning those gates at that exact moment. They will remain open to the Displaced. Anyone who had a hotel room in New Oslo or even kept stuff stored at New Beijing will find that they can just teleport back via this new fast travel system.
◉ Though for anyone who's been dealing with tampered food, maybe it's time to go take a break. You know where's a good place to do it? The Displaced-run Red Wings bar. Ah, poor Mister Doctor Strange, at least the people coming in out of nowhere are all Displaced looking for proper food and a drink. It's time to mingle, share notes, and see what's what. Might as well get to seeing where there's overlap—and what to do next.
◉ Or it's time to explore! The world is finally open and available to one and all. Well, to one Displaced and all.
◉ The information on these gates and what they do won't immediately be available to El and Gaby. It's up to the Displaced if they decide to share with their NPC friends. (Of course, if it's mentioned via the Morningstar network, then they'll know!)
This is meant primarily as a laid back, return to life log for the Displaced after their exciting trips around the world (and trips-to-be, most likely). Any questions about the aftermath should be directed to our aftermath questions thread!
Our CR meme will be posted on February 14th (Happy Valentine's Day!), and our arrival log for all newbies will be going up on February 15th.
Thanks again for making this a great event!
no subject
You got somewhere else to go?
[ It feels like an asshole move to deflect onto her to avoid talking about his own shit, but that's an odd whiting to say, isn't it? They've both been real careful not to talk about what might be waiting back home for either of them, but she told him once that there was nothing. He'd taken that to mean she'd been burned, that New Amsterdam was a fresh start.
Maybe not. Maybe he should have asked more questions. ]
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[Ginia drags her signs out a little in light sarcasm, but she knows it's not what she means and not what Ephemera is asking. A large part of her wants to clam up, change the subject, walk away, do anything but continue on this route of conversation because it's revealing too much about herself and there's no going back from that.
But they've shared too much with each other too. Too much to give him a cold shoulder when he's not meaning her any harm. Asking questions no different than how she asks questions. And she asks questions like an operative. He's not one. Not in the way she is.
For all she knows, he's asking because he's curious or he's concerned. That she doesn't know is probably a sign of how broken she is.]
We'll have been here a month in a few days.
[It sounds like a deflection, it isn't. It's only been a month and yet it feels like so much more time has passed. Maybe getting kidnapped a second time and dragged out to a pyramid has a way of skewing times.
A month ago, Ephemera asked her if she wanted to stay and she told him there was nothing left in her world. The broad sentiment is still true, but maybe a lot of that is her own fault. It's not as if there aren't people around who like her. It's not as if she wasn't rebuilding something.
But maybe it's better if she stays here. Keeps everyone safe by making sure no one can find her again.]
If I was thrown back to my world tomorrow, whether a month had passed in my world or not, nothing would really change. I'd go back to my job as a bouncer.
[Well, if a month had passed, there would probably be a lot of concerned texts and calls from Ty. Maybe even some messages from Cecelia. Or maybe she goes back and not even a second has passed. Who can tell. But nothing would really change and maybe that speaks to the stability of her life. Or the stagnation.]
But maybe it's safer if I stay here. For me, for the people I work with.
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Maybe it's safer if I stay here.
Ephemera shrugs, still watching her. ]
But you do have people, don't you?
[ It's a genuine question. She hasn't talked about her past much and he hasn't pried. Maybe he should have asked more questions. Maybe he should have pushed a little harder. ]
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[There's a hard edge to her signs. Maybe it's too telling. Though she knows she shouldn't make a scene, though she knows she should breathe through and keep calm, there's been a lot to deal with over the last few days.]
What about you? What's so important for you to get back home and finish?
[His family is dead. He said he used to be good at making friends, though it's pretty clear he's good at that now. He fights with no regard for his well-being. Likes sharks and what they represent enough to tattoo it on his back. Has a quote from The Art of War tattooed on his back; she looked up the rest of the quote in the quiet moments and it's damn telling.
And there's so much rage and sorrow in him.]
no subject
Angela's anger is quieter. More subtle in some ways. But it's in her hands, and the way her eyes have gone hard at the edges.
Story of my life, she signs. And there's no mistaking the bitterness there, the anger underneath it.
Ephemera breathes out and gives her a small smile. Probably not a good one. He's good at anger. He knows it like an old friend. It's the other stuff that trips him up. ]
You really want to know?
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I wouldn't be asking if I didn't want to know.
[Ginia hones her anger like a knife and she'll sink them into anyone around. It's a question she's wondered. Maybe should have pressed more right at the beginning. But they probably wouldn't be here now if she did.
There's no walking this moment back, but that's been the story of the last few days.]
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My squad is dead. They were torn to pieces.
[ It should be an exaggeration. It isn't. They died hard and bloody in their armor. He thinks Chica and Barrows downed. He watched it go down on the monitors afterward, over and over again, and he has nightmares about the moment the big Freelancer grabbed Chica by the arm and held her up over the pier. How he brought her up just high enough to see it coming, to know she was going to die, and then he dropped her. Let her smash into the pier and break her skull on the way down. Ephemera remembers the sudden spray of blood. Tiny on the monitors, but so very red. And her hair flashing in the wind like a banner as she fell, as she impacted in the water and didn't come back up.
Breathe out.
He breathes. ]
They were my family. In every way that matters, they were my family. I know you didn't have that. I know that. But I loved them, all of them. My brothers, my sisters. Everything good I ever had in my life was because of them.
[ He smiles. He can't seem to stop, suddenly, and he's afraid that if he tries to speak out loud he's just going to start laughing, like a fucking crazy person, and that really wouldn't do anything. So it's probably better that they're signing. ]
I found the team that killed them. There's only two left. Only two. I'm going to kill them, Angela.
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Ephemera had a family. Loved them deeply, said they were good people. He talked about Barrows's cooking, and he's seen the paintings of two of them on the wall. A sister who still smiled so warm and bright even with telling scars. A brother who had his back and had an air of respect around him. The kind of person you listened to. With what he's assumed about her, Ginia imagines they were a tight knit group. The kind that lived and traveled and fought together.
That wasn't her reality. It was never going to be that no matter how hard she clung and cried and bled and wanted things to matter. No matter how much she wanted to matter.
Didn't she tell him earlier she envied how he knew what to do? That he had a plan, a goal? Now she knows it and the words feel like ash. Her anger burns away as she sits there, stares at him as he smiles. There's a look in his eye, something a little wild, something delicate, something broken.
He's the last one left. He's going back home to kill the people responsible for ruining his life.
Ginia can't pretend she doesn't understand the need for revenge. Sometimes she remembers dreams about returning to the compound. Killing everyone there responsible for making her and her team. The nanotechnicians, the guards, the trainers, paint the concrete red and then smash it all down. Sometimes she wonders what she'd do if she ran into one of the trainers at a bar. Maybe he walks in for a drink with his buddies and Ginia checks his ID at the door. Maybe she goes to the club to dance with friends Ginia's watching the crowd.
But what good would it do? What good does revenge really do? Ginia knows how it feels good in the moment, but can breed anger, retaliation, more deaths. And when she sometimes really lets herself think on it, Ginia knows so many people have the right to hunt her down. There's a personal death count in the high hundreds. Thousands if she includes a culminate team count. Millions, in term of global impact. Ginia knows the lives she's ruined, the survivors left behind. Someone in that number has to want her dead too, right?
There's always someone meaner. Always someone better.
Ginia doesn't cast judgment on why Ephemera's family was killed. Not her place. Doesn't matter really. She tips her head toward the ceiling of the cave system and exhales. Counts the seconds away as she empties her lungs entirely. A few more seconds on the inhale. She moves fast; he knows this. Ginia moves fast and catches Ephemera in a tight hug. A hand around his shoulder, one on the back of his head.
Don't go, cries her fear as she clings to him, chests glowing bright from the contact. Don't go, don't do it. Because he'll go and she'll never see him again and loneliness is a terrifying prospect after having a connection with someone.
Ephemera will go, and she'll never see him again, and he'll probably die because she's seen him fight. Knows the disregard for his body. Has felt his sorrow and emptiness as keen as her own. When rage burns out and the job is done, and loss is all you have...
I understand, purrs her anger. Because if someone takes something from you, the only thing to do is to make them regret it. Never mind if you have to break the world, why should people get away with breaking yours?
You fucking idiot, sighs her sorrow because she's been there before. Knows the cycles and how it never ends and it's all hopeless and exhausting and there's no escaping it.
And at the very bottom of her feelings, a tiny unidentifiable feeling, so easy to miss or ignore, whispers, You have me now. Doesn't that count for something?]
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It shouldn't matter. She already hugged him back in the desert. They held hands in the aftermath, reaching out willingly to activate the empathy bond and paint the walls blue. But it had been more than that, too. More than just necessity. There had been trust, the sort of connection Ephemera had thought he had left behind. He let himself forget what it felt like. Fell into the battlefield patterns. Everyone is an enemy and every enemy wants to destroy you.
Do not let them, soldier. Finish your mission. Finish your fucking mission.
Their chests glow blue right through their clothes and Ephemera shudders all over. He feels too much. She understands and she knows and she wants, and he is so, so tired. The anger is comforting, a focus point in a universe that makes too much sense, and so he treasures it like a friend. But he can't be angry all the time, not in a way that matters, and it's those quiet moments that kill him. Because he starts talking to people and he'll come to know them if he's not careful. And he does know her, now.
Not in all ways. Not like his sisters. But it's been so very long since he's had a friend that his first impulse is to reach up and run a hand through her hair. To offer whatever comfort he can because Angela seems so very alone and she deserves something better. A chance to live her life, to find her people. Everyone should have that at least once.
He thinks of her origami, strangely. The precision of the angles. The sound it makes when she folds a crease. Clean, exact. And yet she still comes away with a picture at the end. A symbol, something tangible, that can be held in hand. He called her a SPARTAN when they first met and intended it as a taunt, a warning. I know what you are.
Funny, that. They know too much about each other now.
He shivers all over. Stands rigidly for too long, expecting pain. Her grip is solid, her hands strong, but she doesn't snap his neck. Doesn't slip a knife into his throat. Just holds him, one hand in his hair, brushing the edge of his scars, and the other arm tight around his shoulder.
Breathe, little brother.
Slowly, very slowly, he leans forward and bumps their heads together.
This cannot last. He knows how it's going to end. But, selfishly, he's glad they had a chance to met. That they could stand together for a little while. He thought he was done with that. Not enough of a person left in him to try. But here they are, here they stand, and there's a part of him that wishes it could last. He reaches up and touches her hair, lightly.
It won't last. But it's nice, for a moment. ]
no subject
But didn't Ephemera say there were people he liked at the fight clubs? People he was getting along with? He's made an impression on other people too. He's spoken fondly of Eugene, even got a pie from him. Knew Trevor enough to know he was a vampire hunter, and maybe going to him was pragmatic, but he still reached out.
Is this what your family wants? is what Ginia wants to ask, but she can't bring herself to form the thought into words. Not right now. Because maybe it was what they want. To be avenged.]
Don't be so eager to die.
[The message appears in his field of vision. Ginia doesn't try to move away, doesn't want to move away. She smiles as she sends the message, a tired huff escaping. It's a smile out of reflex, the kind to defuse a tense situation. Her smiles are her armor more than metal ever was.]
Don't be like me and waste your life.
[Selfish. She's so selfish. But they are so similar in some ways. In understandable ways that matter in ways that can't be explained. Maybe she's projecting too much onto him. Maybe she's reading too much. But it also feels like the man who had redemption inked into his chest has a better chance at reaching it. Maybe it's easier trying to save him than herself.]
no subject
Breathe. Remember what you are. ]
You haven't wasted your life.
[ It's said softly. His voice is hoarse from all the laughter he's swallowed down and he's tired in the aftermath, sucked down and flattened from the impact of it. All the things that Angela is feeling, all the knots in his head. Ephemera exhales slowly. Her hair is thick, softer than he'd expected. And he thinks of the sketch he did of her before the latest shit went down, the one tucked into the notebook Gene made for him. How he'd drawn her looking away, into the distance. Focused on something on the horizon, beyond the page. Maybe that was telling. ]
It's okay. You don't need to worry.
[ She'll make it out. Part of him needs her to make it out. But he's got his mission, and that makes it simple. Or at least it's meant to. ]
Thank you. My friend.
no subject
for a moment, it seemed possible. Ginia remembers the moment so well. Running through the vast wilderness with the maybe-real-maybe-imaginary bray of dogs and a search party behind her. Taking a moment to look up, to really look up and despite all her training, she stopped and stared at a pitch black sky illuminated by stars. So many fucking stars. So many more than she could, so many more than the tiny dots of the ceiling panels in her room that were her lifeline as much as her condemnation.
It was the first time she felt alive, the first time she knew she could make a decision for herself, she could go where she wanted. She was alive and free and...
Ginia laughs. Dry, raw, a rough hiss of sandpaper fading into a shuddering sigh. Oh no. She was so ignorant of the world. Of how to live in it. Maybe she's not even doing any better here.
Her hand slides from the back of his head to rest on his cheek. On the right side, her rough palm and fingers resting against his cheek.]
Don't tell me not to worry. It doesn't work that way. You're the only friend I have. I'm going to worry.
[Her feelings flare briefly in frustration, in worry, in fear because every conversation feels closer to a goodbye. Her thumb slides over his cheekbone. She pauses, exhales.
Then Ginia leans in and kisses the corner of his mouth right where the scars and burns cut in deep ridges. A light kiss, lingering for a second, long enough to sigh again.]
no subject
Ephemera takes a sharp breath, shuddering all over. No one touches his scars. He doesn't let them, he doesn't do that. He cannot. And it hurts, suddenly. The proximity. The fact that he let it happen in the first place, that he let himself become the sort of person who would lean into a touch, who would reach out and embrace another person. He thinks of his sisters, dead in their armor. Blood on the ground, iron in the air. Thinks of CT, who handed out one final mission before he went off to the desert and died alone, no brother to watch his back. Ephemera knows he failed CT, that he cannot possibly make up the debt.
But he can avenge his brothers, his sisters. He can do that much. There's nothing else left, nothing else —
He pulls back. Puts his hands on Angela's shoulders and keeps them there, his head bowed. The words don't come and he's shivering still, shaking all over. He really ought to jerk away. Establish distance, break the moment, do something.
You are the only friend I have.
He breathes out. Squeezes her shoulder with his left hand. Not hard. Just enough to feel, to know that he's still in the moment with her. And then he lifts his head up, and takes a step back. One, then another. ]
Why...?
[ His signs are rough, his head full of knots. He shakes his head. Wonders if he should have kissed her back. If he should have shoved her away the moment she got close. And it nags at him, those questions, because he doesn't know. He doesn't know and he wants to reach out and touch her hand again, pull her close, and he cannot.
He cannot. ]
no subject
Ephemera breathes in, shudders, pulls away. Not entirely; hands on her shoulders even as he holds her at arm's length. Ah. That was the wrong impulse to pursue. Later, Ginia will reflect on the moment as folly, or a moment of selfishness. In the moment, she can't justify it entirely outside of the impulse. It felt right. Felt needed.
Ginia goes still as he shivers. Still and at attention, forgetting to breathe again as she waits and waits and waits and -
He pulls away. Backs away.
Why? A good question. She's certainly attracted to him, but that doesn't have anything to do with it. Maybe someone else would feel a stirring of emotion. A greater feeling of fondness or attraction or something. But Ginia feels empty and sad and tired and can't answer. Not satisfactorily.
Ginia smiles, shakes her head, and turns to pick up her backpack. She's said too much. Revealed too much. Now he knows more about her. She'll have to live with that.
A part of her wants to leave. She takes a step away. And another. Stops and stares ahead and wants to keep going, but Ginia can't bring herself. She turns around and snaps until she has Ephemera's attention, the sound too sharp and too loud in the cave.]
I'm sorry.
no subject
Things are different now. He's out of practice, floundering more often than not.
Ephemera tips his head back when she snaps to get his attention. Breathes out. More than anything he's tired. It's hit him all at once, though there's no call for it. Wasn't even a difficult mission, on balance.
I'm sorry, she signs.
Ephemera shakes his head. Pushes a hand through his hair, trying to think of the right words to explain. Because he ought to explain, right? ]
It's hard for me to touch people.
[ His signing is a bit more hesitant than before. Uneasy, even though this isn't a secret. She might have even guessed the reasons. ]
So I didn't. For a long time.
no subject
You don't need to explain things.
[Ginia isn't sure if that's the right thing to say. It feels dismissive and it's not what she wants to do right now. Her hands wring together, trying to piece it all together. She's so exhausted, ready to pass out for a few days. Might even, if she's lucky.]
I overstepped. I shouldn't have put you in that position. I'm sorry.
[Closer, maybe. It still feels off, though everything feels like a mess. Maybe it'll make more sense after rest, after a chance to decompress.]
Let's go back to the apartment. We could use rest.
no subject
Yeah. Okay.
[ He hesitates. He's not up for going out to a restaurant, but — ]
We can order some food. If you want.
no subject
[It honestly feels like she'll pass out mid-bite, but food that definitely won't set off any rage-inducing side effects is welcome. It's a way to ease back into the normal. As if any of their life is normal.]
We could throw on a movie or something too.
[But it could be normal, or at least they could pretend a little bit longer. Go through the motions and worry later where they really stand with each other. Figure out the details. Or not. They've gotten this far on piecemeal information, still built up a connection despite everything. Maybe it's okay to keep going like that.
Ginia checks the time. It'll still be light out when they leave, but maybe they have a bit of a walk back anyway. They're smart, know how to stay out of sight. They'll make it work. She tilts her head toward where they came from. Now to figure out where the exit is.]
I bet there's a place that does noodles for takeout. I could go for stir-fry noodles and dumplings.
no subject
It'd be good to eat some decent food. Something more than granola bars, anyway. ]
I've been told I have awful taste in movies. Noodles and dumplings sound about right, though.
no subject
[Something a little mindless, maybe even for background noise more than anything. Right now, it's an easy topic to seize on, something lighter than everything else they've talked about.]
What are you into?
no subject
Pretty much that.
[ The more ridiculous the better. Explosions that don't make sense, dramatic gunfights, everyone sexy and covered in artful grime. Too far removed from reality to ever pass for the real thing. ]
Yeah. I haven't watched dumb movies in a while. We should do that.
[ Crash on the couch. Sleep it off and come back sane in the morning. ]
no subject
Looks like some of our current options include shapeshifting ice monsters on a research vessel trapped in the Arctic, giant robot ants destroying cities, and cyberninjas traveling through time to stop rogue time assassins from changing history.
[There's a pause as she looks over the description for the last movie again.]
Actually, I might want to watch the last one when I have more energy. How about dino assassins fighting giant robots on Mars?
no subject
Dino assassins it is. This I have to see.
no subject
Essentially, the perfect candidate for some mindless, over-the-top ridiculous actions.
For kicks, she sends over the other movies too.]
We could make movies a regular thing. Invite some people over, have some food and drinks.
[Like normal people do. Trying to reach out and connect with others, even if its over bad movies.]
no subject
Movie night. Why not? ]
We could try that.
[ See how it goes. Something light, in the face of all this other shit. Ephemera nods slowly. ]
It'd be good. Something to break the tension.
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