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--- sessions:003 [2014/10/19 16:56] – pinkgothic
+++ sessions:003 [2020/03/07 18:34] (current) – pinkgothic
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 His first reaction to two figures registering as a hint of motion across the street is to whip his pistol up and aim it in that direction - a steady grip, a careful aim, there was no use in being premature about firing the weapon if it wasn't going to meet its target. All quite commendable. His breath is steady, his thought processes clear. Then the fantasy morphs into a deep grimace, weapon dropping, letting himself be guided by instinct. There wasn't much of an alternative left to him, given he'd opted out of rationally addressing the problem. He exhales his frustration - then he's calling across: "You all right?"
-<fc #008888>They'd been seeking other people, preferably people with a clue what was going on and both the skills and knowledge to do something about it as well as somewhere safe to hide until someone else fixed the problem. Preferably one of the aforementioned "people with a clue". And by that metric someone with a uniform and a gun that wasn't panicking looked like an excellent start. Nobody would have both unless they knew how to use them, and that was already a big advantage over Keneh and her. Even implausible physics-bending humanoids required a brain and brains were less efficient with several high velocity holes punched through them.</fc>
+<fc #008888>They'd been seeking other people, preferably people with a clue what was going on and both the skills and knowledge to do something about it as well as somewhere safe to hide until someone else fixed the problem. Preferably one of the aforementioned "people with a clue". And by that metric someone with a uniform and a gun that wasn't panicking looked like an excellent start. Nobody would have both unless they knew how to use them, and that was already a big advantage over [[characters:Keneh]] and her. Even implausible physics-bending humanoids required a brain and brains were less efficient with several high velocity holes punched through them.</fc>
 <fc #008888>So in theory when she catches motion out of the corner of her eye and spins towards it the sight should be comforting. After all, isn't this what they were looking for? That does not stop her yelping and freezing like a rabbit in headlights when she realises that there is someone pointing a gun //at her//. Guns are scary! Guns shouldn't be anywhere near her! And if they were she should be //behind// the gun and wearing earmuffs, not a target.</fc>
-<fc #008888>And then it is pointing at the ground and that is somewhat better but her instincts are still screaming "Enemy enemy! Danger!" as her hand presses over her chest as if to re-enforce her ribs and stop her hammering heart escaping. A swallow, a second one, tongue run across dry lips and finally Delaney manages to respond: "We have no idea what is going on, which way is safety?"</fc>
+<fc #008888>And then it is pointing at the ground and that is somewhat better but her instincts are still screaming "Enemy enemy! Danger!" as her hand presses over her chest as if to re-enforce her ribs and stop her hammering heart escaping. A swallow, a second one, tongue run across dry lips and finally [[characters:Delaney]] manages to respond: "We have no idea what is going on, which way is safety?"</fc>
-Robert's reaction is one of silence - his gaze sweeps through the landscape one more time to be sure that no immediate other threat is lingering nearby, coming out of the woodwork now that a sound had roused it, then he glances back at the two passersby and raises his left arm, sans gun, to wave them over, taking a step back through the punctured entrance of the mall.
+[[characters:Robert]]'s reaction is one of silence - his gaze sweeps through the landscape one more time to be sure that no immediate other threat is lingering nearby, coming out of the woodwork now that a sound had roused it, then he glances back at the two passersby and raises his left arm, sans gun, to wave them over, taking a step back through the punctured entrance of the mall.
 There's something about the way he's moving and about the circumstance that inspires Keneh to trust he's not about to turn psychopath on them once they're inside. After all, if he wanted to harm them, there was no one else around right now and he could easily riddle them with bullet holes from a distance. No, everything about him had the markings of someone similarly wary of the turn of events from a little over an hour ago as they were.
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 <fc #008888>"Is the internet saying anything helpful about what people should be doing, then?" Presumably 'stay indoors' and 'avoid this area' but she'll take what they can get. And at least an area to avoid gives a direction to flee in.</fc>
-Was it doing that? Not really. What was it saying? It was full of fragmented facts and dithered between opinions that none of it was real and that the end of the world was near. "Eh," he comments, syllable the carrier for a tone meant to convey that the two shouldn't get their hopes up. They've turned into a side-path by now and he's unlocking a door to a narrow flight of stairs, then holding it open by mostly leaning against it with his back. His lips press together, cheeks puffing out ever so slightly in subdued frustration. "Let's take a look at the data together, shall we?" he offers, tone still remarkably neutral for someone whose designated mall now had a hole in it.
+Was it doing that? Not really. What **was** it saying? It was full of fragmented facts and dithered between opinions that none of it was real and that the end of the world was near. "Eh," he comments, syllable the carrier for a tone meant to convey that the two shouldn't get their hopes up. They've turned into a side-path by now and he's unlocking a door to a narrow flight of stairs, then holding it open by mostly leaning against it with his back. His lips press together, cheeks puffing out ever so slightly in subdued frustration. "Let's take a look at the data together, shall we?" he offers, tone still remarkably neutral for someone whose designated mall now had a hole in it.
 <fc #008888>Great. That meant it was probably 4 parts panic, 5 parts conspiracy theories and 1 part wrong directions. Why couldn't this have been a flood or a bushfire or a cyclone or something natural that they at least had some idea how to cope with? I mean there wasn't anything you could do to stop a natural disaster and you just had to ride it out, which on the surface seemed worse than a man-made disaster that you could shoot and be done with, but all natural disasters had plans and she really wanted a plan.</fc>
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 The uncovered human's instinct evidently guides him into the other direction. A plume of fire, disconnected, cuts his attempt to flee short. Then the presumed author steps into the reach of the camera, gait neither lazy nor in haste. The soundless video reveals that the trapped man's shouting something, but obviously not what - only to cringe down as a shallow circle of fire, open only to the approaching figure, fences him in.
-The approaching figure seems entirely unfazed by the display. Its gaze shifts down to its hands, where it's picking at something - a close-combat wound, perhaps, a slash from a knife, it's hard to see any details. Then the fire extinguishes and something grips the hapless human by the torso, visibly compressing his shirt against his skin, sliding his back a few inches up the wall immediately next to the entrance, just enough to deny his feet any purchase on the ground. <c>
+The approaching figure seems entirely unfazed by the display. Its gaze shifts down to its hands, where it's picking at something - a close-combat wound, perhaps, a slash from a knife, it's hard to see any details. Then the fire extinguishes and something grips the hapless human by the torso, visibly compressing his shirt against his skin, sliding his back a few inches up the wall immediately next to the entrance, just enough to deny his feet any purchase on the ground.
 It takes another arduous minute of only minimal visible motion on the victim's part for the stranger to approach him, reaching up with both hands, physically grasping at his jaw with the one. The motion of the other is hard to make out in clarity from the video, but it ends with the hand clasped over his mouth. Then long seconds of nothing - and an abrupt stepping away. The human crumples, half curling in on himself. It doesn't need a soundtrack to be a harrowing, obvious sob.
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 The stranger offers a hand up and a few words are spoken - but the folded character's reaction understandably seeks no reconciliation. He's on his feet a moment later, trying to kick at the other, claw at him, but while his assailant is backing away, none of the motions look like they're hitting it. Then the human folds over again - and after a long moment of watching the new display, the figure, having apparently lost interest, leaves with the same neutral pace that brought it close.
-**✘ IN PROGRESS**
+<fc #008888>It isn't real it can't be real she's not even going to //begin// listing all the laws of physics that is breaking and maybe it's time to start embracing magic and demons and the concept of 'Chaotic Evil' as a genuine measurable thing, because whatever //that// was not of this world. Or of any world she wanted to be a part of. She would really, really like to wake up now. Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?</fc>
+<fc #008888>Explosions. Effortless control of fire. Some sort of telekinesis. Super strength. And then whatever it was the... the **thing** had done to its victim. It. She was no longer considering it human. It was inhuman and dangerous and had a grab bag of powers from horror movie halls of fame.</fc>
+<fc #008888>And some creeping part of her felt like the worst part wasn't the way it ruthlessly stalked and snared its prey. The worst part was that it //let him live// because there had to be more going on. Whatever was said or done while he was pinned to the wall, whatever could put that look of sheer desperation on his face... she didn't want to know what it was because she instinctively knew the answer was worse than she was imagining. It had to be, it was bad enough to provoke the victim into a fruitless and frantic animalistic attack against a being that could annihilate him and that spoke of desperation. Or a will to die. And she did not want to be on the same continent as beings of elemental evil that could deal fates worse than death.</fc>
+<fc #008888>There's a pain in her arms and Delaney realises she's wrapped her arms around her chest and her nails are digging in deeply enough to damage skin through her shirt. But that doesn't matter because her heart is hammering loud enough that she knows she can't hide and all her muscles are locked up and there is no thought of fight, no flight. She can't kill it. She doubts she can outrun it. Hide. Hide, freeze, play dead and hope it doesn't pay attention and wanders elsewhere. Hide and hope someone more reckless and foolhardy knows how to deal with it. Pray for a demon hunter. Except she had no idea who to pray to, she should really look into that, there were enough deities in enough pantheons that surely one of them was the patron of 'I am not here'.</fc>
+<fc #008888>"Sirens are a terrible idea, yes, I agree //so very much//," Delaney croaks at last. "And I see why the internet thinks this is a hoax, I would like to think it a hoax and if I hadn't seen that thing with my own eyes I would be because..." Her words trail off into a strangled sound. English simply does not have terms to deal with this situation.</fc>
+The sheer surreality of it helped keep Keneh's reaction in check. Perhaps if the video came with sound, if the sobbing motions had come with an equally heart-wrenching emotive noise, her reaction would be quite different, but at the moment she's still dealing with the new information with a surprising outward calm. Inwardly, she's adjusting the scope of what they're dealing with upwards, but it has no shattering emotional effect. She doesn't doubt the material's veracity, not after what Delaney and her had already come across, but there's still a disconnect: This can't hurt me, it's in the laptop, not here.
+On the one hand, it was a wise attitude to have - panicking was only potentially useful if the thing came directly after her. On the other, she could hardly be any more stupid - this was part of her reality now, whether she agreed with that assessment or not.
+Her gaze is still fixed on the screen even after Robert closes the media player and lets his glance drift between the both of them, his lips pressed to a thin line. Her fingers fold together, beginning to rub absent-mindedly at her knuckles, keeping busy with a task that held no purpose.
+Then, finally, her eyes close and she exhales, becoming aware of the tension that had built up inside her in the meanwhile. Her left hand detaches from the tangle of fingers and the first joint of her thumb rubs against her forehead in a gesture of disorientation.
+"Okay," she says, nodding as she opens her eyes again, slowly. "Okay, so that happened here about an hour ago," she observes, drawing out the words, gradually convincing herself this is real. "Is this just one- one person?" she asks Robert, hazarding a guess on the answer, bracing for it.
+Robert shrugs very lightly. "Probably not, unless you want to add teleportation to the list of tricks," he comments. "Youtube, ah, had three original clips that I could identify, they're from all over the city best I can tell," he explains, then lingers for a moment, visibly dithering, before turning his attention to the laptop and motioning briefly with his left hand to wait. A browser window opens and fingertips tap at the letters of ''youtube.com'' on the keyboard.
+"What did he //do//, anyway?" Keneh finds herself asking, automatically, even as Robert is typing.
+"Eh?"
+"To the victim? Did he infect him with something?" Keneh's enquiry sounds chiefly incredulous, clearly unsure where to place the witnessed actions, not finding any other explanation off-hand to fit 'make a huge pyrotechnic fuss about getting within mauling range of someone' to 'let them live'. If it was simply about humiliation, there were other ways that seemed more plausible. But an infection didn't fit into the picture at all.
+<fc #008888>"I'd prefer to add teleportation to its list of tricks, it's doing enough other things and I'd rather there only be one to kill. One for someone that isn't us to kill," Delaney ammended. Why couldn't they have the teleportation, then they could go hide under Uluru or something.</fc>
+<fc #008888>Which still left the glaring question of what happened. "It can't have been mind control, the man attacked after. Slave drug? Horribly painful slow acting poison? Xenomorph babies?" Those were mental images she did not need, curse you brain, the potentialities of demonic reproduction were too horrifying to contemplate. "What happened to him? Did he crawl away at some point?"</fc>
+By now, Robert's paused on youtube's front page, search bar half filled with his search terms, currently discarded as ''townsville parano'', cursor blinking in patient wait for his return. The theories floating around thankfully seem to bounce off him, though whether he's already simply inoculated against them by having had similar thoughts or is incredulous that it could be anything of the sort is hard to tell. "The-?" He begins a question, aborting it to touch his lower lip with the tip of his tongue briefly, then subtly gestures uncertainty. "He gathered himself into a sit a few minutes later, sat there for another two or thereabouts, then just got up and left as far as I was able to discern."
+<fc #008888>Delaney bit her lip as she thought. So it was nothing that would stop someone moving. That was good. Possibly. Maybe. Unless Keneh was right and he had been infected with a face full of alien eggs somehow and they were going to spew out of him and then wear his skin like that locust thingy from Men in Black. Because one to three of the things was bad enough, they didn't need exponentially increasing swarms daring the government to drop napalm all over the city.</fc>
+<fc #008888>Somehow she doubted that disguising themselves and trying to casually walk out of the blast range was going to work, in that sort of case.</fc>
+<fc #008888>"Explosions I can understand. Strength I can understand. But it's throwing concrete and making flame rings and mangling bridges and none of this makes any sense!" she wailed. "I mean if one of them can do that to the bridge no building is going to stop them, and if it takes several of them then we've got several running around and if we stay here the air base is probably going to drop a bomb on our head but if we go those things might catch us and I don't want to get any closer to them ever again!"</fc>
+Keneh's support is fairly subtle given the options, left hand reaching over to grasp at Delaney's right, giving it a gentle squeeze and glancing at her with a gaze that forbid any sort of panicking, while a lightly bitten lower lip assures she's nonetheless understood.
+Robert frowns lightly, perhaps unsure how to calm Delaney down - his own reasons for calm aren't the reassuring sort. 'It's okay, we're dead already, the details just need to catch up to this fact,' was not something to tell someone who was in obvious distress.
+Instead, he goes back to his internet search, finishing the typed phrase with ''rmal'' and an enter key stroke that might as well be part of the word. Then he's scrolling with two fingers across the touchpad, looking for the more obscure ones at the end of the list first. A few seconds later, he's tabbed open three videos, only briefly switching to their tab to pause them; then he's back to the results page, giving it a final skim - perhaps looking for new entries and finding none for the time being - before closing it. Another browser window opens, ''maps.google.com'' ends up in the URL, and a moment later, he's arranged the blank map of Townsville to cover the left half of the screen and the first paused video's page - along with the hidden other two tabs - to the right of it.
+Then he peers across at Delaney, wordlessly asking for permission, cursor hovering over the play button. A second later, he supplements the unspoken question with a soft, slightly halting: "We don't... need to look at this - I can keep it paused, skip to relevant stills."
+<fc #008888>Not looking sounded good. Comforting. Utterly stupid, given the circumstances. "Knowledge is power. Success comes to those who see all," she quoted and was proud that her voice was only very slightly hysterical. "We... we need a plan. And we need to predict them or it will be a very short plan, so we need to know what they can do." And maybe the plan would be better than 'attempt to outrun them' or 'hide and hope they go away'.</fc>
+<fc #008888>Keneh's hand is squeezed more tightly in return and then she's shuffling close to hug the limb in lieu of an absent plushie.</fc>
+Robert's gaze lingers on her a bit past its welcome, adopting a questioning air without any change in his demeanour. "Let's verify these on the map," he nods, then. Then he's turning back to the laptop, making sure the cursor hasn't slipped, and starts the first video, body language one of caution.
+This video has sound - though it's mostly the local sound of the owner of the mobile phone's fumbling. A confusing light stretched in a gradient across one corner of the slightly shivering view, only to abruptly extinguish. It took a moment for Keneh to realise it was someone inside, filming through a window, turning off a lamp. That made sense - the angle on the scene is fairly steep, from someone in a second storey apartment at the very least. A stray flame is busy dying down - there's no telling what it might have been before, another circle or arc razed into the ground, perhaps - and another human figure with an alien calm is standing above two writhing shapes. A singular shout muffled both by the distance and the glass briefly spikes through the silence.
+The video zooms in a little, the waver of the image increasing, showing that nothing visible is pinning the two victims to the ground. The figure crouches, actions partly obscured by the darkness, partly by the useless, grainy image, and there's relative silence for long seconds, image held reasonably steady. Then the character's gaze swerves upwards - looking right at the camera. A flicker of flame licks at the edge of the window, extinguishing as quickly as it appears and the image jerks down and back across a soft "Shit!", then the video cuts out.
+The description reads: //'Paranormal stuff in Townsville??! Prbly won't be around to answer questions, sry'//. Yes, we can see that. You got a bit busy. Thanks for being a good journalist, remembering to upload the video to youtube with a short description before succumbing to your fate... whatever that might be.
+Robert drags the position marker on the video back to before the video zoomed in and pauses. A moment later, he's tapping at the screen lightly with the tip of a pen. "That'll be a view near Melrose or Cutheringa Park, I think," he postulates, then drops a streetview icon onto a road just west of the first mentioned park and takes a moment to orient the view to show that the shape of the ridge of the mountain in the video fits the one in the video quite well.
+<fc #008888>There were several long moments of silence. "I'm going to try to convince myself that the filmer made it out of there," Delaney offered at last. That was far nicer than the alternative. Clearly they taken the film, been spooked, run away, and //then// uploaded it. And weren't around because they were sensibly fleeing and didn't have wifi.</fc>
+<fc #008888>At least now they had locations and a few rough times. They could work out which direction the demons were moving and pick a path perpendicular to them. That way they wouldn't be running into them and hopefully not moving slow enough to be caught up with.</fc>
+<fc #008888>Delaney paused in those thoughts and turned to Keneh. "Um. I'm bad with geography, but isn't Melrose sort of putting them on a arc with the apex at the bridge?"</fc>
+In a way, it was what Keneh would have expected a recording on youtube to look like, right down to the grim punchline. The sharp-tipped silhouette of Castle Hill was surreal in it, though - like it had been pasted in from a different reality, one where spontaneous fires had plausible sources.
+Either way, this was clearly on this side of their bridge. That made it being bent out of shape much stranger - if anything could be cordoned off by mangling the bridges, it was South Townsville and the Railway Estate, not West End. So what did that mean? That it hadn't been twisted to prevent passage, but just as... what? A casual display of power? That wasn't exactly a soothing train of thought, but at least had the benefit of adding even more surreality to their current situation. More surreality was good for her psyche, it prevented these strange occurrences from reaching her emotionally for the time being, at least full force.
+The motion of her head is awkwardly slow at first, but culminates in a single nod. Yes, if the mutants were travelling together and the timestamps were any indicator - ignoring the isolated case near where they'd first gotten and then left their late night groceries - then that was the... very implausible path.
+Robert saves her from having to say anything about it. "Not much of a path," he comments, shaking his head slightly. "That's the incident closest to us that I can determine. The furthest is down near the river bend between Douglas and Cranbrook..." - he zooms out of the map with one hand and indicates the curve he means with his pen - "...though it could also be one further west, I'm not that familiar with the buildings over there." The pen taps at it. Then he's zooming out a little more, tracing the rough lines of Townsville with a frustrated exhale. "Nothing from the edges of town yet - but unfortunately that might as well be the time of day more than anything else."
+<fc #008888>"Okay. So, random distribution, multiple individuals, and no clear path?" Delaney clarified. She did not like that at all. Maybe that was the plan with the bridge, to ensure that any attempts to leave were going to be scattered and uncoordinated because nobody knew where the fuck they were supposed to go. Out of the city, apparently. Somehow. A car would be nice right now, even pyrokinetic demons may stagger at a tonne of high velocity metal slamming into them and the triple benefits of crumple zones, fire resistance and speed looked really good right now. From what happened to the bridge a stationary car wouldn't //stop// them but anything that slowed them down and enabled running like hell was good. Better than squishy weak flesh.</fc>
+<fc #008888>Current plan: try to work out a path, steal someone's car keys and break lots of speed limits escaping, and if anyone threw fire at them run them over should it be reasonably practical. Did it count as a plan if it was something out of Grand Theft Auto?</fc>
+<fc #008888>Plans with quite so much lawbreaking weren't comfortable but surely this was extenuating circumstances, and if she didn't try to think logically and work out what they were doing that would be worse. Because those two videos had shown that if they were found freezing was the worst possible response. The only thing to do was to run. To ignore the fire, to ignore burns and injuries, to bolt as far and fast as possible and pray to... she was going to go with Hermes, he was fast, to pray to Hermes that being awkward annoying prey was enough to make those things give up on the hunt.</fc>
+"Pretty much," Robert nods, bringing up his left hand to rub at the back of his neck. The fatalistic nature of his calm is probably most apparent at that moment, with his mild grimace speaking volumes. He stares at the open tabs, wondering if they should continue with the clip verification, then shrugs one shoulder, angle of his posture practically hiding the motion and glances over to the pack of soda cans. Then he gestures across to them again, a misplaced glance of concern flitting across his expression. Then he's sliding himself down into a sit with his spine against a leg of the table. "For what it's worth, this is probably a reasonably safe fort. Not the rest of the mall, but this room in particular. I've got a car, though, and I'd be happy to give you two a ride if you want to disappear, but I can tell you now that I'm not leaving here until five. My shift ends at six. I don't know how long Townsville is going to have the privilege of electricity and internet, but I want to make the most of it. Start a wikia, perhaps; drop in links to the youtube clips, make a collaborative map, give other folks a fighting chance. Also hopefully get more information that way."
+<fc #008888>A wiki. The city was in peril and Robert wanted to stay here and write a wiki. Instead of go somewhere else and write it. Delaney couldn't object to the idea itself, but the circumstances were surreal. But maybe this was how he was keeping himself from panicking. Information was good, putting information into useful forms was also good, and if you had it you may as well share it.</fc>
+<fc #008888>"If the things are going all xenomorph on their victims giving them hours to spread might make getting out harder," she felt she had to point out. Giving them time to decide this area had been picked clean may make things safer for the time being, but they still had the issue of getting clear afterwards. "Unless someone finds out they're deathly allergic to olive oil or something, that would be really nice." If movie aliens could be allergic to water and dogs could be allergic to chocolate and mammals hated capsaicin but birds love it then that wasn't so far fetched. It was entirely possible for these creatures to have a bad reaction to something innoculous to humans.</fc>
+<fc #008888>She just didn't want to be the one dumping the assorted contents of a supermarket onto one to figure out //what//.</fc>
+<fc #008888>Still, previous plan could work. Rob had a car and that was so much easier than stealing one because she doubted Keneh knew how to hotwire something either. (Unless she'd had a much more adventurous youth than had been shared, which probably wouldn't surprise her all that much.) Sit tight, hope for news, then take a path out of Townsville with no bridges unless otherwise informed. That was workable. Delaney hugged her friend's arm tighter.</fc>
+<fc #008888>That was workable. Delaney hugged her friend's arm tighter. Now she just had to stay calmish.</fc>