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poly_chromatic2013-05-29 12:33 pm
immortal_machine) wrote in poly_chromatic2013-05-29 12:33 pm
Log 0x00000001: not again; video/action
(A futuristic-looking starship pod comes crashing down out of the sky. It's headed for the beach...barely missing the water, it skims the last few waves, plows over the sand, and leaves a trail of glass in its wake until its stabilizers manage to keep it from flipping and instead drop it roughly onto the dunes where it hisses and sparks and its lights die.
There is a voice from inside as a video feed clicks on...there's someone in here! Just one person, though. She is half-buried in a tangle of debris.
One hand reaches up to plunk itself onto the console, and she taps a few things in. Nope, no electricity. But then the hand brushes the device, momentarily obscuring the camera, and suddenly she seems to know what's going on.
She sits up, battered from the pod's landing, and claws long jet-black hair out of her face. Her eyes are a bright vivid green as they scan the area. A cut on her forehead is dripping, and she has a few bruises, but she looks mostly unharmed. Reaching for her device, she taps a few things into the system, then pulls a little wire from the back of her neck and interfaces with the device directly. Oh, the wonders of cybernetics!)
My pod...has crashed. I am in the City again.
Again. How infuriating that these flimsy 'gods' keep bringing me back. I assume now that it is a failure of the Von Braun's FTL drives. However, I have only two data points.
A brief analysis of the local network indicates that the local population is a chaotic collection of individuals from separate dimensions, collected together under the jurisdiction of a set of leaders of unidentified species. The network proper includes an unidentifiable amount of memory. Electric power levels are unknown. The data center's location is not available. Overall, the network status is indeterminate.
Of course it is. It was the last time. It seems like none of the meddling little insects here can meddle hard enough to get in the way of their overlords. I will put a stop to that.
The Network seemingly has not changed since the last time I was here. Access to 98.5% of my past stored data has been lost, but comparisons to the remaining 1.5% show similar functions but a slightly differing level of activity. Communications appear to have thinned; there may be fewer residents now.
I will have to search for possibly found exits in recent years, but it seems to me that this is simply a function of the City's bringing in fewer residents, not of any creatures having escaped.
A search of recent Network activity yields one resident from my dimension: Marie Delacroix.
She will know who I am, and will ruin my establishment as a valuable and powerful member of this place. I need to achieve my old status here again, and she will be a problem. Rebecca will be my identity until she is out of my way. I will contrive something on the Network to mimic dated activity by Rebecca for a short stay here, in case she searches for old records.
(Now she faces the camera, her expression relaxing, as if the adrenaline is bleeding away to yield weariness. She starts pulling herself together, and her voice has turned from breathless and sharp to something calmer.)
To all Network residents: I am Rebecca Siddons, of the starship Von Braun. A failure in our FTL drives appears to have shunted me...outside. Again. If you have any valuable information or advice about living here in the City now, send it to my communications device. Any information I once had is likely dated now...
There is a voice from inside as a video feed clicks on...there's someone in here! Just one person, though. She is half-buried in a tangle of debris.
One hand reaches up to plunk itself onto the console, and she taps a few things in. Nope, no electricity. But then the hand brushes the device, momentarily obscuring the camera, and suddenly she seems to know what's going on.
She sits up, battered from the pod's landing, and claws long jet-black hair out of her face. Her eyes are a bright vivid green as they scan the area. A cut on her forehead is dripping, and she has a few bruises, but she looks mostly unharmed. Reaching for her device, she taps a few things into the system, then pulls a little wire from the back of her neck and interfaces with the device directly. Oh, the wonders of cybernetics!)
My pod...has crashed. I am in the City again.
Again. How infuriating that these flimsy 'gods' keep bringing me back. I assume now that it is a failure of the Von Braun's FTL drives. However, I have only two data points.
A brief analysis of the local network indicates that the local population is a chaotic collection of individuals from separate dimensions, collected together under the jurisdiction of a set of leaders of unidentified species. The network proper includes an unidentifiable amount of memory. Electric power levels are unknown. The data center's location is not available. Overall, the network status is indeterminate.
The Network seemingly has not changed since the last time I was here. Access to 98.5% of my past stored data has been lost, but comparisons to the remaining 1.5% show similar functions but a slightly differing level of activity. Communications appear to have thinned; there may be fewer residents now.
A search of recent Network activity yields one resident from my dimension: Marie Delacroix.
(Now she faces the camera, her expression relaxing, as if the adrenaline is bleeding away to yield weariness. She starts pulling herself together, and her voice has turned from breathless and sharp to something calmer.)
To all Network residents: I am Rebecca Siddons, of the starship Von Braun. A failure in our FTL drives appears to have shunted me...outside. Again. If you have any valuable information or advice about living here in the City now, send it to my communications device. Any information I once had is likely dated now...
video;
[She did know, however, that an escape pod had gone out. She had been up in the vents even before SOLDIER G65434-2 went through the passages below. She knew Rebecca and Thomas had been together, had heard their voices on little recordings, the same ones she had left scattered across the ship. Hopeless missives that were meant to aid any survivors but were truly just an outlet for the constant paranoia and creeping panic that was on everyone's mind. Everyone left, anyway.]
[Marie stares for a long time without connecting her device. Rebecca Siddons, of the starship Von Braun. Marie did not know her personally, only knew she was from the Hydroponics deck. Only knew that she was enamored with one of the guards off the Rickenbacker, but then everyone knew that. And now Marie knew that she was alive. It was... difficult to wrap her mind around. They had all been dead for so long.]
[They had all been dead.]
...Miss Siddons.
[It isn't a warm welcome. Marie was never a warm woman. She's much colder now. Had hardened over on the Von Braun and now in this city where there are monsters everywhere she has been warped into something else. Paranoid and self-righteous and hurting -- (all dead.)]
video;
You, already.Marie?
[She adjusts the camera and peers into it, as if she can't believe what she's seeing. Time to play Rebecca, who doesn't know much more than Delacroix's name. Hopefully the physical changes in her face structure and eye color pass Delacroix's mind without causing problems, but SHODAN had not thought of that possibility when she started transforming the body after her escape.]
Is anyone else here alive? The Network isn't showing anyone I recognize other than you, but that was a quick search of only a few names. The last time I was here, it was no one at all.
And...Tommy? Is he here? He wasn't in the pod, but when I left, he was with me, on the pod...we made it out just as those...things took over the life pod bays.
video;
He isn't 'ere. Everyone else is dead.
Re: video;
Unfortunately.But...are you from farther in the future than I am? Did we die? Am I dead?Still...the City is a dangerous place, and I need to get out of this pod and to somewhere reasonable.
video;
[But the City can be a rather obnoxious place. So,]
Should I come collect you?
video;
That seems like a good idea. It's good to run into someone else here who I at least slightly know ahead of time, and you know more about the current City than I do.
That is arguable, but you could be more of a fool than you are, so you might know something.video/action
[It's clear she takes no pleasure in it. Which is nothing personal to 'Rebecca,' Marie takes pleasure in... nothing, these days. She doesn't enjoy her drinking or her smoking or her work. But each is a necessity, in its own way, to her survival.]
Remain where you are.
[She leaves the feed open, in case something happens, but her preparations are swift. She doesn't go without weapons, expecting scavengers to come sniffing around that crashed pod. She drives up with a vehicle fit to transport the wreckage back to the lab.]
video/action
Now is about the time she starts gutting any files that might show exactly what happened after SHODAN herself came aboard the pod. Delacroix has never been a stupid sort, from the old files and records on the Von Braun, and now it's time to run her for a loop. Cut out anything incriminating and smooth it all over...there. She is lying back in one of the pilot's seats when Delacroix arrives, and offers her best human smile.]
Hello, Marie.
action
'ello, Miss Siddons.
[She comes closer, inspecting the pod to determine whether it's worth salvaging or scrapping.]
I suppose I do not need to explain anything about zhe city to you.
action
[She hefts herself out of the seat, and this time, remembers how to walk appropriately. Last time was a bothersome adventure in figuring out how to properly steer the host around, but now she has had plenty of experience from her past visit, and it isn't so irritating now.]
I will need to find a place to stay, though, and something to do with this pod. The console is rapidly dying, and I doubt the engines will be able to do much after that kind of landing, but perhaps if the power system were repaired...
[She watches Marie, who doesn't seem to be paying much attention to her at all. So different than the personality profile she recalls from the Von Braun's records.]
...Is something wrong?
action
[Marie answers that question blandly.]
Zhe pod I can take to City Solutions for maintenance.
[...Oh right, it doesn't belong to her...]
If you approve.
action
Also, it is rather large. Are you going to get a truck over here or some such?
[Looks like she isn't taking any questions about herself. SHODAN will go through her past Network activity later anyway...but it is always concerning when humans do unpredictable things.]
action
[And no, Marie is not fond of talking about herself. Her reticence has increased in her time in the City.]
And we will 'ave to 'ave you cleared with security before you enter zhe building.
[Such a stickler.]
action
I'm willing to wait. I look forward to seeing it functional, and to seeing what has happened with City Solutions since I left.
[Because no matter how hard she tries to be human, she can't muster 'thank you' to one of these things.]
action
[Marie glances at her. She supposes she wouldn't be surprised, if Rebecca had worked on the Hydroponics deck.]
action
No, but I followed their work.
action
[She sounds annoyed by it. She is. Stark has come and gone, as have his CEOs, Marie is sick of it holding things up.]
action
action
[Marie certainly wasn't going to step up.]
Re: action
I will take it, then. It is the only reasonable scientific powerhouse in the City.Penny's Welcome Center seems alive and well...I should stay there until I find a place, I assume.
action
[Marie has never visited the Welcome Center. She was taken straight to the hospital upon arrival.]
Zhere is 'ousing available.
action
action
Re: action
[And she starts operating her device by hand, looking up free apartments. Granted, she wants her old City Solutions place back, but she needs to figure out who is running it and if she can get herself back in, first.]
action
[But she's not going to do so outright. Marie stops poking over the crashed pod.]
Do you wish to wait 'ere while I bring zhe transport for zhe pod?
action
video;
[The speaker's excitement renders his thick Russian accent nigh incomprehensible. People from worlds with faster-than-light technology don't crash into the beach every day, after all.]
Ay, sorry, sorry--I am Pavel Andreievich Chekov. I know Engineer Delacroix and I would like to help you, if I can.
video;
Marie served aboard my starship before I came here. As for being here before, yes, I was here for a short while. I don't particularly know Marie beyond our small connection, and she was not here when I was here last.
Hello, Pavel. My name is Rebecca; I worked on the hydroponics deck of our starship. The last time I was in the City was years ago in City time, as far as I can tell...I am a bit lost until I look more at how this place has changed.
video;
video; private
Now to try a little more....Yes, actually. I am in a bit of a situation, and I could use someone with a knowledge of technology similar to my level. But I can't speak of this in public; would you be willing to talk in person?
video; private
Re: video; private
Where are you? I can come to you.
video; private
video; private
video; private
Re: video; private
video; private > action
[Chekov will be pacing outside of City Solutions within a matter of minutes, waiting to meet her.]