Move 12 (Chapter 1.12)

[yhlee]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Sixteen (Sunday), evening
Station Moongray

On the Station, at The Bar on Level Three: Virmad
[in response to Virmad flirting with Teo in Move 11]

[poetry:] Teo listens attentively as Virmad tells him about Kel Zem Rao's poetry. "That's fascinating," he says. "I admit I've never given much thought to form in literature--I'm afraid Kel Academy only throws enough high language at us in the form of 'how to write a good post battle report' and isn't really high on literary value. I'll have to look up those poems you mentioned sometime."

[slime mold racing:] "If you hang around long enough," Teo says, "I'd be happy to take you to a slime mold race. There are recordings, but, ah, I feel that the sport is best appreciated live. The Nirai who are into it get very into it."

[dramas:] "Excellent!" Teo says. "Whenever you're in the mood"--his mouth quirks in a smile--"we can head on over."

[lleullawgyffes, your call as to whether you want to fade to black at whatever point you deem fitting, or RP Virmad/Teo more explicitly. If the latter, I can start a locked post for the RP. Let me know!]

Mikodez, on Moongray Station, sniffing around for clues
[in response to this thread from Move 11]

The "racing" records are surprisingly well-defended. A little nosing about on some of the local forums and discussion boards suggests it has to do with the breeding of lineages of speedy space slime molds for the local sport of slime mold racing. Apparently some of the slime mold lineages are particularly valuable. Or it could be a cover for something else, who knows? Nirai are weird.

As for his other efforts, Mikodez comes up with some public information on Andan Bokali. Bokali has a rather bland record of service in several different marches. Mikodez's intuition tells him that there's something being hidden from him. Bokali's record is too bland, perfectly in line with what you'd expect for a second-class contact specialist of no particular repute. That seems weird--why would you trust the heptarchate's safety to a middling contact specialist? Does Bokali have extra qualifications only available to those with a higher security clearance?

---

Year 361, Month Three, Day Sixteen (Sunday), overnight

on the Bumblebee/Wasp/Mothra

Sasha has no trouble cleaning up after herself. She receives a couple halfhearted probes from the wriggly virus trying to worm its way in again, though.

Alaric will need to help Ankat and Kaliyan refit the firing range into a mothling habitat--they can do the construction work, especially with the help of the matter printer [handwave], but they want guidance with the radiation shielding--best not to mess that up. Remi will assist with that for the first part of the night; he seems to have a pretty solid practical background in engineering.

Gerae will be knocking on the door plaintively asking if he can talk to someone, and promising that he will behave. In particular, he wants to know that since he's escaping with the lot of you, can he bring Fluffy with?

Toward 2 a.m. or so, unless something requires his attention, Remi will head back onto the station, avoiding Vana so that she can't corner him.

[If you want to make any other preparations before the escape attempt/confrontation proper on Day 17 in the morning, this is the move to do it.]

---

Active in Move 11: Sasha, Sulen, Ashari, Iawa, Alaric, Virmad, Mikodez

Continuing inactive: Yehan, Kaliyan, Ankat

Comments

[pengwern]

With total confidence, Mikodez walks up to...Remi's lab with a stack of Ashari's exhibit equipment in his arms which conveniently block his face, and dumps them at the door aligned over the entrance to the dance studio on the floorplans. He makes another few trips back and forth between the Bumblebee and the lab, occasionally colliding with the walls as he juggles the crates, all the while staring though his augment at what his bugs and tape recorders are telling him about the inside of the discrepancies on the map. To any observers he probably just looks vacant. And short.

He takes the matter printer and the fidget spinner plate with him on his last trip, and slouches against the wall with the boxes and his tablet.

[I know Remi's been contacted but the spinners are just there for lunch. Also bribes.]

[yhlee]

There are a lot of discrepancies, that's for sure, and they're concentrated pretty heavily in Remi's lab area. Interestingly, there are also some map discrepancies in the dance studio proper. It appears that the studio area contains a lot of interesting mechanisms, possibly used for something as innocent as performance effects, possibly including weaponry. It's hard to tell for certain.

On the last trip, Mikodez is (finally?) confronted by a bored-looking safety official, identifiable by her bright orange armband. "Excuse me," she says, "you can't loiter here. Move along, please." She sounds like she wants an excuse to haul Mikodez away bodily.

[pengwern]

Striking a fine balance between teenaged ennui and assistantly eagerness, Mikodez comes right up to the official and flourishes his clunkiest tablet with the dance studio's practice schedule visible.

"I'm supposed to meet someone on this floor that knows the dance studio so they can look everything over or whatever so we can finally finalize the space. Actually, can you help me set this up?" He crouches for one box, half opening it to show the frame components within, like he's about to unpack all the crates right here. "My boss, you know how -- do you know how the Andan get? They hate it when you get sarcastic! Like they want a monopoly on sarcasm, along with everything else."

[uh, sorry, maybe the security people saw Mikodez go back and forth between the ship so many times they just started waving him through?]

[yhlee]

[Yeah, security here will keep an eye on Mikodez but they're just as prone to getting sick of doing checks as anyone else. Mikodez can definitely bore them into carelessness.]

The safety official seems to realize that she's made a tactical error. "Yeah, kid, sure," she says grudgingly. "We've got an Andan of our own, although at least I don't have to run errands for them." [No doubt referring to Andan Bokali.] "Here, let me, uh, get Nirai Alissa for you." She heads off before Mikodez can persuade her to help with the crates.

[pengwern]

Mikodez stands to watch the guard whisk away, shrugs visibly, and goes to try the door.
[So will his late-hexarchate tech lockpicks work on the lab]

[yhlee]

The door snicks open without a problem.

[His late-hexarchate tech lockpicks completely outclass the locks they have here.]

[pengwern]

Mikodez grabs a box (coincidentally one with the teeniest, slightest chance of exploding) as he scans the room beyond, ready to repeat his story at anyone inside.

[yhlee]

The lab is deserted. Makes sense; even scientists have to sleep sometime. He can see a glowing display: seems like someone was playing a video game and forgot to log out.

[pengwern]

If he'd been issued a handgun he would have drawn it by now. Mikodez has heard things about games within simulations. Was that the bones at his temples buzzing? He makes his way over to the largest area of discrepancy from the map to try to figure out what it is.

[yhlee]

The game appears to be a cat simulator [like Flight Rising, but for fantasy cats rather than dragons]. Whoever was playing has an astonishing collection of pink, calico, lavender, and polka-dotted pixel-cats. There is a faint, intermittent purring.

ETA:
The largest area of discrepancy appears to be a tank containing an...egg? It's suspended in a clear amberish liquid, and is about the size of Mikodez's head.

[pengwern]

[- the real question is, if Remi goes to the future (and assuming that Clowder Purring doesn't go under for centuries) what will his cats be worth]

Mikodez casts a jaded eye over the egg, suppressing a sigh. He IS trying to express normal Shuos tendencies. But hauling giant eggs around on a mission would be dumb even for myopic Kel.

Maybe he could claim that the structure looked unstable? That he thought this was a very novel stage built for a slice of life play about Nirai researchers? He waves his hand around and through the air around the tank, checking for monitors that appear to focus on the area, and for any other tanks or sealed off structures around the lab.

He could swear that the purrs rose and fell with his breathing.

[yhlee]

There appears to be a motion detector, but it's fairly primitive; at a guess, it's not meant to prevent theft of the egg (presumably simulated Nirai don't usually steal experiments from each other) but to check for potential imminent hatching motions.

The purrs do seem to have a soporific rhythm, at that.

[Sorry for the delayed response--I've been sick the last three days, my bad.]

[pengwern]

Mikodez looks for a way to turn the motion detector off for a minute without alerting whatever system that's keeping an eye on it, and pokes around the lab some more without touching anything, until he reaches the corner with the computer. He has to sit down and face it at some point, but first he checks under the desk to make sure that there isn't someone who's succumbed to what's probably just a nightcycle mode for the game.

[aaa please rest and don't worry about this! I hope you feel better.
It occurs that I didn't check how long it takes for the matter printer to produce items. Is there enough material in the portable one we brought on-station to make a fake egg to swap in + whatever number of guns?]

[yhlee]

[You can fake up an egg and one or two guns pretty easy. The fake egg won't pass close inspection, but it'll buy you time.]

[pengwern]

While the matter printer starts, he snaps an image of the most vivid cat on the screen and uploads it onto the printer so it can be seared onto the inside of the hollow, opaque fake he wants. Whether this [matter printed printer?] would work for him is, of course, up to the distant fox-eyed void.

[yhlee]

The matter printer will oblige him on that point, even if it's going to take a second try to get the exterior of the egg not to be, well, plaid.

[pengwern]

[\cat!/ ]

There seems to be enough material left for Mikodez to have a matter-printed gun. Did he really want the rest of the crew to have projectile weapons anyway? He needs to check up on their whereabouts, as soon as the machine spits out a non-rainbow plaid generic object.

[yhlee]

The gun is going to come out with a very bright green diagonal stripe, but otherwise look functional. Probably.

01:00 - memo to Avrayen - FLUFFY

[zuhrovet]

Around one in the morning [so quite a bit later than the current lock-picking session] Sasha sends a lokwor message to Mikodez.

Please can you retrieve Magistrate Gerae's pet, Fluffy? I will owe you.

Re: 01:00 - memo to Avrayen - FLUFFY

[pengwern]

[Sorry, was Fluffy in lockup? I have to check the last few comments.]

Re: 01:00 - memo to Avrayen - FLUFFY

[zuhrovet]

[Fluffy is in Gerae's house, on the station. Gerae is locked up on the ship.]

Re: 01:00 - memo to Avrayen - FLUFFY

[pengwern]

[Can't steal Gerae if we don't also steal the collection of draconic costumes for photo-ops and selfies with Alaric. On it, if Mikodez doesn't fall down a well.]

Re: 01:00 - memo to Avrayen - FLUFFY

[zuhrovet]

[If Mikodez does fall down a well, Fluffy had better rescue him. It's only fair.]