Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

[snowblindmods]

Characters: red-marked characters and their new friends
Location: ???
Date: Morning 354, Morning and Day 355
Summary: A quiet morning and a confusing morning, or maybe they're both, or maybe they're neither.
Warnings: gore, psychological horror, warn for specifics in the subject lines

Part Four OOC Post
Part Five OOC Post

Comments

[cahooted]

You just kept tearing at us and- and at each other and yourself.

[He draws in a shuddering breath.]

There was no reasoning with you, it... it was like you didn't even understand...

[warriorscribe]

[Enoch's hand lifts to the bandages wrapped around his throat. It feels raw. Had it been one of the victims defending themselves? Or had it been another of the marked?]

I- I don't...I don't know what he did to us. I don't know what he...

[He shakes his head.] I- if I did anything to you, I'm so sorry.

What was in all of those needles? Why is he keeping you here? What did he do, what did he...

[He trails off into a whisper, shaking in his terrified rage. This time, it's not some brainwashing imposed on his mind from nowhere. There is a single name attached to this. They were fine, oversharing compulsion aside, until Miller started his tests. And now they're dangerous. Because of him.]

You remember? What did he say to you? What did he do?

[cahooted]

His voice, it was coming from somewhere. I think it was a speaker? He said it didn't work. I don't know what.

[Flynn rubs at his face, trying to keep up with all the threads of thought running together in his mind.]

I got an injection, too, I think. I-I remember that.

[warriorscribe]

He's trying to "fix" us, he said...

[And his attempts have dragged innocent people into it.]

He's the one who- [His fingers curl into claws at his forearms. The fact that this lines up perfectly with what feels like a bandaged wound doesn't really help matters.

But he can't seem to bring himself to say more, standing in the middle of his cell and trembling with held back anger and hurt.]

[cahooted]

T-that makes no sense. If that is true why is he not telling us what's happening?

[He shakes his head.]

I don't understand. Don't understand...

[warriorscribe]

He's- he doesn't care about things like that. He doesn't truly care.

[Enoch pauses to hold back some vocalization, something that even halfway up his throat could not decide whether it was going to be a sob or a scream.]

It isn't the first time.

[cahooted]

This... happened before?

[That's horrifying because it implies that it could happen again.]

When?

Why?

[warriorscribe]

When we first met him, we'd been called to repair something that was broken, something under the town. He-

[He swallows, jaw set.]

He turned it into a sick game, encouraging us to cut off our fingers to proceed, to inhibit others' progress, to fight against one another instead of cooperating. With the lives of everyone above at stake while the nanomachines failed to protect them from the poisonous air!

[cahooted]

[He pales at Enoch's words, his good hand coming up to run through his hair.] I... I remember that.

I think I remember that.

I mean, it wasn't real, it was just... memories, just that, it didn't happen. Not to me.

[warriorscribe]

It did happen in truth. Before you arrived.

[He's not sure whether he wants to scream or cry. Because if he's right about the static people, if he's right about what it all means, then the repairs were easily the tamest of Miller's transgressions.]

So you understand, you know what kind of man he is. If his aim is indeed to help, he takes pride in reaching it through the most harmful means he can.

[cahooted]

How... how did you stop him last time?

... Did you stop him?

[warriorscribe]

We couldn't. Following his instructions was the only way we could understand how to do the repairs. If we didn't-

[He shakes his head. If they had refused, everyone would have died from the radiation poisoning. But if Flynn experienced that in a fake time, he probably doesn't need to hear it.]

[cahooted]

[Yeah, that is a fake memory he really doesn't want to revisit.]

So you repaired the things and then he just, what, vanished?

[warriorscribe]

We encountered something. A massive anomaly, one that everyone heard and saw differently. It chased us, and we had to flee. I don't know if it was his doing, or if the repairs had simply alerted it...

[He's still a human-shaped pile of tension. Everything in him is screaming to act but he doesn't know how he should, or could.]

[cahooted]

Maybe he's the leader of the anomalies. Or maybe he made them.

The static people had a bodily effect on me, I couldn't fight them.

[warriorscribe]

It was the same for us. They took us, for all of those injections.

They belong to him. If they came for you, he wanted you here. Whatever this is meant to be-

[cahooted]

Do you know who... what they are? Have you ever encountered them before?

I mean, I know that static is kind of a thing with the network but I've never seen it... uh. Walk around.

[warriorscribe]

Before the tower, there were figures. Like shadows of people, moving from place to place. They were harmless for a long time, but then they- something began to happen. They began to seek us out, crowd around us. Remaining near them was dizzying, they made our hearts beat irregularly.

They vanished, and we received a message from an obscured name, that "evaluation" was complete.

[cahooted]

Like the anomalies, just milder.

[He frowns.] Could they be... an early stage? Or anomalies that just haven't found their form yet?

[warriorscribe]

No, the anomalies appeared long before they did, and took distinct forms long before them as well.

[That doesn't add up. What does? He's so angry just trying to theorize like this is difficult, takes conscious effort. Regardless of what they are, the only thing they link to for certain is that evaluation - the result being the trip to the tower.]

[cahooted]

The other way around then? Anomalies that have been... 'improved' or altered?

[warriorscribe]

Improved, I don't know. They- they're mistakes, they arrived incomplete, they must have nanomachines like us because Eve can manipulate them to some degree-

[wait...] -Lord help us, Miller must be able to as well!

[cahooted]

[Okay, that is a very scary thought.]

You think that's what's been happening?

[warriorscribe]

I don't know. I hope not. I hope not...

[They had endured enough, these poor people even less fortunate than them. Subjecting them to Miller's whims seemed too cruel.]

[cahooted]

Maybe that's something to look into once... once we're out of here.

[Not that he knows where to start looking but when have they ever?]