Move 13 (Chapter 1.13)

[yhlee]

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

Mikodez, on Moongray Station, pondering an egg

[Follow-up to this thread.]

It's easy enough for Mikodez to switch the motion detector off; it's not really designed for security use, so the researchers in the lab have it set up so it's easy to take offline for maintenance, etc. (It's highly doubtful they figured the egg would know how to hit the off switch.)

There is no one snoring under the desk, but there is a small file box containing a few paper notebooks, the old-fashioned kind. The game's soothing purring continues.

If Mikodez wants to set up the matter printer for a fake egg and one or two guns, that's easy enough. It might take some extra time to make sure the egg doesn't come out attractively plaid, though.

---

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

on the Bumblebee/Wasp/Mothra

After Sasha and Ashari's fight/cultural misunderstanding, and Ashari and Sulen clean up afterward, Gerae's distress becomes increasingly evident. He's pounding on the door of the room that Sulen deposited him in, crying in an increasingly hoarse voice that he refuses to leave without Fluffy.

[lleullawgyffes, it's up to you whether Virmad pays any attention to Sasha's presumed discreet lokwor message and returns in time to help talk to Gerae, or whether Virmad decides to ignore it in favor of continued shenanigans with Teo.]

Sasha appears to be in good health; Iawa might or might not want to write this up formally for Ashari or Ashari's superiors, depending on their assessment of Ashari's mood. [Iawa is the de facto medic as far as I can tell!]

Remi is asking Alaric if it would be difficult to set up a radio to soothe the mothlings into docility, which is less invasive than sedating them.

Meanwhile, Mothra is making rumbly noises again. It sends another Space ASCII diagram, this time of mothlings playing hide and seek.

---

Active in Move 12: Sasha, Ashari, Sulen, Mikodez, Iawa, Alaric, Virmad

Continuing inactive: Yehan, Kaliyan, Ankat

Comments

[pengwern]

There's time enough for Mikodez to scan for any security cameras in the area one last time before he switches the EGG, as well as documents with actual names around this particular desk. Right?

He goes to the entrances to the lab space to see if anyone's there, and hastily shoves the bedizened gun down in a box next to the spinner candies when it appears.

[yhlee]

There's a lone security camera and it looks like it's...broken. There's a sticky note attached to it saying VANA I TOLD YOU TO GET MAINTENANCE TO REPAIR THIS.--R.

There's a single man sleeping in the lab space, not under a desk, but on a...hammock? An indoors hammock? A toolbox lies open next to it. Nirai uniform, but other than that Mikodez doesn't recognize him. He's snoring slightly and persistently, whuffling every few breaths.

[pengwern]

[Assuming Mikodez got to glance over briefing materials on the Wasp, that's recognisably not a fluffy haired, violet eyed proto-heretic?]

That's incredible attention to detail right there. The security camera gets taped over anyway (regular opaque marking tape, not recording tape).

Backing away from the door in silence, Mikodez fiddles with the egg's case, careful to not let the liquid spill. He listens for alarms or footsteps from around the door. If all goes well, he has another box ready to transfer it with, tongs from a nearby bench, and gloves. (The gloves are for the tongs, which he does recognise, unlike the rest of the sleeper's toolbox - he stuck a pen into each finger and felt nothing, but you could hardly trust contact poisons to work on inorganic material. )

On a last note, those notebooks go into another box. It doesn't matter if the rebel Rahal are uncooperative. Those dates should be - or would be enough to get Vidona attention in Mikodez's time. If one member of the lab is implicated the rest of the lab can easily be investigated along with them.

[cue menacing hexarchate/hexarch motif! if this has a soundtrack.]

[yhlee]

Everything goes smoothly, although Mikodez has a bad moment when the rhythm of the snoring changes. If he investigates, it turns out that the sleeping Nirai (who is definitely not Remi; he's rotund and tan-skinned with sleek black hair) has somehow contrived to flop over in the hammock without falling out.

[You can probably fast-forward out of the lab. There's nothing dangerous in here unless he deliberately wakes the sleeper.]

[pengwern]

No more vacillation! Out he goes, with the EGG box secure in his arms, pausing only to tap at the unfortunate Nirai's game. The gun he stuffs into his pack, securely camouflaged by a jumble of laser levels, signage samples, Ashari's alarming left over [space Andan vantablack] fabric, and so on.

Mikodez reaches the door to the studio but lingers outside, trying to see who's still in the room. Has Ashari and Ashari's hair left the floor?

[.....is Clowder Clawing better than Clowder Purring :| did Mikodez just hack the game-within-a-game to douse each cat with unobtainable fur colors]

Ashari's location c. 20:00

[zuhrovet]

[It's around 20:00 Sunday in this thread, and Ashari is definitely still somewhere on the station, though I have no idea how long they spent literally in the dance studio.]

Re: Ashari's location c. 20:00

[pengwern]

[Who among us can spend four hours fussing around with space measurements, really. So Ashari /is/ gone, right :< No-one for Mikodez to make a suggestion about frying this moth egg to?]

Re: Ashari's location c. 20:00

[zuhrovet]

[There's always Istradez!]

[Bringing in Istradez?]

[yhlee]

[Yes--per zuhrovet's suggestion, would it help if Istradez chased Mikodez down, having noticed that "the kid" has gone missing?]

Re: [Bringing in Istradez?]

[pengwern]

[that would be cool! Though this was Mikodez trying to find ‘Andan’ Bokali, it makes sense for what Istradez is doing on station!]

Re: [Bringing in Istradez?]

[yhlee]

[Okay! Give me a couple hours to get some work out of the way and I'll have Istradez intervene, probably to hilarious effect. Unless you have an idea you want to run with and want to write up how Mikodez runs into Istradez first, which is also fine.]

Clowder Purring

[vass]

[Graphic design is my passion!]

Istradez ca. 20:25

[yhlee]

Mikodez doesn't seem to be having much luck locating Ashari. On the other hand, people on the station have clearly tired of confronting him about his mysterious doings.

Around 20:25 [after Sasha messages people], Istradez comes up behind him, making an exaggerated amount of noise, and clears his throat. [Shuos learn very rapidly not to sneak up on other Shuos by accident. Of such things are training incidents born.]

"There you are," Istradez says, relief coloring his voice. "Where have you been all this time? No, don't tell me." There's just a slight emphasis on the don't. "I was told you were still helping Andan Rii [Ashari] set up. Come on, let's head back to the Bumblebee."

Re: Istradez ca. 20:25

[pengwern]

"Cousin Imsayed!" Good. Convenient. "I brought most of what they wanted from the ship, but half of it's still upstairs. We should bring them down."

Re: Istradez ca. 20:25

[yhlee]

Istradez looks vexed. "If you insist, but after that we really should report back to the ship." He eyes Mikodez's burden with puzzlement. "Did Rii really ask...for all that...stuff?"

Re: Istradez ca. 20:25

[pengwern]

"How can you know they won't want it later? I have a printer here too, just in case." Mikodez looks at Imsayed then for a reaction, but not too hard. Sasha might have provided all the Wasp crew with the weapon blueprints, or Mikodez could be the only one with that unique set, but he'd just have to find Iawa's location in the past few hours to smooth that over.

He busies himself with his pack, slinging it around on his chest, setting down the laser levels, unfolding the fabric samples. The corridor is clear for now, with no cameras pointed to where they stand. "Cousin Imsayed. Do you really not want to know?" A smile to go with a flourish as Mikodez lifts the lid of the EGG BOX and shoves it at Istradez. As he grips the matter-printed gun in his pack and fires.

[MURDER TIME or in Mikodez's mind, sensible-clearing-out-of-enemies who might prove troublesome later, off the locked room environment of a ship-time.]

Re: Istradez ca. 20:25

[zuhrovet]

[Mishka, Mishka, just because the game has unlimited ammunition, doesn't mean you do.]

Re: Istradez ca. 20:25

[pengwern]

[this is all my fault. I forgot guns needed ammunition.)

MURDER TIME (Re: Istradez ca. 20:25)

[yhlee]

[All right, let's go to it! =D]

The gun jams? No, shit! Mikodez realizes from the dry ineffectual click that the damn thing isn't even loaded.

Processing the realization gives Istradez just enough time to grab Mikodez's wrist and twist hard enough to loosen Mikodez's grip on the gun. [Your call as to whether he actually drops it.] "The hell, Miki!" Istradez snaps, looking furious. "Did you go off and eat an entire platter of cookies or something? This is not the time to--"

He breaks off from whatever he was about to say and tries to capture Mikodez's arm in a lock.

[Geez, it's been like two decades since I had anything to do with lock flow practice. Forgive my vagueness.]

Re: MURDER TIME (Re: Istradez ca. 20:25)

[pengwern]

[...I had to look that up, what's a joint. What's an ammunition, some kind of mollusc. Slug.]

Doesn't matter if it was a game condition, Sasha's deliberate plot, or the completely inadequate printer, he’s having points docked for not checking the gun beforehand. At least it stays in his bag, even if he is tangled up in the straps as Imsayed's grip tightens.

The EGG, however, has just fallen a meter and half onto the sickening Nirai linoleum. The box is thick-sided, but it was barely cushioned, and it...is right in his way. The floor does feel like it's writhing against his face. His shoulder feels like it decided to go flying to a moon without him.

Mikodez freezes when he hears Miki. Of course they'd use his people, his briefing before the Rahal signposted that, nice and clear, but like hell are they getting away with that. He'd taken the first administration sequence. It's been centuries since the Shuos budget covered surveillance for cadets outside the academies. He can think of a score of people who would try anyway. He should have swept for bugs more often last time he went home. He needs to deflect the fox gaze from his family. It's already too late, but he can still try.

What would Avradez say if she found out? Istradez would yell, so much.

He rolls onto his knees, grabbing for the needles of his felting kit with his other arm, and aims for the eyes. "So much time around me and you still can't act like anybody I actually know."*

[That was a lie, bc istradez sounds like the academy nutritionist, after the time Mikodez stole all of his suitemate’s stock. I just don’t feel like his home had cookies.]

Re: MURDER TIME (Re: Istradez ca. 20:25)

[yhlee]

The EGG makes a completely alarming rattling sound, as if something inside it is knocking to get out in protest at the rough handling.

Istradez wrenches the arm that he has possession of and attempts to force Mikodez all the way to the floor. "Stop it," he hisses, "I didn't realize your animosity toward me went back quite that many years."

[This is a reference to this AU!Istradez's belief that adult!Hexarch!Mikodez sent him to his death. Cadet!Mikodez will have no knowledge of this, but feel free to misunderstand and/or mis/interpret Istradez in the most hostile way possible.]

The EGG only rattles more loudly. There is a distinct CRACK. It's starting to hatch...

Re: MURDER TIME (Re: Istradez ca. 20:25)

[pengwern]

Mikodez shoots him a look that a grownup Mikodez would give a obstreporous Vidona*, flat on the floor as he is. What years? So this is probably a preset acquaintance (or at least that’s what they want him to assume) who he’s just shot at. Well, he and Istra had both done worse, according to their older sister the last time they provoked her to sarcasm.

He tries jabbing the needles at the hand around his arm to get enough room to wiggle away, but decides against kicking the EGG BOX at Imsayed. With his luck, the critter would turn out to be something as cute and obvious as the purring cats in the Nirai game, and it might attack him instead since he’s closer on the ground.

Mikodez switches to the polite high language forms of addressing an elder, although - damn, he forgot to use the fourth century terms. “I’m sorry, cousin. I went by a few labs today, and,” making the universal gesture for 《momentary mind control by weird things made by Nirai》, “I though you were something else else, pretending to be you.”

[*patient condescension, filched from Zehun.
I’m banking on Mikodez’s siblings and parents not being actual clones of him...?]

[Mikodez's heritage]

[yhlee]

[proper response tomorrow when I have a brain again, but no, Mikodez's siblings and parents are not actual clones of him. I presume there was some kind of genetic tinkering to produce Mikodez and his siblings, considering the multiple parents involved, but I'm going to leave that to handwaving because I don't actually know any biology. :p]

Re: [Mikodez's heritage]

[pengwern]

[I'll assume they looked sibling-ish but not identical prior to Istradez's alteration. Also, innocent cadets!]

Re: MURDER TIME (Re: Istradez ca. 20:25)

[yhlee]

If anything, Istradez sounds even madder than before, considering Mikodez's continued attempts at evasion. "Don't you 'cousin,' me!" he snarls. Istradez isn't using polite forms of the language in the least. "'Mind control,' really?" He firms his grasp on Mikodez and hauls in an attempt to drag Mikodez to his feet.

Then, belatedly, listening to the EGG BOX's noises...Istradez's grip loosens in surprise. "What in the name of fox and hound is that?"