(no subject)

[initiates]

Date: November 1st
Location: The Observatory.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Observatory after their initial briefings. The zombie plot will not spill over into this area, this area is safe and unaffected! To face zombies, characters must leave the area, and please move to the event log with those threads.
Warnings: None.

Your arrival here has been very unceremonious. One second you were somewhere else, and now, very suddenly, your feet hit the glowing white of the Transporter pad, and you're here. You aren't alone, either. There's a crowd of others around you, each seeming just as bewildered, angry, or confused as you might feel. At the head of the group is a woman in purple robes, solemn and taciturn. She hurries over a quick overview of your intended purpose here, and gives direct answers when asked for them, but to most things she simply shows you how to access the tablet you've just been given, or tells you that the DITR's greeters will explain everything. On the tablet, you can find the history of this place and a record of what your new cohorts have experienced — although it won't have Network access for another 8 hours. Someone stands on hand to give you a weapon, and though the armory is now greatly reduced, you should be able to find something to suit you.

You're shepherded down a walkway tunnel and into the Observatory, where you will find screens mounted on three sides of the wide room. It's night outside the great wide windows, and the lunar landscape isn't much to look at right now; the only lighting comes from dull red emergency lights, but there are… noises. Listen carefully. Over the voices of your fellow Transports, now and then you might catch the sound of a scrape, or a low and muffled cry. It doesn't sound human. Are there animals up here?

You're free to explore the base, visit and use any of the VR rooms, or discover your new room and roommates, but try not to step out of any airlocks if oxygen is a requirement for your system.

Welcome to the moon base, and to the remains of Exsilium.

[[ ooc; As a note for players of current characters: please keep your root comments confined to the various groups and organizations that set up root comments to greet new characters! We highly encourage tagging around here, but since it's a log meant for new characters specifically, we ask that they be the ones to set up root threads to the entry. Thank you, and happy playing! ]]

Comments

[kirifuda]

[For all that their link can be so whole and entire, it really isn't--especially when Shotaro isn't wearing the Double Driver. As the vent falls in from above, Shotaro squawks in tense surprise, hand going for the Lost Driver. Then Philip says his name, and he relaxes a fraction, staring as Philip continues. Finally, he manages--]

Philip...!

[Relief and surprise fill his voice. But Philip is shaking, when they touch, and his grip around Philip's body is tight because of it.]

I'm here, partner. [Everything is beginning to slot together-- the way the techs had laughed when he'd said his name. The Xtreme Memory zooming off as soon as it had had room. Philip's hair, even, had it grown out? How long has Philip been alone?]

[kyoumibukai]

[Philip almost wants to shuck the two sweaters he's wearing, they're much thicker than the t-shirt fabric that usually separates him from his partner. He doesn't, though... It's still cold, and there is propriety to consider. The fact that he even considers it at all is evidence of how much Shotaro being around has already changed his outlook.]

Shotaro...

[His voice cracks. It's been barely over a month since he arrived... He's already become a mess. There is a part of him that is a bit ashamed about it. Rationally, he knows, when Shotaro and he were separated, his partner had had their friends to help. He had nothing... His breath hitches over Shotaro's familiar scent.]

The library, Shotaro, I cannot access it... I have been here alone, without access to the library... For one month, sixteen hours, forty two minutes, and six seconds...

[The seventh second was the moment he realized that Shotaro was here. He buries his face further in Shotaro's shoulder and neck.]

[kirifuda]

[Shotaro's free hand, the one not white-knuckled on the Denden Sensor, lifts to curl in the hair at the back of Philip's head. Philip alone was bad enough. Philip alone without the Library--he leans closer.

One month, sixteen hours, forty-two minutes, six seconds. He had a lot to make up for.]

We'll get it back, Philip. [That explains why the hell he was in the vents. It doesn't surprise him at all that Philip would want to be away from the stale, technological world of the Transport pad, and away from these people who wouldn't engage (and indulge) him as familiarly as Shotaro can. He turns his face into Philip's hair.]

We're gonna make it work. All right?

[kyoumibukai]

[His heart feels like it's beating for the first time since he arrived.]

Yes, yes. When we are back on Earth. I will explain all of that later.

[He sighs. There's a moment of silence when he fists his hand in the back of Shotaro's vest, ignoring the wrinkles he's putting in the only vest his partner probably has.]

I... I'm sorry. It was hard. I put you through that feeling for an entire year.

[kirifuda]

[Shotaro can't worry too much about the Library, even if 'what if being back on Earth doesn't fix this' crosses his mind immediately. There's enough to worry about, here in his arms. He breathes, for a moment, the reality that his vest will have wrinkles passing, at best (even his own vanity doesn't take precedence over Philip).

Especially when he speaks, and the breath goes out of Shotaro.]

Hey, it's not--it's all right. [This wasn't a feeling he ever wanted Philip to know, and it's not as if this distance was his fault, but he's going to take responsibility for it. Someone has to.] It's over now. That time, and now this one. We're together.

[kyoumibukai]

There was no guarantee you would ever appear, I tried to calculate the odds but without the library... And this technology is outside my field of knowledge so I-

[He takes a deep breath.]

I thought I might never see you again, at least not until and if I was transported back to our world.

[He swallows, his voice thick in his throat.]

I have never had to lose so much...

[In the face of what he has lost? His humanity, his family, his free will, and then his life... He had never felt so strange and outside his body and bereft. But Shotaro is here now, and with him, a full fifty percent of what keeps him sane. He could keep it together now, has to. He hears the pain in Shotaro's voice, and knows he can't cause it anymore. He lets go of the vest, pulls back so he can see his partner's face.]

I learned to knit, Shotaro. And I created a spider's web with yarn, which I sleep in from time to time. I haven't been living in the vents the entire time, only two weeks or so. And I read the network in its entirety, and know a lot about all the other Transports.

[His voice sounds more normal, albeit strained and belabored.]

I am all right. I will be all right.

[kirifuda]

[Shotaro's eyes shut as Philip's loneliness bare themselves to him, and his jaw is tight when he looks up to meet Philip's eye. He forces a small scoff.]

Only two weeks in the vent, huh?

[It shouldn't even have been a day. But when Philip says he'll be all right--which is much more accurate than 'I am all right', and he thinks they both know it--he relaxes a fraction. He shifts to cup Philip's cheek.]

Yeah, partner. You're gonna be all right, especially if I get any say.

[He frowns. He's still on edge from the weird sounds, now that the immediate concern is over.] You, uh, hear anything up in there?

[kyoumibukai]

[The hand on his cheek is welcome... Normal, more than anything. He missed Shotaro so much.]

Mmh. It's warmer there. Now that you are here, I think I can manage.

[His math, the math that had predicted how long before he would completely destabilize, had extended another few weeks when he started to live in the vents and accept help from others, but... His destabilization has now become a matter of potentiality rather than eventuality... He sighs, and then looks up.]

It's probably just the zombies that are attacking the facility.

1/?

[kirifuda]

The what?!

[kirifuda]

Did you just say zombies?!

3/3 done

[kirifuda]

[Okay, deep breaths--yeah, no, deep breaths were not helping.] Couldn't you have mentioned this before?!

[GOD DAMMIT, PHILIP.]

[kyoumibukai]

[He looks - very slightly - wounded, though it's sort of overwhelmed by the pleased amusement on his face at getting Shotaro off balance for the first time in over a month.]

I had a few other things on my mind...

[His murmur is defensive.]

In addition, the strategy that we'll be forced to use is up in the air, since I'm not sure of any impregnable safe zones at the moment, so I'm not willing to leave my unconscious body to fight as Double... As much as I truly want to.

[He makes a moue, not having realized how much he'd miss fighting with his partners.]

[kirifuda]

[He tucks the sensor away in order to scrub at his face, and keep his other hand on Philip. Calm, Shotaro, stay calm.]

I know.

[This once, his attention being elsewhere could be excused. A little. Freakin' zombies!! Philip's tactical analysis makes him sigh, and he adjusts the collar of Philip's sweater, which is only half an excuse to stay close.] I have the Driver the Chief left for me. [Pause, his eyebrows furrowing.] Xtreme was with me, haven't you seen it?

[kyoumibukai]

[He shakes his head, using it as an excuse to flap his hair into Shotaro's face.]

I haven't seen it... You know, I made these sweaters.

[He blinks, a little embarrassed that he didn't immediately grasp onto that.]

Wait, you have the Lost Driver as well?

[He pulls the driver out of a weird pocket he knitted specifically for that purpose.]