[network] @ADMIN; Arrival

[snowblindmods]

Welcome to Norfinbury. The time is E̛̬̞͖͖̫R҉͖̯̬R̼̻͉̰͎̳̙O̩͓͔̫͇͈̯R and the date is E̛̬̞͖͖̫R҉͖̯̬R̼̻͉̰͎̳̙O̩͓͔̫͇͈̯R. This network has been provided for your use. Please interact politely with everyone else on this network.

Comments

[thewarningafter]

Oh, well, then I'm sure you'll be glad to know that the network glitches affecting our perceptions and behavior have been getting worse. Keeps it lively around here.

cw references to torture, scarring, lacerations; reference to dementia

[thewarningafter]

Well, just last week I lived through forty years that never happened. Before that it was loss of linguistic ability and coordination, plus, you know, the impulse to kill people. Before that....

[He hesitates. He doesn't like to talk about the big one before that. The memory of being an old man more than half out of his wits may be what's fresh and raw, but there's something about torture that sticks with a guy.

Stephen's feed switches over to video for a few moments to show his arm where he's pulled up the sleeve. Scars from old, deep lacerations mark out the muscles and tendons like drawings on an anatomy model. A prophet's eye symbol was carved into the flesh of each segment, and the marks continue down onto his hand and up under his clothing. The video cuts out again abruptly.]

Brainwashing. Some of us were compelled to do...things...to the other half. There was...that was active interference, though; there's someone or something that was able to hijack the network and introduce a new program.

[thewarningafter]

Everyone who was there remembers all of it. From what I understand it was...a compulsion, an understanding that they needed to convert us to the worship of the prophet. The building the signal came from, where we were taken, is...gone. I don't mean gone gone, it's almost certainly still there, but apparently when the administrator quarantines a structure she does it by inhibiting our ability to perceive its presence.

It was like we were living a reenactment.

[thewarningafter]

We'd lost contact with her a while before, probably when the virus was first introduced.

[There's a shocked little huff that's not a laugh even by Stephen's standards.]

I'm as okay as I've ever been here, let's put it that way.

[He'd just shown up already exhibiting symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. "Not significantly worse" doesn't mean "good."]

[thewarningafter]

Where...? We're making a general push to find the center of the "spiral," wherever that turns out to be. I don't know if they've figured out the entire password situation at the high school yet.

[thewarningafter]

All the doors inside the high school, if I'm understanding correctly. I haven't been out that way in a while. Some things came up.

[thewarningafter]

Oh, just a few deaths. Nothing big.

You'll want to use the maintenance tunnels to travel. They bypass the industrial area and Hsiaoke Pass entirely, and you can minimize your radiation exposure that way. There's no guarantee you won't run into anomalies down there, though, just to warn you.

[thewarningafter]

It's mostly the area directly south of the industrial park that you need to worry about. We're under constant exposure to radiation everywhere in town, but that's the only place it's strong enough to outpace the nanomachines' repair of our bodies.

[thewarningafter]

Uh, yeah.

I can't remember, was Andromeda's ghost a thing when you were last here?

[thewarningafter]

Oh, good. I forgot that was a ghost. She, ah, protected us. Theoretically. Wi -- there was one of those malfunctions and she gave us pathways to follow. Those of us who followed didn't get hurt.

[thewarningafter]

We've seen a lot more of Andromeda lately than we used to, but I wouldn't say she's been easy to contact.

[He's not even going to mention House and Sherlock's efforts to resurrect a townsperson. That's just been such an incredible shitshow he doesn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole.]

[thewarningafter]

Now that's the Andersen I remember.

[thewarningafter]

We're getting close to the center of the spiral, though. No idea what we'll find there -- other than that it's likely to kill us -- but we're getting close.