ARRIVAL LOG 004

[larkers]

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: Night of August 05
WHAT: The fourth arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Coercion and loss of autonomy. Further notes at end of log.

> ARRIVAL LOG #004

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 four people in black body armor seated opposite you, as well as a man in dark gray scrubs. You realize there are 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 stands and comes to unbuckle you from the bench, helping you to your feet. Your limbs feel wooden and heavy, slow to move. One guard opens the back of the vehicle, bright sunshine and the rushing sound of a crowd flooding in, a heavy wave of warm air. The nurse moves to stand at the back, checking each passenger over one by one just before they're helped out of the vehicle, quick and methodical. He doesn't climb out after you, moving to sit as the last passenger is unloaded. The guards keep their heads down. Their actions are quick, firm, but not entirely unkind. Once all the passengers are out, they climb back into the vehicle and close the doors. The engine powers up again, and then 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. The sound of the crowd nearby carries on uninterrupted. Music, chatter and laughter, the occasional sound of a large splash into water. At the end of the alley opposite to where the van left you, the street opens out to a wide artificial river. Gathered on the banks, on several boats across the surface and in the water are hundreds of people: a giant pool party under the blazing summer sun. ◉ 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 PARTY

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. Who's ready for bus #4? Looks like they want you to have some fun this time, they've dropped them off right on top of the river party. Someone get down there and find them before they fall in, please. The New Amsterdam River Party is a near annual event, scheduled for whenever the heat begins to really climb. Located roughly at the middle of the river's length, six large boats take anchor, blocking any water commute for the day. Smaller boats move between them and the river banks, taking any passengers who'd prefer not to get wet back and forth. The area is decorated for the occasion, with several huge palm tree and mermaid sculptures curving over the river, flashing in alternating neon colors. Curling strings of bright lights are strung between them, dangling low and promising a truly flamboyant light show when the sun goes down. For the moment the the focus is fun under the sun. Colorful floats, balls and slides are strewn across the water and banks, with a wide array of water pistols, balloons and slings available at stalls. Beach umbrellas offer shade along the banks, and music blares from the boats, where food sellers have booths and tables to feed the crowd and provide plenty of cool drinks. Lifeguards take posts, watching everything with careful eyes, and large, marked stalls declare themselves to be skincare centers, handing out free sunscreen and reminding everyone to regularly reapply, especially if they've been in the water. In all the colorful, skimpy swimwear and sunglasses, six bewildered people in white scrubs are sure to stand out. Hopefully the citizens are having too much fun to care, but with such attentive lifeguards and event security around, it would be best to find the new arrivals in the crowd as quickly as possible.

> 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 – she'll be open for in depth questions later, but will advise everyone to ask the people who brought them in for the beginning bits of information. ◉ 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 AUGUST 09. 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 August 9 (November 16). 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 November 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 November 20 and close on November 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

[preceded]

Cass?

[It's a little more than a breath. He'd been sussing out a cot with the most advantageous positioning- so much as one could get in a glorified warehouse, and had bypassed her entirely. She'd made herself so small, knees pulled to her chest, and sitting out of the way, but he still can't believe he'd missed her.

He doubles back immediately, and stops directly before her. He hovers there, just a moment- taking her in and looking for any signs of a scuffle- to see if she'd found anyone a little more unsavoury than he had. Finding none, there's a bit of relief in his expression- not solely for that reason. Out of everyone he's come across- Cass is the only one who looks exactly as he remembers her, baring the hair.

It's small, but he's going to hang on to it. It's only a moment more, before he drops down to a crouch and balances on the balls of his feet, hand reaching out to curl across the side of her knee. A soft squeeze in greeting]

Hi. [Despite everything- right now, he's happy to see you]

[cassassin]

[she's managed to scrounge some old pants and a long-sleeved shirt that fit since she was pulled in. relief spreads across her face when he recognizes her--she understood enough about this to realize that wasn't a given. the squeeze to her leg is reassuring. grounding, even if some part of cassandra still doubts all of this.

there's a moment of hesitation, of fear--but she moves forward, looping her arms around him.]

You're... okay?

[preceded]

[He's moving almost the same moment she does- that short bit of hesitation, that slight look on her face- and he's shifting to wrap his arms around her in return, stretching his neck to hook his chin onto her shoulder, grip tight and as reassuring as he knows how to be]

I am. [It's quick- easy. Even with his penchant for downplaying, for trying to get back on his feet as quickly as humanly possible, it's true. All injuries he'd sustained, all the surgical modifications- there's hardly any trace of them. Just the slightly faded scarring] Other than the obvious.

[He makes a slight amendment. Certain she'll know exactly what he means. The slightly heavy drugged out feeling to his limbs, that feeling of violation that only gets more unsettling the more he thinks of it. The more he strongly considers the ramifications of the hardware hiding in his body, when he has no idea what it can do]

Are you? [That hesitation, that look- what's going on, baby sister?]

[cassassin]

[ cass doesn't answer at first, just pressing her face into the shoulder of the stupid oversized shirt that dick dug out. she completely understands what he means, though--it gives her an extremely bad vibe if she thinks about their situation too long. ]

Sure. [ no. she's not. it's painfully apparent, really. sorry dick. ]

[preceded]

What can I do?

[Even as he says it, he has that hollow feeling that the answer is 'nothing'. At least, nothing more than he already is. Which is to be a reassuring warmth pressed against her, reminding her that this moment is real, and whatever she's experiencing- this place or a holdover from before, she's no longer experiencing alone.

It really, really doesn't feel like enough]

[cassassin]

[ she tenses up more at that, and he just gets a quiet, bitter little laugh.]

Nothing. Nothing anyone can do. [ cass doesn't let go, though. if anything she holds on tighter. her brother--and that's what he is, really--is here, and even if neither of them can fix any of what's been haunting her? it's something. she's been terrified to face any of her family after what happened in serbia, but this situation changes things a bit. ]

[preceded]

I'm here, if you want to try and tell me.

[Dick knows, that words have never been her strongest suit, and they're hardly anyone's, when it comes to trying to explain something that clearly wounds this deeply- but he makes the offer, in case she wants to try to get it off her chest. In case she wants him to help her find the words to express the things she means.

In the mean time, he starts rubbing a soothing circle along the slope of her fine] I'll be here, regardless.

[Right now- and any other time she needs him]

[cassassin]

Don't know... where to start. [ she shudders, holding on. she should ask before she does this, but from how things went with steph, she understands how the empathic link works.

so cass reaches to rest a hand on the back of dick's neck, keeping her face buried in his shoulder. fuck it, it's a way to get the point across. grief, guilt, shame, fear, despair. confusion, anxiety, relief, love--it's all mingled like a storm, overwhelming. for her, at least, if not for dick. she doesn't know how to sort this out; she feels like she's drowning. ]

[preceded]

That's usually my problem too.

[It should be easy, to suss out a beginning and start there, but it never really is. The more intense the experience, the emotion, the harder it is to try and explain. Now that he knows it exists, and thanks to Jason and his inability to express himself any other way, knows at least, what to expect. The soft blue glow, the feeling of someone else where before, there had only been him.

What does come through, when she rests her hand on his neck, is heart breaking. Dick isn't quite sure how to use the connection- if he even can, if he can try and project a certain feeling instead of just giving her all the things that he carries around on the regular- his own, well worn grief, confusion, discomfort that edges on the verge of anxiousness- fondness- but he's certainly going to try. For something calming, soothing- and he presses a soft, quick kiss to the side of her head. The fondness becoming more prevalent, for just a moment.

He doesn't quite rock her in his arms, but it's a near thing] What do you remember last? Before here?

[That might have been an easier place to start]

[cassassin]

[ the answer comes softly, after a moment, buried in his shirt and slightly muffled. faintly, after the glow starts, cassandra realizes that she's crying. and not for the first time since getting here. she lets herself be held, feels that fondness and warmth counteract the terror she'd felt over having to confront anyone in her family again. ]

... Blüdhaven. And... I... Shiva...

[ she knows she's not making much sense, she's barely able to choke that much out. ]