[The entry opens to Steve looking like warmed-over shit.]

Do not. Under any circumstances. Set fire to— [Coughing fit.] —Do not set fire to the furniture. Or the floorboards. Don't do it. The wood's treated with... something. [Cough cough.] Nasty black smoke, it's—horrible, nasty stuff. Been sick every since we breathed it in. I haven't slept, not really. Coughing— [COUGH cough cough.] —coughing too much. Still feeling terrible. Other symptoms include— [He squeezes his eyes shut, and is silent for a few moments, looking deeply unwell.] Nausea. Dizziness. Coughing up black stuff. [He opens his eyes, and looks into the camera, shaking his head.] Don't do it.

Not feeling awesome about going for a hike today, but we're going to try to take a half day's walk up north of here. I'm told— [COUGH] —there's a house up there, west of the school, with hot water? [He closes his eyes for another wave of dizziness.] That sounds nice.

[Steve has a bit of a longer coughing fit, which he covers with his hand; nasty, body-wracking, wet-sounding coughs. When he's done he makes a pained/disgusted face and wipes at his mouth with his hand, leaving a blackish smear at the corner of his mouth.]

Nothing much else to report, except that we found some. Um. Severed toes in the corner of the room. So that's. Unsettling. [Cough cough.] Went outside earlier, dug a little hole, buried them. [He smiles humorlessly at the camera.] ...So, as you can tell, I'm having an excellent day today.

Try to have a better day, Norfinbury. Don't burn the furniture. [COUGH.]

[Transmission ends.]

((OOC: Rydia and Beckett are of course welcome to jump in with action comments/threads if they like. <3))

Good morning. Last night, I managed to break open a deactivated tablet.

[ Angel sounds less triumphant about this than you might expect. She's a little subdued, if anything. ]

They seem to be reinforced with the same material as the doors and windows are, so I had to get it trapped in a doorway at lockdown to finally break through it. I - hm. I suppose that means the tablets can be thrown at anomalies if you get desperate? I'm not sure how much time it would buy you, but. There's that. Anyway, inside - there was a battery. Pretty ordinary, no weird alternative power source. And there was a whoooole bunch of computer chips. See attachment number one.

[ Attachment #1 is just a picture linked after the recording ends - chips.jpg - nothing too interesting at all. ]

Rhys got a text from the administrator account after that, saying that the chips would be collected for recycling? And - and, um, we kinda wanted to get a better look first, so we kinda. Took a few anyway. Tried to hide them in our pockets and, uh, our stomachs. It didn't work - we got paralysed pretty much straight away, and when we could move again all of the chips were gone. All of them. Attachment number two contains images of post-surgical scarring, so... don't look at that one if you're squeamish.

[ Attachment #2 isn't actually as gross as that might imply. It's just a picture of Angel's midriff - pale, half-covered in swirly glowy tattoos, and sporting a fresh livid scar just above her stomach. AWESOME. ]

I checked again this morning, and the wound has already faded. With that and the lack of any tracking device visible in the remains of the tablet, I'm... maybe ninety percent convinced that we're being tracked via neural implants and not through the tablets. And that we are definitely being monitored constantly, not just over the network. I mean - the recording of me turning on my beacon proved that it was likely, but the instant response as soon as I managed to break the tablet casing kind of cements that. Don't you think?

Um, anyway. I know that's not the coolest thing to hear, but. I thought people should know. Sorry.

[ And with that, she ends the recording. ]