[MINGLE] PLOT: Down the Tubes: Alarm

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: The bunker & elsewhere
WHEN: 1 September 2018
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Please warn on threads
NOTES: Plot Details | Bunker Details | Bunker Map & Key
Threads may take place ANYTIME during the plot, including before, during and after the tubes have been opened, just please do not godmod tube arrivals without explicit permission. Related threads not in the bunker are welcomed, as are general bunker exploration/reaction threads that have nothing to do with the arrivals. Please reference the bunker key doc for what is and isn't available to explore at present.

---

Deep under the mountain, tucked away in the newly-discovered bunker complex, there is a room where everyone begins. It is filled with equipment — Computer consoles, monitors — but the point of it all resides within ten vertical stasis tubes lined neatly along a far wall.

One of them has been cracked and lies dormant, dry. In six of the remaining are bodies, unconscious and floating in their familiar vari-colored scrubs, vital signs ticking calmly off on their respective readouts.

In the corner, near the cracked tube, the ceiling has shattered and tumbled inward, across the floor and over the largest console in the room — The one flashing 24 HOURS UNTIL STASIS FAILURE.

Comments

[oorah]

"Oh," Frank says, bemusement in his voice. "Kira's a little..." He lifts his eyebrows and shakes his head. Apparently, that's how you say "out there" where he's from. "But he's good people."

[symbolizes]

Clark nods in response. It took a minute, but he quickly got Kira was one of the good ones. Maybe he had a drinking problem. Clark is waiting for more evidence on that one considering his experience that day. He does get what Frank is saying. He's a eccentric even for a guy with laser eyes. "He did his best. I'm not sure I was ready to listen." He's still not sure, but at least he can attempt to get there now.

[oorah]

Frank nods at that, he had been in exactly Clark's shoes once. It takes an admission like that to make him remember what it had felt like. Constance telling him he could never make noise again, giving him a phone that would become his only communicative tool until he could learn the language of her hands - the Native sign. He swallows, realizing he went somewhere just then. He owes it to Clark and maybe even himself to be present in this moment.

"You ready now?"

[symbolizes]

Clark patiently waits him out. He can tell that he's hit a nerve here. It's better to let it be than ask what's going through his head. When Frank comes back to him, he nods in response. "I am." He has to be. He really can't stay here in shock forever.

[oorah]

He nods again, looking down at his feet.

"This is my second time in a place like this. Different people from different worlds. Some people think we're experiments, or clones. I guess it doesn't matter." He worries his lip, wondering if Clark is really going to listen. Most people around here didn't have the capacity even after saying they would. "We're each assigned a color, you noticed that. No one knows what it means, but if you had abilities before you probably won't now. Or you might have something extra if you didn't."

[symbolizes]

Clark processes this as best he can. Clones and experiments are truly a lot to handle. He focuses on what he does understand. This would be a great time to play dumb or beat around the bush. Clark is tired. Despite hiding his whole life, he doesn't know how to make this question less suspicious. He may as well ask outright.

"Will my abilities come back?"

[oorah]

Frank glances up at him, empathy writ across his gaze. He honestly wishes he had a satisfactory answer to that even if there is a particular person who might come here and he's so grateful he won't have his powers when he does.

"Sometimes they do from what I know, but I really can't answer that."

[symbolizes]

Clark nods slowly. He finds himself disappointed when he thinks he should be relieved. Everything that made him different is gone. He can be like everyone else even after revealing himself to this man. It doesn't feel right though. "I can live without them. There was a time before them even if I barely remember it." If it sounds like he's processing it out with Frank, it's because he is. The answer comes fairly quickly.

Clark admits with some surprise. "I liked having a way to save people when they were in trouble. Are we in trouble now?" That won't change what he'll do. It will hurt if the loss of a guaranteed win with his abilities leads to the deaths of strangers.

[oorah]

He gets it, Kamala and Jess both got their powers from an Incident as seemed typical in their world, but he'd met others like Clark who had always had thair abilities, who learned early on to put them to use without discovery.

"I didn't have anything before I came here. Now I do. They might've replaced it with something from this place."

[symbolizes]

Clark nods slowly. How does he ask this in a sensitive way...? Kind of directly, he supposes. "How do people treat you now?"

[oorah]

He tilts his head, trying to work out what Clark is getting at. Is he wondering if people discriminate for abilities here? He supposes that shouldn't be so surprising given how people react to heroes where he's from.

"Like I'm a weirdo," he admits openly, but it's obvious in his tone there's a catch. The tiniest smile gives him away before the punchline. "That's got nothin' to do with the powers though."

[symbolizes]

Clark studies him for a second before he starts to chuckle. It's a soft thing, but it's there. That is probably the perfect answer to question for now. "You are sitting with a strange man who swam out of a very deep fountain." He reminds him as if Frank somehow forgot.