Move 15 (Chapter 1.15)

[yhlee]

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

[I'm trying desperately to get Mikodez caught up, I promise! If the rest of y'all want to take a bit of a break, that's fine--or if you want to settle logistics, that's fine too. So sorry...]

Mikodez and Istradez [NPC] on Moongray Station, plus HATCHED EGG, ca. 20:50

[continuing from this comment by pengwern]

"I have no idea what would happen if you fouled up the stock market," Istradez says. His eyes are starting to look glassy. "And I'm just as married to the fucking job as you are." He gives forth a sigh and appears to be dropping into semi-slumber when Mikodez's last words penetrate. "We need you as hexarch. Just...maybe less of a psychopathic one? But you don't know about that 'training incident,' either..."

Hmm. Istradez's pulse is becoming too slow for comfort. Better do something about that.

---

Year 361, Month Three, Day Seventeen, ass o' clock Monday

on the Bumblebee/Wasp/Monthra

around 1:00, in the hold of the Wasp

Remi and Alaric have made excellent progress on the conversion of the "Bumblebee"'s hold space into a mothling habitat. Remi has lapsed into a brooding silence, considering Alaric's revelations about what life is like outside of the heptarchate. At this point, however, the moth starts to hum again. It doesn't seem to want to shut up, but at least its humming is quieter--maybe the station hasn't noticed.

Remi looks interested. "Your moth is very talkative--is that usual?" His expression turns sad. "They never talked much in captivity with us. I suppose it's understandable."

around Monday 2:50

Gerae asks Ashari and Sasha, "Should I go back into my room now? I promise I'll stay out of the way. And you have all my lockpicks, so it's not like I can finagle my way out." He glances sidelong at Virmad and Sulen, then adds, "Fluffy especially likes cookies, but she shouldn't have too many of them. She also likes honey-dipped locusts, if you can get any. Some of the food vendors on the station carry them sometimes, but I have to request them special, and they confiscated my supply."

NOTE: For anyone who is not otherwise occupied, it would be a great time to get some rest, or alternately, ask Iawa for stims in anticipation of the morning's activities.

Comments

so, how much flexibility in layout do we have?

[zuhrovet]

[Can the grid make us a room that temporarily doesn't have a door, or do the Wasp's precursor to variable layout characteristics not have that much flexibility?]

Re: so, how much flexibility in layout do we have?

[yhlee]

[Grid can do that for you no problem. Gerae has some skills, but not that many skills. If there isn't even a door, he shouldn't be able to get out. Just leave some air holes so he doesn't suffocate in there. ;) ]

bedtime for magistrates, stories for Sasha? - paging Ashari, Sulen, Virmad

[zuhrovet]

[Fortunately, we've established that Sasha pays a remarkable amount of attention to ductwork, and therefore knows both that the bedrooms have dedicated air vents and that they don't connect to any ventilation shafts large enough for a person to escape through!]

"Walk with me," Sasha says to the room at large. She leads the way back to Gerae's room, watches as he walks inside, suggests politely that he might like to stand back a little, and shuts the door.

"Grid, please replace the door to room B-13 with a blank wall." The fill creeps in from the edges, a little irregularly; watching it happen is like looking for patterns in falling snow. "Restrict further changes to the layout of room B-13 to user groups wolf, hawk, admin. And play our guest some white noise."

Sasha turns to the Rahal. "What was that about scrying, earlier? I didn't understand that part at all. Can the magistrate tell the future, somehow? Without coming from it, like us?"

Re: bedtime for magistrates, stories for Sasha? - paging Ashari, Sulen, Virmad

[lleullawgyffes]

“Was that really necessary?” Virmad asks, but at this point he can recognize that it’s a losing battle, and the fact that he was woken up in the middle of the night — after staying up later than normal — is catching up with him; he doesn’t have the energy to fight about this. “And no, he can’t. He misunderstood your questions and thought you and Ashari were literally asking him for an assessment of our character, which he could have provided with a scrying. As it is, I doubt he’s got anything more definite to go on than Broken-Winged Moth and —” he squints at Ashari for a moment, then nods “— Kniferose Unsheathed, which, frankly, he probably could have figured out without scrying, anyway, given that display. Plus my and Sulen’s signifiers, I suppose.”

[if I've overstepped my bounds in assuming what signifier Ashari'd be showing at the moment, feel free to just ignore it.]

but fighting is for EVERYONE - paging Sulen; CC Ashari and Virmad

[zuhrovet]

"I'm not a fucking moth--" Sasha begins. "Hells, this is meaningful cultural symbolism, isn't it? I haven't memorized all the jeng-zai patterns, either. Right. Alaric probably has some calculations for me by now. I'll be in the comms room if you need me."

[Sasha's transitioning toward some sort of martial signifier involving moths and planetoids, but it's early yet and Virmad didn't exactly catch her in protective mode.

venndaai, the plural hells are definitely heretical. Your call on whether to pick up on that.]

[pengwern]

"Hey, stay awake. Who's going to feed me lies about my brilliant future career if you die?"

There’s a way of checking the health of interrogation targets and boosting it through the augment until you’re done questioning them. Mikodez has used it before, and he tries loading it now. If this was real Istradez, he could tickle her, or drop an entire scallion pancake on her face, but there aren’t any kitchens nearby except in the visitor quarters. They could, however, be cleared of bugs.

As he continues in that direction, Mikodez abandons the notion. He didn't want to test what a hexarch's body double was trained in. It’d be counterproductive to apply the hatchling to Fake Istradez’s person, anyway, given the apparent effects.

His augment wasn’t responding to the command, though it seems to be working fine for everything else. There’s Remi, heading to the Wasp, and really, why won’t this open? Mikodez flicks experimentally at where the augment implants lie on his skull. In the meantime, he starts the questions again, but this time they’re more along the lines of basic knowledge like Istradez’s favorite color, the first sixty digits of pi, the sequence of remembrances in the Month of Pyres, who dropped their pet ferret into their older sister’s candle-making setup…(Not that they ever had a pet ferret.)

The augment still hasn’t activated.

[to GM - sorry! I can leave Istradez to (die) rest in the quarters for the rest of the night, if the hatchling is still around?]

[yhlee]

[It's okay! But maybe we should leave poor Istradez to a bit of rest, while Mikodez reconnects with the rest of the group at whatever point of the timeline seems to make sense?]

"If I were going to lie to you about your future career," Istradez mumbles, "I'd guide you toward being a pastry chef so you can stop making poor Zehun a nervous wreck about your sugar consumption."

Istradez is answering all the questions correctly except the first sixty digits of pi. In particular, the mention of the pet ferret rouses him enough to snort quietly. "Please, Miki. We all know you're the only ferret in the family."

[pengwern]

"Spending lots of time with Zehun would be nerve-wracking," agrees Mikodez. Are you watching, instructors? By the time they get to visitor quarters, the hatchling is invisible in the pile of boxes surrounding Istradez on the cart. Mikodez settles mock-Istradez on a convenient couch, and for good measure gets a sticky-sweet fidget spinner in Shuos colors (ginger and strawberry) and shoves it between his teeth.

In a last ditch attempt, he recites the phrase that should boot him from simulations in emergencies, then the ones he used first year. The world stays resolutely solid.

Mikodez looks back at Istradez. Shooting a suspicious whatever that is while he lies unconscious - was that an immolat-y, Kel choice, or a sensible foxish precaution? There had to be gene scanners around a Nirai station somewhere.
[Has the mothling stayed by Mikodez all this time?]

[OT: GM delay]

[yhlee]

[Hey, apologies for not responding. I've had a migraine for four days and change and my ability to write coherent stuff is not the greatest right now...]

Re: [OT: GM delay]

[pengwern]

[Hope you feel better! I saw this fun overly ocularized shirt which seemed appropriately DIY for the Shuos (and committed this stick figure Miki-n-Istra.)]

[yhlee]

[Okay, sorry for the delay. Headache broke after seven days, trip to Urgent Care, trip to the ER, and muscle relaxants. :p Of course, the side effect was loopiness/drowsiness...]

The mothling appears to have imprinted on Mikodez, alarmingly enough, and is continuing to purr and stay pretty much wherever he puts it. If he lets it, it will rub up against his arm.

Istradez mutters something incoherent and slides out of consciousness.

[Feel free to wrap this thread up and then fast-forward, if you like.]

[venndaai]

[Augh! Glad to hear you're doing better.]

Time to teach the voidmoth named for Jedao tricks!

[pengwern]

[oh no, please get all the rest you need!]

Mikodez spends the next several hours erasing his tracks from the Station's monitoring systems as best he can, after setting one of his tape recorders cunningly beneath the couch that Istradez is lying on, and another less cunningly, right on his forehead. Attached is a cheery note saying, "Back soon, off to get food!" with several stacks of blobs labelled 'sweets', towering over a smiling stick figure.

After he gets back to the room, the rest of the time is used to pry delicately at whatever files Ashari/the Kel/Sasha have access to, plus the Station's records of other visitors (for the last time). He only spends ninety (90) minutes playing tag with the hatchling, now firmly named, variously, 'Baby', 'Crowned-With-Eyes', 'Pompom', 'Noodles'. He's in the middle of shoving it firmly away from the bare skin on his face (he's having fun, not suicidal) when he receives a message from Sasha. He types back, "where," and starts [searching in a non-obvious way] the station grid for information on Magistrate Gerae.

[No idea what Sasha's been doing, but it's up to you as to what he finds? This is the 'hours of in-game time to kill' that was mentioned earlier.]

ca. 2:60: paging Virmad

[yhlee]

The grid informs Virmad that he has a pending call from Kel Teo, and could he please pick up.

Re: ca. 2:60: paging Virmad

[lleullawgyffes]

Virmad heads to his quarters, in the interest of establishing at least modicum of privacy, attempts — with minimal success — to push his hair back into some kind of order, and answers the call.

[good thing Virmad didn't, in fact, suggest putting Gerae in his room, lol.]

Re: ca. 2:60: paging Virmad

[yhlee]

Teo, on the other end, is distressingly spry-looking. "Hello," he says. "That teenager in your group? I'm embarrassed to bring it up, but he's been very busy screwing around hacking the station. I don't suppose one of you could bring him to heel before he lands in real trouble?"

Re: ca. 2:60: paging Virmad

[lleullawgyffes]

Virmad blinks. Teenager...? Then it clicks: the Shuos cadet. Whatever his name is. What in the Heptarchate is he up to? He feels a twinge of regret for having been out of contact with the rest of the crew, quickly assuaged by the memory of Teo.

“I’m not sure who’ll be able to, but I’m sure someone will be able to manage. I’ll see to it now. Sorry to have had to run out on you earlier,” he adds. “But I see you’ve gotten called back to work, too, so I suppose it would have happened sooner or later in any case.”

02:60, back in comms

[zuhrovet]

Sasha returns to the communications room with yet another cup of tea. She does indeed have a first installment of calendrical data from Alaric, but before she starts splicing it into the magistrate's files, she wants to spend some time on physical security. She sets the grid to generate text notifications when various categories of object are brought onto the Wasp, or removed from it: notify Sasha, Ashari, and the Kel for weapons, explosives, highly radioactive objects, and augments, notify Sasha, Ashari, the Kel, and the Rahal about lockpicks and exotic technology, notify Sasha for unauthorized devices with grid capability, and send Sasha and the Kel a list of anything the grid can't identify. She programs the lighting in the airlock to turn slightly bluer when anyone besides a crew member has items in the weapons/explosives/radioactive category, and writes Ankat and Kaliyan a note inquiring whether they'd like audible alerts.

Then she checks quickly on the station security monitoring. She thought she was deeply enough embedded in that system that she'd receive any alerts, and there haven't been any. But it can't hurt to triple-check. [OOC: trying to balance the need not to complicate the Mikodez timeline with due diligence.]

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[venndaai]

Sulen knocks on the door. They come in without waiting for an answer, but linger in the doorway. "How's it going?"

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[zuhrovet]

"I just set a bunch of notifications for the airlock. The grid should generate a message to you now whenever someone brings lockpicks or exotic technology onto the ship. Let me know if you prefer a different format. And Alaric sent me the first installment of calendrical data. Was that what you were wanting to look at?"

Sasha's music continues playing, softly. Right now it sounds like a thunderstorm, interspersed with dissonant plinking.

[OT: continued GM delinquency]

[yhlee]

[Hey--sorry about that. My seven-day headache is gone, but apparently the med that killed it makes me loopy. Give me a couple hours and I'll try to catch up on pending comments later tonight. I'm so sorry, everyone...--the GM]

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[venndaai]

"I'd appreciate a look at it, yes, but actually, I was thinking of printing myself a gun, and thought I ought to tell you so I don't set off those alarms you're setting up. And to check with you that the kind I pick won't be detected by the station."

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[vass]

[Between this and the screaming, am I the only one who would totally subscribe to Sasha's Bandcamp feed?]

APOLOGIES

[smokedetective]

[HEY Y'ALL I'M SO VERY SORRY. I have no excuse for missing out on a lot of this and I feel bad . I've read through a portion of this and am going to try and catch up completely and respond this weekend. ]

Re: APOLOGIES

[yhlee]

[No worries, delinquent GM has been recovering from a very exhausting trip--short version, four out of five flights delayed, including one intercontinental flight, plus luggage lost for three days! I will probably post the next move sometime tomorrow evening.]