[MINGLE] PLOT: Brave New World

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Bunker and beyond
WHEN: 12-30 September 2018
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE, but please read the NOTES
WARNINGS: Please warn on your subject line as needed
!!IMPORTANT NOTES!!: ALL OF THESE PROMPTS ARE OPEN TO EVERYONE, HOWEVER, INITIAL DISCOVERIES OF "HOW ALARMING" and "PAST & PENDING" ARE ASSIGNED! Any character may get in there, just please time it for AFTER the discovery. You don't need to wait for the discovery threads to finish, just please be mindful. Questions go here.
PLOT DETAILS | ASSIGNMENTS | BUNKER DETAILS | BUNKER KEY (USE THIS!)

---

It's only been a couple of weeks since the fraught discovery of the underground bunker, and it's far from giving up all of its secrets. The cold, industrial concrete of the walls and floors, the computer consoles, the abandoned labs all speak to a peek behind the curtain, but how far this rabbit hole goes is anyone's guess.

In the coming weeks, more will be revealed for those bold enough to seek it: Blocked pathways cleared, stuck doorways foisted opened onto the strange and disturbing. So really, just another day for our villagers.

POWER PLAY

In one of the smaller rooms resides a machine, pieced together from what seems to be spare parts, awkwardly made but functional. Boot it up and in the center of the hodgepodge a screen will flicker to life; on it, a list of abilities and a timeframe. Make a choice, follow the instructions to tap your wrist device to the adjacent sensor pad, and see what comes of it.

HOW ALARMING

Behind another door, a seemingly innocuous, inert computer console — But boot this one up and our intrepid explorers are faced with a prompt: IMMINENT DANGER ALARM ACTIVATION. After everything that's happened in recent weeks, maybe a little warning might not be the worst idea.

Everybody else, cover your ears. A test of the alarm is happening in 1, 2, 3...

PAST & PENDING

In a room with walls covered in multi-color flame insignias resides yet another seemingly-harmless computer console. When turned on, the screens display lists, numbered iterations with name upon name. Some are very familiar. Some are corrupted and difficult to make out. Few of them are particularly comforting.

Comments

Samantha Moon | OTA | September 14

[thegreatexperiment]

It would take a poet to describe the sound of a lead pipe hitting the trunk of a tree. Sam wasn't thinking about the sound much. If she had been, she might have stopped to make some kind of a joke. 'If a vampire hits a tree in the forest and there's no one around to hear, does it make a sound?' Well. It did. But she didn't really care.

Sam's palms were slick and coated with blood, but she kept beating the tree, swinging her pipe again and again. It was a pop culture myth that all vampires were supernaturally strong. Sam wasn't. She was only about as strong as an ordinary human. If that. The tree wasn't coming up at the roots. It wasn't tilting or creaking like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. There was just an increasing number of scars, as she continued to hit the trunk with her pipe.

She hated everything about the clown rodeo. She hated being held against her will. She hated having her DNA manipulated. Hated feeling so alone. And she really, really, really hated the lack of technology. But maybe the worst offense of the place was that, just when she thought she'd run out of new things to hate about it, somehow, their dark Overlords had managed to throw a new plot twist into the mix.

Those names, like the blood, weren't left there by accident. Sam was sure of it. They were a message. A warning. And, in a way, a punishment too. Their clumsy attempts to obfuscate Avery's name had only made it more apparent to her. Sam's feelings about her big brother were beyond complicated. But one thing was clear to her. Avery was hers. And she hated the Overlords laying a claim to him, in that way.

But, of course, there was nothing she could fucking do about it. So like the sane and rational creature she was, she'd taken to beating her emotions against the trunk of a perfectly innocent tree. Better than bashing in someone's brains, she supposed. But there were people who really deserved it.

And she'd never felt so determined to hunt down their Overlords and thrash them before.

She was a vampire. But this was the first time she'd ever really wanted to kill.

[borneinblood]

It's the sound of metal hitting something unyielding and the splintering of wood that catches Druitt's attention. Not least of all because he knows that kind of anger, deeply and intimately. And all the more so now, when it's become all too clear that the Observers are playing them for fools. Are taking their lives and twisting them into something that makes sense only to them. Like the Cabal had, and that's not something that's even remotely comforting.

He's not sure his own rage is going to be so easily satisfied. That this isn't going to take something more than metal against wood to solve, but something in her anger calls to the rage in him and he stops, for just a moment.

"Does that help?"

There's curiosity in his voice, a little. But it's almost completely drowned out by anger. By the desire to hurt something, and even his expression is all but blazing with it, should she care enough to turn and look.

[theimmortalweapon]

He was familiar with this kind of anger, with the loss of his family and the threat of knowing that something more was going on behind the scenes. His life had accumulated to this moment but he had some semblance of control; enough control to pretend that the names listed on the screens hadn't pierced through him and shook him to his core.

Danny stepped behind Sam and grabbed the pipe before she had a chance to strike the tree again. He wasn't impossible strong without access to the powers of the Ironfist but his muscles were dense and trained and it didn't take too much effort to stop Sam's strikes.

He wrenched the pipe from her hands and tossed it to their right in order to keep it out of her reach. Danny remembered when he had first asked Sam to punch a tree. She'd told him that it was stupid. The irony wasn't lost on Danny.

He didn't feel the need to speak. Instead he pulled Sam close and held her against him in a light embrace.

She had a lot to learn and she hadn't been prepared to handle this.

stella gibson | ota | sept 14, after initial discovery in 'past & pending'

[ex_assertiveness90]

Stella's heard the rumors about the underground bunker; in a village this small, it's impossible not to catch gossip, and given her roommate has already been there and back, it's really only a matter of time before Stella herself decides to investigate. She quite honestly wouldn't be herself if she didn't.

So when Finnick and Annie Odair come to the inn looking for someone to accompany them on their own venture, she goes along agreeably enough. The trip to the other village is long, the ride to the bunker incredibly short by comparison, and when they get there... well. Bunker is the only appropriate word, aside maybe from warren: a rabbit's warren made of concrete, with a dozen little side corridors and passages, so strikingly unlike the look and feel of the village they're used to that it's a little disorienting. If Stella were claustrophobic, she suspects she'd be feeling it right now; as it is she's conscious of the walls, the ceiling over her head, the fact that, perhaps intentionally, there are no quick and easy exits.

She hasn't got her pen and paper; her materials for taking notes by hand ran out a long time ago, so hopefully her own recall will be enough. The first thing she realizes is that this place, or at least parts of it, has been abandoned for some time. There are no signs of recent use in any of the rooms, and parts of the facility have been blocked off with rubble that doesn't look as if anyone's tried to clear it. Some of what's here, she's seen before; she remembers the vials of blood, seemingly marked with all their initials. Some of this is new to her.

All of it put together, though — the specimens, the tubes — is starting to push her off balance. Just a little bit off kilter with a series of realizations coming together into a pattern she can't pretend isn't there. It could all be bullshit, she knows that; the observers have proven quite adept at finding targeted ways to fuck with them, and Stella would be quite happy to believe this is all a series of carefully crafted lies designed to earn a reaction from an essentially captive audience. The problem is that, as an investigator — which she is, always — she has to keep in the back of her mind the possibility that it's all true, and that's what's starting to undo her a little beneath the practiced veneer of calm and the almost desperately tight hold she's keeping on her self-control.

Even that starts to crumble when she finds one of the computer consoles in a room with rows of little flames painted on the walls like tally marks — and she notes that, though she knows she won't remember the amounts of each color later; certainly she notes that the colors correspond to their scrubs and that there are colors there on the wall that she hasn't seen in the village yet. What's more immediately interesting is the computer, and the information it contains. Stella's heard about this, she heard there were lists, with names, but as always she needs to see it for herself.

She's trying to be clinical, to see the information for what it is: a list, or a series of lists with people's names, nothing more or less than that. The longer she looks, though, the more she starts to see the pattern. Some names seem removed entirely, some partially blocked out — intentionally obfuscated or just corrupted data, she's not sure. Unconsciously, she's looking for ones she recognizes, not really expecting to see any. Then she reaches the names that begin with S, and there's one in particular that quite suddenly makes her blood run cold. Stella keeps going through the lists, to make sure she's seeing the name she thinks she's seeing, and to be sure the pattern in these lists is what she thinks it is—

Finally she has to step back, conscious of a shaking in her hands she has to cross her arms to suppress, for once grateful it's cool down here and the gesture could be interpreted as trying to keep her body heat in. Anyone in the room with her will notice the way her face just seems to go entirely shuttered off, expressionless. There's no ringing in her ears or sickness in the pit of her stomach or anything that dramatic, really, just — a feeling like she's floating free of the earth, a little, like she could use something to tether her down. The last time Stella felt this way, she was fourteen and couldn't cope; now, at nearly forty-six, her coping skills are considerably better, but the feeling in itself is almost worse. It was one thing to lose her father; it's something entirely different now to wonder if she's losing her sense of self.

Her eyes sting, suddenly, and she has to excuse herself into the corridor before that tenuous thread of self-control decides to snap entirely.

[ ooc: Your character is welcome to interact with her at any point while she's exploring the bunker, before or after she gets to the console with the lists. ]

[womanofvalue]

Peggy's been working as best as she can on the coding when the list comes to light. The text had summoned those curious and she'd been able to access the list with ease, but once she'd found it, she wasn't sure what to think. Her name on there multiple times, but not after a while and given the cross-referenced data, she knows it means that they died.

Died once, then again, and four more times in most cases. What chills her more is that Peggy's name had stopped being on the list and where is that woman? If she's not dead, then what is she working towards and where is that other Peggy? It's a question she wants the answer to, but doesn't, and so she needs to do something other than think about it. She's been in the room during her bunker shifts because she's busy writing down the names, and that's when she sees Stella.

Opening her mouth to greet her, she doesn't have time because it looks as though Stella's read something that doesn't sit well with her. Stepping away from her list, Peggy follows after Stella, reaching out to gently touch her arm.

"Stella? What is it?"

[ethnobotany]

There are a few names that Beverly recognizes. Two of them were names that no Starfleet officer could go through school without learning well. And of course, Kira Nerys. Beverly misses Nerys more than she could likely say. The young Bajoran woman was a breath of home in a hostile world when Beverly first arrived. Hopefully Nerys is home and helping Bajor and Deep Space Nine now, but the reality is that no one really knows.

Still, a careful looking over doesn't reveal any names that would make Beverly's blood run cold. Granted, there aren't many, but seeing a Cardassian Gul's name on the list wouldn't be an easy thing to swallow.

As it is, she just breathes a sigh of exhaustion and relief before stepping back away. It's only when she heads back into the corridor that she realizes someone else is there. A concerned frown crosses her face as she makes her way over. "Stella?" she calls quietly. "Are you all right?"

[fishingfortrouble]

The idea of going back down into the bunkers isn't terribly appealing to Phryne. Not least of all because she's still not certain she hasn't been kidnapped, and has been doing her level best to not have to think too hard about that possibility. Or the one that she might not manage to get home at any point in the near future. But news does get around, and even she can't escape the murmurs of there being a list of names down in the bunker. And that's just enough to have her making her way back down to the bunkers.

The computers throw her for loop. She gets at least some of the concept - she's not unfamiliar with typewriters - but figuring out how to actually turn the thing on is a little bit beyond her; after doing her best to figure out what she's meant to be doing and getting all of nowhere, she turns to the other person in the room without a second thought.

"I don't suppose you'd know what to do with these?"

[seekingcrocodile]

It had taken him a couple of days of hearing about the bunker and the lists of names to decide to go over and take a look at them himself. It's mostly the names he's interested in, although he doesn't expect them to mean much to him. But then why is he so determined to look?

When he finally makes his way to the bunker, he takes a little time to look around the whole place; he might as well, while he's here, and get an idea of the whole place. That way he won't have to come back to know what others are talking about. It doesn't surprise him to find someone already in the room when he comes inside. This place is the talk of the village right now, after all. His face falls a little when he sees the computer console. He hadn't had much trouble adjusting to life here, given its similarity to places where he grew up, and his confusion over technology. And now here's some technology that he doesn't know how to use.

"Of course it had to be one of those magic boxes, didn't it."

annie & stella | things fall apart | cw: ptsd, depression, sexual assault references

[fishermansweater]

Finnick isn't claustrophobic; he'd grown up in and around fishing boats, some of them far narrower belowdecks than these passages. But he has memories, bad ones, of being kept underground, dressed up and pampered and prepared to emerge into the light and fight for his life. They make him edgy, and he's sure Annie's equivalent memory had been part of the reason she'd suggested they explore in a group larger than just the two of them.

Finnick, mostly, sticks behind, both hands always near to the hilt of a knife he could grab, stab, throw, use to protect his wife and Stella, too. She doesn't like him much and he has little reason to care much about her, but they'd come down here together, and that means Stella's an ally, for now at least, which in turn means he's ready to protect her. He's also watching, memorizing as best he can, and he has a good memory.

Not that he wants to memorize much here. It's all unsettling, all speaks of Capitol levels of technology and of manipulation, and he finds himself not sure what he should think, as he so often is. It turns out to be good that Stella came with them, because she knows how to use the computer, which Finnick has little experience with. While she starts it up, he wanders across to peer through the door into the next room, which turns out to be blocked with rubble just inside.

Nothing coming in from there.

Stella seems absorbed in whatever she's found. She's certainly looking at it intently. Her expression is often hard to read, but there's something wary in her face that makes him go over to her.

"What is it?" he asks, leaning into her space to stare at what seems to be a list of names. Some of them are completely blacked out, others mangled by the computer, but Stella is looking at one and Finnick's eyes are drawn to the screen too.

He recognizes names there: Sorellin-Lancaster, Smoak, Stark. But there, mostly obscured, is one that makes the room close in around him. His blood rushes to his head, pounding in his ears, and he's suddenly very aware of the beating of his heart, tight and constricted by a fear he hasn't felt in months, years.

"Snow."

The word is choked, because his throat is tight too and his mouth doesn't want to form the name. His face, usually gilded by genetics and sunlight, blanches ashy as he staggers back, reaching behind him and hoping to find a wall.

He doesn't, and the lack of support unbalances him, making him stumble as he looks around for his wife.

"It says Coriolanus Snow."

Rose ][ OTA ][ Action or Prose

[littledhampir]

[ooc: Depending on where the thread goes, it's very possible that the following may come up, in thoughts if not words: death, kidnapping, torture, blood-drinking.... to name a few.]

Under normal circumstances, Rose wouldn't have been in any rush to look over the list of names that had been discovered in the bunker. Nothing good could come from it, she could tell that much from the reaction of those who had gone to see them firsthand. It would either be disappointment, that nobody she knew would be there, or worse still? The horror that somebody she cared about would be. She might be selfish enough to wish that she could see Lissa again, but not so much that she'd ever wish the village on the blonde Moroi.

It might have been weeks before she allowed herself to scour the names, if it weren't for the box she'd found with her name on it. Each item on its own might have offered her a measure of comfort. A reminder of the life she'd lived before she'd been spat out of the fountain. All together, however, and it told another story, one that had Rose leaving her room at the Inn, without even bothering to close her door.

It hadn't mattered that his name had been distorted. She hadn't needed to look at the other lists to know it was him. She'd checked though, every one of them confirming a fear she'd been harboring ever since she'd stood on that bridge in Siberia. Five times in all. Five lists all featuring one name that she seemed destined to never escape. She'd been right when she'd told Sirius he should stay away. It wasn't safe to be around her.

She doesn't linger in the bunker or even long in the North Village. She can't. There are far too many things she needs to do now, things she should have been doing all along but she'd been stupid. Naive. She actually thought that the worst thing that could happen, was whatever insanity the Observers conjured up. It never crossed her mind, for even a moment, that it would be her past that could be her undoing.

A ][ Content Warning: Some violence.

The whole way back to the Inn, she isn’t entirely aware of what’s going on around her. Passing people without fully registering their existence. Replaying every moment of the last time she’d seen Dimitri, as if maybe this time, she would see something different. She’d tortured herself with that scene more times than she cared to admit. Had woken up in a cold sweat with his face burned into her memory. It never changed, no matter how hard she tried to make it and it never went away either. It was always there, lurking in the recesses of her mind, waiting for Rose to dissect every vivid, horrid detail.

She doesn’t hear any approaching footsteps, or anyone calling her name but she wouldn’t have given where her head is at. What she does register, however, is the touch of somebody's hand, right before her body responds instinctively. In a blur of movement, Rose twists away, the heel of her hand coming up to knock their arm aside. Her other hand reaching to grab them around the neck, an attempt to keep her own out of biting distance.

It’s only then that it registers - too short - nobody here coming quite close to the six foot seven Russian and the look of fierce determination falls away, leaving Rose with one of horror as she loosens her grip and steps back.

B ][ Contents of the box if anyone is particularly nosy.

In all the time Rose has been living at the Inn, she’s never once bothered with a little thing like locking her door. She hadn’t seen any point before now. What she had, was little and hardly worth stealing. There were no hidden diaries filled with her deep dark secrets, but the contents of that box was about as close to one as you could get. Not that it would mean anything to anyone else. It was an odd collection of items that would seem, rather insignificant but all fit together to tell a story Rose isn’t eager to share.

She’d forgotten she’d left her bedroom door wide open, hardly alarmed as she walks down the hall to see it that way, that is until she catches sight of another person in her room, her ‘gift’ from the observers laying in the middle of her bed, its contents spilling out across the covers.

"What are you doing." Her words more a demand than a question as she steps into the doorway, a storm cloud gathering around her as she glares at the back of a figure she’s yet to make out.

C ][ A week or so after Past & Pending

It’s subtle at first, her withdrawal from those around her and while Rose can’t say that she’s doing it on purpose, the mere act of moving herself into a night schedule has her seeing far less of the people she considers friends, and while it might come with a tinge of guilt, she can’t say she doesn’t think it’s for the best, either.

Perhaps she’s being paranoid, preparing for something that might never eventuate. She’s certainly considered the possibility that those lists were just another way for the Observers to mess with their heads. In all likelihood, Dimitri would never set foot in this place, but if she was wrong. If there was even the slightest chance that it was an omen and not a game? It wouldn’t just be Rose who would be joining Peeta in the shade of the trees out by the field. It would be everyone she’d ever cared about.

She could tell them, of course, explain what it is that she’s doing and why, but there are some conversations that aren’t easy to have and too many inevitable questions she’s not sure she wants to answer. So instead, she’d made a point of signing up for as many shifts at the bunker during the night as were available, finding an excuse to be absent that nobody could argue with her about.

On those evenings where somebody else was down to cover it, she would wait until everyone had settled in for the night, before heading down to camp by the fountain, her only company the silver stake she now carries with her at all times, that shines like a beacon as it catches the moonlight as she twirls it around in her hand.

a) because i should be thrown in the trash

[copingskills]

[It had been a rough few weeks for all of them, but the discovery of the lists of names has left a sort of darkness hovering over all of them that hadn't quite sunk in yet. She'd looked at them herself, seen a certain someone's name there. It had been easy to spot, even if it wasn't complete, but Elena just wanted to believe that it was all another trick, something else to mess with their minds when they were already fragile.

She had finally started to accept that she would never see anyone again, let alone him, but this started to let hope creep in that she might, somehow.

Hope got crushed around here all too often.

She goes back to the inn, goes to check on her friend next door. Elena isn't sure if Rose has seen the names, but she guesses that she has based on her stance and lack of awareness. She reaches to touch her, and before she even realizes what's happening, her airway is choked off in the very strong grip of the dhampir.

Her eyes go wide, but before she even tries to struggle, air spills back into her lungs and Elena takes a step back more out of surprise and being off balance than anything else. She tries to say something, but starts to cough instead, hand rising to her throat.]

C

[oorah]

Frank had signed up for as many bunker shifts as he could himself, especially the nighttime ones, but it seems they both have it off tonight; and they both have a similar idea of how to spend it. In Reims, he had been on patrol from 11 pm until 7 am every single night. Here there's even less reason to do it, but what else should he do? If he's at home he'll only keep Kamala up, though a part of him fears leaving her alone again after what had happened to Elena in the lake - what had almost happened to her, too.

The shadow of a blocky man and an equally blocky dog appear at the periphery of the park, feet falling quietly despite their heavy frames. The glint catches Frank's eye and he looks up across the clearing to see a girl holding a knife? Some sort of weapon. He can't make it out from here, but he figures it's better not to spook her either way.

He murmurs to Aloe to stay as he goes on ahead and the dog listens though he seems antsy. Frank lifts his hands in surrender as he makes it along the path closer to Rose. His hair and beard is overgrown, he's in a black jacket and nondescript jeans, but the bright teal Jordans stand out and look completely disparate from the rest of the man's appearance. His communicator too is teal if she can make that out and there's a slim, handwoven leather bracelet on his opposite wrist. Before all of this, of course, she might recognize him as the man who had spoken to Elena in hushed tones after they'd found those people in the bunker.

"We come in peace," he offers blithely, standing still a good twenty feet away like she in fact means them any harm. The truth is he just knows better than to give up any shred of power he might have, even when there's no opponent in sight.

C

[demonic_divinity]

Vergil had more or less cut himself off from the village since he helped with the hacking side of getting the bunker going. The things found them just made his skin crawl and he wasn't in the game of ever being scared like he had been before the Order, ever again. There were afternoons he would snap at Kat to leave him be, to just go live her life and not follow him about, but honestly it was easier to sleep in the day and hunt at night. It was getting better at it.

This night he had pondered going down to the bunker, but instead he made his way to the fountain. Silent as ever as he moved. He had planned to just go snoop about in hopes of finding his amulet even if he knew better, god knows he knows better now but he couldn't just accept that it was gone.

Seeing the shine of the silver he tipped his head some. It was then that he noticed Rose's little camp out. "No marshmallows?" he spoke in an attempt at dry humor. Just the smallest distance from the fountain. His hair styled, and wearing his nicer clothes from the party.

c

[tosavecocoon]

There weren't any names Vanille could see right away that had screamed at her. No Dysley or Barthandelus. No Jihl Nabaat or Rosch. No PSICOM or Guardian Corps or any fal'Cie name she knew. But there was one other name she could make out in a few of those lists, one other than hers and Fang's. One that could be Lightning. Of all of their friends, Lightning could survive here. She would make it. But for all that Vanille desperately wants to see her Cocoon family again, she never wants them to come here and especially not until everything on Cocoon is done. Not until Barthandelus is stopped and Cocoon is saved and their new Focus is complete.

Seeing that name has her off-kilter. It makes her wonder if those are the names of all the people brought there... or just the names of the dead. The last list isn't very long yet at all. How did all of those names get there? Was everyone eventually killed or were some freed? What happened to everyone who came before? What happened to her and Fang?

These are questions she doesn't have an answer to and that bothers her. She doesn't yet want to ask Fang, so she just decides to stay out a couple of hours late, take a walk one night. Bhakti the crocdog comes with her. Raine had been too sleepy. At least with Bhakti she won't be completely alone. She's on her way around the village, passing close to the fountain, by the time Rose has set up camp. Recognizing the other woman, Bhakti bounds ahead, wagging what passes for a tail as he hurries forward.

"Bhakti!" Vanille calls, running after him. "Not again!"

Constantine | POWER PLAY

[nifties]

    THE BUNKER ⚫

The second he'd heard about the vending machine, he couldn't head down there fast enough. He was like a kid at Christmas, flicking through options and considering how useful the abilities might be in getting them out of here. It's agonizing and he can't even be sure if this will work, but he'd never hesitated to be a guinea pig before, not when it came to magic. He's flipping back and forth and back and forth, muttering to himself and either annoying or freaking out whoever might be waiting in line after him to look at the display.

He hesitates, flicks again and just as he hesitates a second time, the pad of his finger touches down. Teleportation. At the very least, could be fun, right? The second he's touched it, however, he blinks out of existence, leaving a red blur across the vision of anyone who might have been watching him.

    THE INN ⚫

John pops back into himself in front of the familiar building: the Inn in the South Village. He stumbles, a hand pressing to his stomach as it rolls. That was a ride he'll have to get used to if he wants to master this one skill. He shouts out for anyone in earshot, "What time is it?" before he remembers he can just check his smartdial thingy. Yes, okay, instantaneous travel. And his skin doesn't appear to be melting or anything grotesque. He's got all his limbs, right...

If someone approaches him, the red scrubs gifted forcefield will engage, responding to John's quick-beating heart. He stumbles again, this time falling even as he reaches out a hand for help. The bubble will push a helping hand away, however, and may even push the good Samaritan onto the ground with him.

"Actions have consequences, Constantine. God bloody damnit." That's as close to an apology as he'll get.

    WILDCARD ⚫

John will be popping into and around both Inns, the Lake, the Bunker, his house (63), Fountain Park and just about anywhere your character might be. Feel free to try and catch him, but you might get bubble-bumped for your efforts!

Inn Kitchen

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam's vodka still looked like something out of a Rube Goldberg drawing. There were pipes and tubes and glass jars and jugs. Everything was rigged up by string over burners and counter tops. The whole thing had to be disassembled and reassembled every time she used it, or no one would be able to use half of the kitchen. As a whole, Sam tried not to be that person. A dick. Admittedly, it was a habit that came to her naturally in most arenas of her life. But she had surprisingly excellent kitchen etiquette.

Especially for someone who couldn't eat.

She was working on her second batch of the day, her eyes following the clear, shining bubbles as they traveled along her patchwork distillery. To be perfectly honest, her heart wasn't entirely in it today. Or, at least, her mind wasn't.

Every time she blinked, she saw it again. The half-redacted, just-revealed-enough names. Avery Anderson.

Damn it. Why did he have to be brought into the muddle of her thoughts? It wasn't fucking fair.

Bunker

[houmaprotector]

It's like something out of a nightmare. For the first time in a very long time he feels like himself. Not like a swamp thing, (the swamp thing) but like Alec Holland, scientist. The same guy who used to cry during Wall-E and liked terriyaki chicken bowls from Jack in the Box.

That man has been dead for a long time and in his place is a big green creature.

"This isn't a good idea." He stares at the machine, "You don't know where that thing's been."

Near the fountain

[borneinblood]

The sight of someone arriving out of the middle of nowhere is both comforting and disconcerting to Druitt, and not just because he's recently (re)claimed that same power for himself. On the bright side, he knows that it can't possibly be Ashley - even if she did show up, she likely wouldn't have that particular ability - but the idea of the Observers being willing to simply pass around something that he's used to being his (with a few brief exceptions) is going to take some getting used to.

Still, the familiarity is enough to get him to make his way on over. Which might not be entirely comforting, given the way he tends to loom even when he doesn't really mean to.

"Getting used to the way that works?"

It's the best guess he has, under the circumstances. And it's not unreasonable either, given that he'd done something very similar, when he'd first come by his own ability to teleport.

Jessica Jones

[underachievement]

PAST & PENDING, closed to Ravi, dated Sept 12

Jess's current power doesn't lend her any particular usefulness in making new headway, at first. In the past couple of weeks, she spends at least half her time in the bunker, but during periods of low traffic: Lunch, dinner, and the late evening through early morning. She's all but forgotten her BS jogging resolution, just like the majority of people who make bullshit jogging resolutions, so whatever. She'd just be thinking about the bunker anyway. Tools are often left scattered around, their places switching depending on what area people are currently trying to breach. Jess scoops up a crowbar from one of them on an otherwise unremarkable night and tucks it behind a busted tank for her personal retrieval.

Tonight she's had a bit to eat and then a bit to drink and it left her focus slightly split, so she takes to checking on other people's progress. She ambles down the hall with her crowbar swinging heavily back and forth, out to find out what the hot new door is. The smell of greased hinges hits her before she spots the rags and screwdrivers lying on the floor. Dinner bell rang, maybe. Jess gives the door a tug, expecting nothing, and is met with a rusty scrape and half a centimetre of budge. Jess stares at the door like it's pulling a prank on her, til she realizes this must be what normal people feel like when someone else opens a jar they've been struggling with.

[ ooc | The pending network announcement regarding the discovery will be posted by Ravi around (the actual) September 14th! ]

[zomboligist]

Ravi's seen her around a little, but given that they're all in this together (thanks Troy), he follows her when she has a crowbar, finding something. He knows he should grab her, get her back, and he's in the middle of opening his mouth to try and get her away from it when a door opens.

"I don't think it's supposed to do that," he says, ignoring the part where he doesn't really know her so well and this isn't really a normal thing that's meant to happen. The door just opened and given that they're in a place that's only newly discovered, that means anything could be back there. "Wait," he says, trying to hold her back. "What if there's something in there? Something bad?"

Tony Stark

[nonstopnarcissist]

Bunker

It's...a lot. Tony didn't like the idea of heading back to the Bunker for any reason but he had a jar of moonshine to deliver and a burning curiosity to get a better look at the whole set up. Anywhere with more advanced tech is worth looking through and he'd heard a rumor of computers somewhere when he'd first dragged his bleeding ass out of the hole. Or. Barnes dragged him. Either way- It wasn't a pleasant first impression and isn't something he really wants to revisit. But there's a damning list and probably all kinds of other goodies he's better suited to learning about firsthand rather than over the textual mire that is their wrist devices- and the longer he waffled on it uncertain if it was worth the trip out and revisiting waking up in the damn tube the brighter the glow leading out to the docs was- Tony opted to pack up, take his journal for whatever he might need to record, and haul his sorry ass back down that hole.

It's not poetic, it's not a bookend, it's research. And it's a chance to get past the village, he's been holing up as he adjusts.

Digging around the consoles shows a lot of nonfunctional tech he can't begin to start cracking open and stripping or repairing- no tools, no way to get into the case without risking shredding what's inside, wandering around the room with the tubes is- fucking unnerving, he doesn't spend too much time there. Wanting to find something useful but not sure where to try next- he finds himself guided to a clunky, questionable machine. Listing powers.

"Oh, fuck, this can't end badly now, can it?" Picking something is- well. Easy as breathing. What comes next he's not really expecting but- it definitely doesn't end poorly.

Forge

With renewed vigor and a hell of a lot more energy (thank you random power machine, however it is you work) Tony's slammed into his workload without missing a beat. Sure he could keep poking around the Bunker but for the first time in a decade? He can breathe. There's no ragged ache in his sternum when he walks, the hole in his side is healed completely and he doesn't have the time to indulge in his vanity that suddenly being kicked back to his thirties near as much as he thought he would. Without any idea how long this lasts? Burning the midnight oil is going to happen. He's got too much to do and an invisible deadline ticking away which- familiar, honestly- but is more than reason enough to spend most of his day, and night, and the next day at the forge drawing out wire and running through rough sketched schematics as he kicks around the issue of needing some kind of automation to get most of the shit on his list done. The smithy's fire will be glowing all night long unless someone has the sense or stubborn will to drag him away while he feels half this capable.

Half the Forge's wall fills with a rough sketch of belt driven systems focused around either a horse mill- or the water mill. That might be the better place to pace out.

Mill

If Tony's not at the forge trying to knock out as much work as he can (the bunker is a puzzle he can't begin to parse through yet, better to handle the things he knows he can build while he's like this than wallow in shit he can't comb through just yet) he's circling both mills, comparing one to the other, the flow of the river, or the internal setup. Perched out next to the waterwheel and sketching or taking measurements of the millstone and the gears that make up the actual grinding mechanism, pacing the millstone. As long as one's still usable for flower fiddling with the other shouldn't be out of the question, right? It's probably a 'discuss with the rest of the village' situation, but it's not a bad idea to have plans on hand sketched out before he pitches it.

Forge

[womanofvalue]

It's nearly midnight and the fire at the forge is still burning.

Peggy's come off her shift at the bunker, filling in the gaps of where she can with the glitching names and trying to solve the mystery of the redacted ones, but when she sees the forge burning, she's not well pleased. She's heard about the power machine they discovered and she thinks to herself that Tony wouldn't be so stupid. And yet, as she approaches, she's not sure that she can think of anything else.

It's late and she's weary herself, but she hasn't indulged in any of the powers. She's perfectly capable without them, as far as she's concerned. Still, right now as she opens the door, she does wish she had some persuasion.

"Anthony Stark," she announces sharply. "Would you like to tell me when it is you're planning to sleep?"

John Druitt | OTA

[borneinblood]

[Power Play]
{Bunker}
Druitt comes across the room largely by accident. While he knows that there's at least one thing in the bunker he wants to see, he hadn't really had any inclination to help out. There'd been enough people already bothering, and he's never really been the most helpful of people. Besides, it means that he can take things at his own pace now, without having to worry about other people being underfoot.

He boots up the machine more on curiosity than anything. And a little bit to see if it's even still functional; when it turns out to be a list of powers he doesn't need to think twice before picking the one power he's been missing since arrived.

A moment later, he's gone, vanished into a curl of orangish smoke.

{Near the fountain}

He arrives near the fountain scarcely more than a moment after leaving the bunker, in another swirl of smoke. To the surprise of anyone who might be nearby and wasn't expecting to have anyone simply appear out of the blue, much less anyone as physically imposing as Druitt tends to be on a good day. But just at the moment, Druitt doesn't care. What matters right now is that he can teleport again, after having spent months missing the ability to simply be somewhere else with nothing more than a thought.

The fact that he's actually smiling is probably a little off-putting, to be honest. But he's at least more approachable than he might otherwise be, if anyone should care to strike up a conversation with him.

[Past & Pending]

Even knowing that it's not likely to be comfortable at all, there's a part of Druitt that can't resist going to check out the list of names all the same. To see just who else might have been present. And perhaps a little bit to know just how much the Observers have been up to, with regards to interfering in people's lives. He is, also, a little bit curious. But it's a sort of morbid curiosity, the kind where he should probably know better than to indulge it.

He does anyway. The sight of his own name is easy enough to handle. The sight of some of the others has him seething, a slow anger that he knows isn't going to be easy to quench.

He reads all of the lists, and when he's done he doesn't so much leave the room as stalks out, a thundercloud in black scrubs, fists restlessly clenching and unclenching as if he longs to have a weapon in his hands. Something to make the people responsible hurt, to make them bleed, and never mind that he doesn't have any idea where to find them.

Needless to say, he's not in much of mood to talk to people as he heads out of the bunker, but if people care enough to stop him (or rather, are willing to approach, when he's so clearly in a foul mood) he's not incapable of conversation, clipped though his answers might be.

He doesn't linger near the village either, as soon as he's outside again. Instead he makes straight for outskirts of the village, where he's more likely to find something that can help soothe the urge to beat something bloody. It won't be the same, and he knows it. But perhaps, just perhaps, it'll be enough.

[oorah]

Frank recognizes him as the man he "rescued" during the lightning storms and approaches despite any visible bad mood. It's not like he has a friendly face himself, though his new dog, the pit bull Aloe, makes it up with his wide smile. He doesn't remember getting a name from the other man, but he also doesn't feel owed one. After seeing all those names on the lists, maybe he doesn't want to know at all.

"If you're looking for something to hit, I'm right here," he offers blandly, eager to get some frustration out himself. If these Observers hurt David then he wants their heads too. The only way he's been surviving is by telling himself the Liebermans are safe. They're home, so says the picture burning a hole in his pocket, but they gave him that photo. He feels the bile rise in his throat as he steps in front of John, refusing to be ignored for a change-up of his usual calm demeanor.

( closed ) Jessica. Frank. Kamala. /SILENTFAM/

[oorah]

Jessica's message on the network catches him by surprise, but he shows it to Kamala and they prepare to receive her as a guest either way. He can never be sure what mood she'll be in (okay, it's always bad) but she made it sound urgent. He already knows he won't take it well if she's in some type of danger, but she seemed capable of getting here so he doesn't think she's injured. Either way, he leaves the front door ajar and waits in the living room with their new addition: a slate gray, slightly skittish pit bull named Aloe. He has one paw on Frank's boot and he glances at him nervously every few minutes like he knows everyone in the room is anxious and he just needs to ratchet it up.

Frank is grateful for the dog so he doesn't pace, but the second Jess is through the doorway he's standing anyway. His gaze betrays his worry as it slips over her to assess physical damage he never finds. Words always feel dumb and insignificant, maybe even moreso when it's just the three of them. He lifts his hands to sign to her instead, Safe? Which could mean any number of things. Is she hurt? Was she followed? It's open-ended on purpose.

[underachievement]

She's probably not taking enough time to process this. She's definitely not hit upon the right reaction yet, as the more she looks over the list taken down in her own hand, the more comfort she draws from it. That's always a problem. Keeping her promise to Frank and Kamala is a quick way to cutting herself off, when usually she'd let the secret settle until it festered. Who knows how long that would have been anyway? The rate news travels at is as predictable as the frickin' fauna around here.

Despite the door being open, Jess knocks and nudges it another few inches before stepping in. She shuts the door behind her and starts toward the living room, nonplussed by Frank's gesture. It's marine or Reims or whatever, doesn't matter. Jess waves him at ease and then hooks her thumb behind the strap of her EMT-turned-messenger bag.

"I've been down in the bunker." If anyone was wondering, it'd be one or both of them, but that's not her point. "You ready for an update?" Hopefully Kamala has made a little peace with the clone idea since the last time she was here.

[CLOSED TO FRANK]

[theimmortalweapon]

Danny wasn't sure what to make of all of this. It felt like he was in a daze and when he finally understood what all of this meant, he was angry and there was nothing he could do about it. He had tried to chase away his anger by fixing up a house and slowly turning it into a Dojo, a place where people could learn to fight and defend themselves, but those efforts couldn't quench his anger now.

He stepped away from those who had come down and found himself a place where he could punch an inanimate object. It hurt but Danny was used to pain, it was familiar and in an odd sense… comforting.

It was another second or two when he realized that he wasn't alone. He'd been too angry to notice Frank before and while he tried to reign in his emotions, it was clear that he was bothered by all of this. "Frank." Danny closed his eyes and took a few seconds to breath. It was an easy exercise, one the monks had taught him to control his emotions. Like water flowing through a crack in the ground, his anger ebbed.

"Sorry." His voice sounded subdued. "You see those lists?"

[oorah]

He only has two dogs with him today, an all time low. A gray pitbull who shrinks back at Danny's show of frustration and the bloodhound he's probably met already who sits on her haunches and watches curiously with her head canted. Frank himself is no different from the last time they saw one another except for one glaring exception: his beard is scraggly and overgrown and his hair is long and in his eyes. He's wearing that same teal hoodie from the party, too, but there are deep bruises on his face and throat. Recently inflicted if it were anyone's guess, though the hair and beard obscures the worst of it.

"You're not the only one spun up over that," he admits calmly, putting a hand on Aloe's head to further soothe him. Danny is no longer posing a thread so he comes out of his shrink behind Frank's leg. "Jess is the one who found 'em. She showed me." Before the Net post went live, so yeah, he's known a little while. He's just not sure what it changes, if anything.