exsiliumlogs | (OPEN | Mutiny Log) Well it's been so long

Entry tags:

(OPEN | Mutiny Log) Well it's been so long

Date & Time: Nov. 16 ~0300 through Nov.19th ~0230hrs, 3133
Location: Housing, Cafeteria, VR rooms, hallways etc (read: everywhere)
Characters: YOU!
Summary: Mutiny on the moon base! Vital systems are offline, mutineers are making PA announcements, and there’s conflict and turmoil brewing in the halls. Dun dun duuun!
Warnings: None yet (possible violence?)
Notes: Specify a date and location in your top comment. You may specify multiple dates/locations. A timeline for the plot and the IC PA announcements made during are available HERE.

[In the dead of night - or as close to ‘the dead of night’ as is possible to have in moon base - a small group of transports finally make the move they’ve been planning for weeks. Pre-determined teams, maintaining radio contact throughout, simultaneously take control of the Transporter Room and take multiple systems offline.

One moment things are normal; they next, they’re not. With a last message flagged as ‘maintenance’ left on the network, the network cuts out. A moment later, Transports across the base find themselves losing contact with the ground or shifting in their sleep and gently floating out of their beds from the force as the gravity drops. Lighting flicks over to emergency only: bathing corridors and rooms in a desolate, lonely red. Doors work - and then they don’t. Transports will find themselves confined to housing (and washrooms), the VR rooms, and the cafeteria; it’s plenty of space to be comfortable and largely covers most Transport’s basic needs (unless you’re fond of cheery light or having your feet on the ground in which case you may be out of luck).

Hours later-- Click-HHHSSSHK-click!

A woman’s voice speaks over the moon base’s PA system, echoing through the dark corridors and off the odds and ends gently floating through them thanks to the lack of gravity regulation. The voice is rich and accented, with a certain practiced ease to it - one that sharpens to a point the longer she talks:]

Testing. Testing-- are we good? Christ, I'm not echoing, am I? No?

All right good. Listen up, fellow transports. As you might have noticed, some of the base's general systems have gone offline: this, I assure you, is absolutely intentional. There's no need to panic.

So moving on from the understandably frustrating to the even more frustrating, I'm sure you all have also noticed the fact that we're currently all stuck-- starving and defenseless-- on the bloody moon. In a base that was, up until a few days ago, overrun with zombies. And before that, thousands of lives were bombed right out of existence, and before that, an entire world-- and before that we were all still being thrown at the United Earth for the sake of dying off repeatedly in a war we never stood a chance or had a say in. Transports have been treated like pawns since day one, and I'm sorry, but we don't deserve it.

If we're giving up our lives and our freedom, I'd say it's about time we earned ourselves a little equality.

We deserve a say in what goes on in this fight, and with that in mind, a few of us have decided to hold onto the transporter for a while. Just until the Initiative agrees to treat us like people instead of ammunition. Trust me, we’re not here to hurt anyone; none of this has to end badly. But it does need to end. Things have got to change. And if this is what it takes? This is what it’s going to be.

We need your help; please don’t make it any harder for us.

[The PA clicks off, pitching the base once more into complete radio silence.

Near the end of the first day, gravity regulation is re-established. The network is brought back online the following day, allowing everyone to communicate more freely. Lighting doesn’t come back online until the 18th and the door regulation isn’t normalized or operable until the 19th. Throughout the four days, the mutineers make multiple PA announcements.

In the mean time? Keep your friends close, come to the aid of your neighbors; help with reconnaissance and choose sides - are you neutral in this mess? Are you trying to help bring systems back online and root out the mutineers? Are you sympathetic to the mutiny and trying to sabotage those Transports standing for the Initiative?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Collette hit the floor with her talons spread wide, seeking some kind of purchase even as her wings splay out and come forward, pointing toward the metal flooring. She ducks herself low, sitting on the cold surface, knowing the best ways to ensure she doesn't fall once the demorph has progressed far enough.

There wasn't a one hundred percent success rate, but she's used to that, too. The random nature of each change, it's something she usually hides with her weapon.

It's difficult for a small bird to work the knobs on her stop watch. One day that might change, but for now, Collette has to push through the whole process on her own. The beak on her face begins the demorph this time, growing disproportionately to the rest of her head. The nostrils widened into slits, fleshy lips forming along the hard edges of the beak which pulls back, still hard and yellow, toward a face where feathers appear to be caught between molting and mange.

Teeth push through a mount not yet equipped to handle them, bird tongue narrow and dark colored sticking out, a worm as Collette swallowed in open-mouthed reflex. Her legs shot out from underneath her, twisting to the side with human-sized talons coming out of material that starts off scaled and orange, ending up black with feathers pulling back into it with almost-audible pops.

Her back arches, still feathered, before spreading out, expanding to support her growing head. While her eyes move from their position on the sides of her head, looking like sliding, blinking pools of darkness moving in the clay material of her partially feathered face, her fingers jut out of the ends of her wings, bones changing directions and growing heavier as she wheezes, catching herself awkwardly when she comes close to faceplanting on the ground, overbalanced.

Collette's hair pushes out between the feathers, which begin to pull in under her skin across her hands and into the dark material of the morph suit she wears. Heavy, luxurious locks spill out and over a face still more bird than human, her back losing the extreme concave look as her shoulders move and broaden, changing the way they sat on her. Her legs follow suit with the direction change, the massive talons disappearing into perfect, individual toes while her knees reversed direction, hips and pelvis shifting.

Collette is left staring at the ground while the rest of the feathers on her face pull back in under her skin, blackheads disappearing in reverse. The feathers along her arms are last, turning up and rotating as if they were saying goodbye, golden color melting into black material.

From a bird, through the grotesque charade of change that was morphing, into a girl. Collette shifts herself, feeling for a leg. "Both legs normal?" Her glance down at her bare feet seemed to satisfy her question. "Check!"

She looked up, finally noticing her company. Her expression blanches at first, and then she smiles -- a tad awkwardly. "Uh... hey."

Christopher has known many strange experiences. His own existence, of course, and that of his brothers and sisters; the sight of an immortals blood and flesh crawling back to its body like a colony of insects seeking its hive; a human whose ability is beyond the limits of the human race. Here, he has seen stranger things still.

But witnessing this grotesquery, Christopher finds himself watching more and more intently as a human emerges from the form of a bird. The mix of natural and unnatural brings a smile to his face.

(Few could say whether it is real or fake.)

Only when Collette sees him to Christopher's expression change, smoothly and easily, into a refreshing shark-mouthed grin. "My. Should I have made you instead of madeleines a cone covered in peanut butter and seed? Do you have another name as a bird, or is 'Collette' also a popular name among avian species?"

Her smile gains a little ground. She does have to shift herself in awkward ways, walking herself upright with her hands, leaning one shoulder against the wall while the other arm starts to pull her legs into a semblance of order.

"I'm not sure," she admits. "Birds don't really think of each other in terms of names. Calls, or colors, things like that. Not that I've had any deep bird conversations!"

Edited 2013-11-17 06:57 (UTC)

Christopher half-crouches beside her and tilts his head to one side, his silent offer to help, if she wants. But his actual conversation considers along those lines. "While it might be hard to have any kind of deep bird conversations around here, unless there is a secret collection of birds or bird-people around that I've yet to met, I think you ought to learn more about your bird heritage! It's important to know about your origins, you know."

Even though his aimless words are based on an illogical presupposition, his mind is busy putting together elements and reconsidering them together. Like a child (test subject) with a puzzle, Christopher absently rearranges the pieces and possibilities in front of him as he speaks.

"If they were mine, maybe," she says with a laugh. She holds her arms open to him, not sure she should, but following through on the impulse none-the-less. She'd been down on her time in morph, needing to come out of it anyway, though she'd hoped to make it closer to the place she'd left her chair than she had.

"I'm not half so featherbrained, for all I love flying!"

Christopher affects a look of horror. "Wait, does that mean I just witnessed you tearing yourself free from the skin of a hapless bird you slaughtered?" At the same time as he delivers this nonsensical declaration of shock, Christopher gives the help that she has accepted. Gentle, careful, he supports her with attention not to hurt her or himself. "Where are we heading?"

She is a bit heavier than a rabbit.

"West Wing restroom. I hope that's close by, I get turned around up there sometimes." She'd laughed when he suggested she'd torn herself free from a bird she'd slaughtered. So far, the only morphs she had from dying creatures came either voluntarily, such as with Terri, or necessarily, such as with the mutant canine from last November.

"Don't be gross! I'm not slaughtering anything. That'd be rude, for one!"

"It isn't too far." That is assuming the systems stay consistent. "What's for two?"

"For two, think I'd tell you if I really had?" That comes out pure teasing, followed by a light laugh, as if they weren't in the middle of a bunch of opposing groups of people and thoughts and stages of action, where some had unfair monopolies on supplies, and others just felt like they should or knew best.

"Morphing doesn't hurt other people. Don't let it get to you," she settles on after a moment. "It's painless."

Christopher is very good at ignoring the reality of a situation. In some sense, it's his specialty. Isn't that how he chose to go mad? Christopher laughs, and with a grin, he counters, "In that case, I won't let a quick death get to me, either."

She laughs, smacking him lightly with one of her hands.

"Christopher!" Her mock outrage isn't entirely mock-anything. As one who's had that kind of death, she can attest that it doesn't feel near as short and quick as it really is. "You're so bad!"

He grins at her, laughing off the touch. "I'm practically a radioshow villain on the backslide. Don't you think that's a really great word? Even though it's a very obvious term when you break it into parts, I feel like 'backslide' is a perfect way to describe the fun and exciting way a villain slides back into his or her old habits. Rather than a backstep, which is fun as well but more defined, a backslide is a great gliding motion where you're looking forward but you still keep heading backwards and you can't get your feet to properly grip the ground. Wait, don't tell me. Such a fun and elegant motion—could it be that you're in a backslide, Collette? Have you turned away from your body-snatching was only to find yourself retreating to the habit in this time of chaos and calamity?"

Like his usual nonsensical rambles, they are delivered with a lightness of thought and a seriousness of tone that makes their seriousness difficult to discern. Either way, it's a good way not to think directly about the situation of the mutiny.

"That sounds sad, do you know that? Like you need someone to tie off to your waist and help pull you back up from where you're falling." She certainly doesn't know what to take seriously or not, expression difficult to read -- like her thoughts are for herself.

"What're you falling back into? Things like how you are with that Huey person?"

Christopher stops.

He hasn't spoken with Huey in public over the communications system. Not once. Huey has mentioned him a few times. But never in a manner that would warrant this.

"Ah." And a serene, gentle smile finds its place on Christopher's face. "How have you enjoyed your association with the Princess of the Moon?"

"More when it was a fun joke. Less when it got creepy and philosophical," she admits, watching his eyes more than his lips. His body posture, those sorts of things -- she knows he's an excellent liar.

When he feels he has a reason to be. (Or a need, wouldn't that be the case?)

But those eyes, like those teeth, were a gift from Master Huey, a special request from the test subject that he was happy to indulge. Those eyes are strange and monstrous, and they smile with his mouth.

It isn't that Christopher is hiding things. Not in the ordinary way. Christopher believes all of this. He answers, "Collette, if you're calling Master Huey unsettling, I'll also have to take that as a personal insult against myself," and he says it with a definite sincerity. It's a gentle reprimand, certainly, but no trace of any opposite thought leaks through. Because there is no thought opposite to this.

Christopher loves Huey Laforet. He worships and admires him.

If he didn't, he could never survive what Huey puts him through.

Then he affects a look of hurt. "Wait, you're not calling me unsettling, too, are you, Collette? Even after I've accepted you despite your habit of stealing the forms of birds and rabbits! Is this the limit of our friendship?"

Victims of abuse. It's one of the first things she can think, and it makes her bite down on her lip, not sure what to do. Abandonment was so much easier to handle. This was more like trying to talk to Gilbert about how Jack gave her the skeeves, when he was so sure Jack was The Hero incarnate.

"I like your kind of unsettling," she announces, lips pulling up into a grin. "Why would it be personal against you?"

He notices the bite, and the pull in the opposite direction. He can guess what she is thinking. What she knows.

Like a rabbit once did to him, he taps her on the nose. He gives her a lopsided grin. "Mad as I am, I still don't need to be the Chief Morale Officer to see a false smile."

Said nose wrinkles, and she laughs, short and sweet. "It's easier than saying what no one wants to hear." It's not meant as an excuse, but as an explanation. It's the same idea behind why she'll never really tell Caesar how she feels about him, or why she never asked for people to stay forever, only that they not die.

Not die here.

Christopher chuckles. Not mocking, not guarded. As strangely gentle and serene as his smile. "Oh? Then you must understand enough to let this whole boring old topic go."

Christopher is a broken and twisted creature, and that is how he is able to be self-aware. Or perhaps it's better to say that he would never have to be so twisted as he is if Huey hadn't given him that self-awareness. Christopher knows the truth: that his love is just a rearrangement of his hatred, that his worship is just a translation of fear, that everything he makes himself feel for Huey is just survival strategy. He knows that he hates Huey for forcing this self-awareness on him, even as he makes himself believe that he is grateful for the blessing of such consciousness.

So Christopher can make a very educated guess at what Collette is saying. She won't tell him what he doesn't want to hear. What he can't hear. And he is honestly, truly grateful for that. It becomes unbearable, trying to be around people who would tell him things he already knows and must deny.

"So tell me," he says, and the grin becomes big and broad, "are you rebel against the rebels or a rebel who don't defect?"

"Neither," she says, quirking up her eyebrows. She leaves Christopher with these things she cannot touch for now, telling herself to remember, and find the day she can. "I prefer not to let people being jerks hurt other people being jerks. I have friends on both sides," she points out. "I want to save as much as I can. Which is harder than it looks."

Said with a sigh, because it's not telling him that it's hard -- it's admitting it out loud to herself.

"It's sometimes easier to tear things down," he agrees, though without any of the sanctimoniousness someone might expect from that sort of declaration. Christopher often has a great deal of fun tearing things apart, after all. "Ah, I understand now!" Usually, he gets animated at this point in a declaration, but this time he is careful of Collette. "You're cooling off everyone's tempers by appealing to their instinctive love of small, soft animals. Brilliant!"

"How'd you guess?" Collette follows along with his suggestion, laughing and holding on all the more tightly. She gets worried, when it comes to being carried. Falling hurts. "When everyone's full of warm fuzzy feelings, they'll all be too content with life to be arguing over things solved by talking like reasonable, small, soft animal loving creatures!"

Ones that Wrex would eat, if only he were still here.

"I must have guessed with the intuitive sympathy that exists between friends as close as you and I." Without loosening his grip, he gives a gentle pat: It's all right, I won't be careless with you. "That's why we need to put more work into the gardens. When people see flowers, their belligerence is halted by genetic memories of the viciousness of their days in nature, and they are shocked into gentility when they realize that all violence they partake in now pales compared to the visceral existence their ancestors knew."

"Hey Chris," she asks, smiling at the sheer energy behind his statement. "Can you repeat that again in more normal English for me?"

It's a tease, and she hopes he feels it is, that she half laughs over before biting down on her lip to prevent further noise.

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inhumanity - 2013-11-25 05:16 (UTC) - Expand

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(OPEN | Mutiny Log) Well it's been so long

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you are the absolute best

i am happy to oblige

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