applebough | w5 curfew: dog park

[ hewwo. ]

It's kinda convenient you're here, actually. [ gibs. have look. ]

[ a little tired smile. ]

Fortunate... I remember that voice. Let me just... see what they look like...

[ just replays the beginning again and reaches to scrub through some of the footage until it hits the voice belonging to the girl with the black, wavy hair arranged in an updo. she also has a prosthetic arm. he lingers a little bit and then pauses it. pointing carefully.

his brow twitches a bit and he pulls away after, eyes closed. ]

... Worked in the medical bay with me. That's Ellya.

Edited 2024-04-05 20:00 (UTC)

[ making note of that, though he frowns a little since...well. she's obviously gone now. ]

Was she helping you with your research, too?

[ hesitates unhappily, just staring at the paused moment in time. we are just going to block out the horrors of what they were witnessing for the moment... ]

Mmm-hm. We were working round the clock...

[ ...tries to nudge the log a little ahead so the screen isn't as horrifying, perhaps. ]

What...is space madness, do you think?

[ it's fine. there are worse horrors like what he saw happen to someone else in a log earlier this week. this is tame by comparison. ]

I've met with diseases before, ones that have a mind of their own. The Sand Pest wasn't unlike that. It thought, it plotted, it devised ways to improve it's own survivability... it's why I considered that maybe this madness could be driven by such a thing.

It's violent, spreads in such a way where it flies beneath the radar, hides itself until the time is right... maybe I'm wrong. But.

I don't think you're necessarily wrong, just that we might be missing finer details. This is similar to what I've been thinking, too. For a little while I thought it was a ghost or something but before that, I thought it was nanites. And then after I gave up the ghost I went back to thinking it was a virus that's able to detect and pinpoint certain factors in us to choose a new host. It has to have some level of intelligence to know when to be active, when to be dormant, and when to control our friends to say and do certain things.

That doesn't mean its perfect. If someone tries to fight back, it could become unstable. [ ... ] I guess what I'm saying is...I don't disagree in the possibility. At all.

Dramatic as it may sound, consider the concept of something that feeds from misery. From anxiety. From paranoia.

[ a low voice ]

Plenty of that when you're trapped aboard a tin can hurtling through the stars.

Sure. You create a situation in which this thing can survive, send them off without means of contacting anyone for help, and let them fight for survival of the fittest. But the question is...why?

[ ... ]

Callisto told me he was surprised the Eudora was allowed for clearance to depart when so much of it was still closed off and non-functional.

[ works jaw quietly. hmmmmm. ]

I'd be surprised, too. It's like any vessel, even a train can't have too much wrong with it before leaving the station if the journey is so long and arduous.

A ship travels long distance, to many different places. Combine that with whatever that log was that Yura found and you have something that's methodically evaluating a "food source" and... needs "fuel" in order to reach further. Far and beyond.

[ looks very long at him. ]

It's like burning fuel for a locomotive... Pace your intake. Then you would feed your fire when you need the fuel the most... when the ship makes a jump to its next destination...? I don't know.

...[ give him a second to think. ]

The ship goes into lockdown and different functions gets disabled to sustain power into other things. For all we know, this thing is also draining some of that power to fuel itself and that's why it strikes on Thursday nights during the period we're all asleep. It reaches max capacity and has to "expel it", so to speak. [ but yeah there sure is the log from yuri. ] Yuri's log is weird because it's all the planets we're currently seeing on this tour. Most of the stuff we've been finding is from winter tour. So...where did that come from? And what are we really on this tour for?

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dropoffs - 2024-04-05 21:14 (UTC) - Expand

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solesuccess - 2024-04-05 22:06 (UTC) - Expand

... another coworker of yours, huh.

[just. taking one of his hands.]

[ he's just going to allow this because he's tired and there has been a lot of information surfacing. ]

Yeah. I... believe you've found them all for my team by this point... good...

Mm. ...sorry about them, Io.

[it's good to remember, sure, but. probably makes it all hurt in a different kind of way.

this place is so--]

We'll get this figured out.

[ a faint smile, far-off. ]

I know.

[ it doesn't bring them back, but. ]

We're well on the way to it. I'm grateful.

[he's not one of the ones good with theories and everything. gregor's just listening to all of that from the rest of them, fingers curled around io's. if this is the best he can do...

(is it the best he can do?)

ignoring that thought.]

Yeah. Yuri's meeting next week should help, too, I wouldn't be surprised if there's something somebody just... forgot to ask you guys about. But we're getting more pieces. Just have to stick 'em together.

...

Io, do you mind if I ask you about the guy seen in the beginning of that log? Do you know who he is?

I don't. But considering they're calling for Adra... might be someone from intelligence. That'd be my first call, the corresponding team.

Our groups intermingled, but she'd be your best bet to recognize who it is for certain.

Edited 2024-04-05 20:44 (UTC)

[ he nods. ]

I'll ask her. [ maybe without the video because yikes. ]

Thanks.

[ he looks like he's considering asking something else but sad man is so sad he's not sure it's a good time. ]

[ don't be a coward. he laughs a little tiredly and leans back on his hands. ]

If you've got something else to ask, you should ask it. What's the worst that'll happen?

[ i pass out and die? ]

Given this can fuck with your head? You tell me.

It's a risk I'll take if it means you can get your answers.

...

Don't strain yourself, if you don't remember it easily. We'll figure it out.

[ well. ]

What happened to Ellya?

[ oh that's easy. a look that searches the treeline before he shakes his head. ]

I don't remember...

[ he nods. ]

Alright. We'll figure it out in time.