ValtheStarGal
Supreme Stellar Sorceress
The last forty five minutes had been more exciting than Vidar had planned for, so reading Emilio’s travel blog about the Martian outback becomes a soothing errand that yields no leads. He leaves the G-rep jockeying to Mach and Devin and trust them to spread their rumor cover story around appropriately. So to kill some time he reads a little deeper and, honestly, it’s just a really good blog. He thinks he likes the idea of the Martian outback, it’s haunting landscapes,strange histories, and its rough people and most of all their persistence. He shares it with the tacnet only to get Mach reading it with him- because man this guy runs a good blog.
He looks up from his entropics as Rj and Eppie arrive.
Heliotrope{Pm to Jukeboxmaiden}: Hey, you okay?
He adds to the spam to he had been sending her while her mesh was off. He waves and hopes that Devin keeps his promise to apologize soon.
Heliotrope{Pm to Jukeboxmaiden}: Check out this sweet blog this snitch runs
Heliotrope{Pm to Jukeboxmaiden}: Makes me wanna go live under a rock too
Heliotrope{tacent}: I can't get anything on this guy.
Eppie takes a sip of her strawberry milkshake, which comes through the clear straw as pink as she. She absently runs her thumb along the side of RJ’s hand as she views the blog, taking in the contents. It’s actually rather clever - though the pictures are beautiful and they do, in fact, accurately capture Mars’ natural beauty, and it is, in fact, a pretty dope blog, there are no markers that could distinguish exactly what wilderness he could be hiding in. It could be close to where he was last seen, or it could be on the other side of the planet.
“Have you tried hacking it? You or the new crew member or, y’know, anyone capable of hacking?” She asks.
“I can’t even work a fucking fabricator,” Vidar says defensivly. He glances at Veronica though.
Eppie looks expectantly at Veronica, “Did you have any luck?”
“I honestly hadn’t thought to,” Veronica answers. “I’m sure I could, if need be - I’ve just been monitoring the mesh to make sure no one’s hacking us.”
“... Can you give it a shot? You’re our resident hacker-”
[You would be able to do it, so long as she watches for raised alarms.]
Eppie freezes as Seze’s voice speaks into her mind. There is a dissonance to her voice that unsettles, as if she were not properly synced up to Eppie’s inserts - her voice distorts, fades, and pitches as if it were being altered to follow a tune. She can see Seze in her mind, watching Eppie with unsettling intensity, her form shivering as if the signal were corrupted by static.
“I don’t know how to hack,” Eppie whispers, unknowingly speaking out loud, “I don’t know how.”
Seze smiles, but it seems… wrong. It is not an expression of the human form, of lips exposing teeth to show joy - it is plastic, pulled taut and tight over a row of too perfect, too straight teeth. There seem to be too many teeth in Seze’s mouth, teeth that are the wrong shape and the wrong size and her eyes are as empty and unfathomable as the expanse of the void.
[No, you don’t. But what you do know is how to access something who does.]
“I-” Eppie catches the meaning of her words, her body going cold, as if Seze had dumped water over her head. She pauses, looking at Veronica uncertainly, then Vidar. She says, quietly, “Let me try.”
“... didn’t you just say you didn’t know how?” Veronica asks with a skeptical quirk of an eyebrow: “This isn’t something you can just try- here, give me a moment to establish a connection, I’ll have it shortly-”
“No. I… I can do this,” She looks to Vidar, her eyes pleading for backup, “Vidar, I can do this.”
He meets her blue eyes and what he means to say is “I don’t know can you?” but instead he gets stuck reforming and rearranging the words, until he realizes he can’t hear his own inner monologue over something static that his mind can’t quite find the melody in. Then for the second time in forty five minutes his personality gets put on the high shelf while something inside him with teeth crunches data like its hungry. Only he’s certain, in a distant way that those teeth are his as well.
“Vidar?” Eppie repeats quietly, dropping RJ’s hand to approach him. She takes his hand with both of her own, eye brows upturning in concern, “Vidar. You know I can do this?”
“Em, what’s going on?” Veronica asks, eyebrow now very quirked in confusion.
“Yeah, y’all, we should maybe find some place out of the way,” Rushing Jaws suggests, glancing around as discreetly as he can as he starts picking up on the same thing Veronica is and having only a marginally better idea of what it actually is. “Are y’all good to move, does this gotta happen here n’ now?”
Eppie looks at Vidar’s blank expression, but she knows - she can feel his thoughts. Somehow. Her mind and his feel one in the same in this moment. “We can do this.”
[Euphemia,] Seze says, her face still set in her horrific mockery of a smile as the buzzing of a tune starts in her ear, which quickly crescendos in volume as more and more voices join in singing. It forms a haunting melody of inhuman voices, and when Seze speaks again, Eppie realizes the odd tune her voice is following forms a low harmony of the song, [You know now how to do this, don’t you?]
Eppie opens the mesh, finds the blog of the snitch, and, within the blink of an eye and the processing of pages and pages of code, the home page of the blog is open to her.
The song decrescendos as quickly as it had risen, and Eppie looks at the home page, which even welcomes her with a cheery message of ‘Welcome, Emilio!’, in utter disbelief.
She releases Vidar’s hand as the headache of her sleight fades away, and says, almost sounding as if she needs to convince herself, “I… I did it. I have access. What do we need to know?”
“His last upload locations, other people he was with,” Vidar rattles off mechanically. He blinks owlish and pushes his hair out of his face, as his nose bleed picks up again with a vengeance.
“Oh, jeez, Viddy, you’re bleeding like hell-” Eppie grabs one of the napkins given to her at the milkshake bar from her pocket, pressing them underneath his nose to staunch his bleeding. As she does, she looks through the account, finding through the metadata where Emilio is hiding, and his companions: “He’s in Elysium City, and he is with two people pretty regularly - Khadijah Zosain and Soo-Yun Ryong.”
“Great,” He says sarcastically, taking the offered napkins.
“Wait- seriously, what’s going on?” Veronica asks, clear concern in her tone as napkins are administered to nosebleeds. “Are you two okay? I could’ve gotten it-”
“Just fine,” He says, “This nose bleed wont fuck off I guess.”
Heliotrope {tacnet}: So. something did just happen but lets keep it down low, okay?
Heliotrope{tacnet}: Christ.
Heliotrope{Pm to jukeboxmaiden}: W H A T
Heliotrope{Pm to jukeboxmaiden} T H E
Heliotrope{Pm to jukeboxmaiden} F U C K
jukeboxmaiden {PM to Heliotrope}: what
jukeboxmaiden {PM to Heliotrope}: i dont understand
Heliotrope: Eppie. You just- You just hijacked my whole entire brain.
jukeboxmaiden: i just WHAT
jukeboxmaiden: viddy - i just used one of my sleights. i didnt mind link to you or anything. thats just,,,, not possible
Heliotrope: How come I’m the one bleeding then? You sent me to the god damn map zone.
Heliotrope: Apparently it’s possible. Cause you did it!
Eppie stops dead, looking at Vidar intensely, worry creasing her face. She looks to the other nervously, like they may be able to see the same messages, then returns her gaze to Vidar.
jukeboxmaiden: viddy im sorry. i didnt mean to. i would never do that on purpose. i would never. im so sorry
Heliotrope: its okay-
Heliotrope: I’m just freaked.
Heliotrope: I think I’d feel better if it was on purpose.
Heliotrope: Okay. God. We gotta act natural.
jukeboxmaiden: im so so sorry.
Eppie quickly makes significant physical distance between herself and Vidar, trying and failing to not look dejected and withdrawn.
“Hey, Eppie,” Rushing Jaws says, arms out for another hug as he tries to catch her attention. “Hug for ya here if you want it”
Azathothwakes {TacNet} Understood.
Azathothwakes: i can pm Starglass n’ get transport to Elysium set up
Heliotrope:{Tacnet}: Do it. Lets get out of here.
Eppie crosses the space between herself and RJ, wordlessly entering the embrace of his arms. Pressing her face into his shoulder and tucking her arms against her chest, Eppie leans heavily into RJ’s grasp, overwhelmed by herself and the singing voices in her mind.
”This voice is calling for a touch to be undone…I hope love will come to us again/as a place we all can come...” Rushing Jaws starts to sing, hoping that a song will help Eppie center herself after… whatever that was. Just like earlier, he makes sure she is secure and snug in his grip without feeling trapped, breathing easy in the hopes it helps her.
Veronica watches this with the best poker face she can wear, and decides to do something herself.
Mekhajakumaar {pm to Heliotrope}: Hey, do you- that looked pretty rough, do you need anything?
Heliotrope: Goblins make do, but thanks.
Heliotrope: I should really invest in medichines
Mekhajakumaar: Can’t go wrong with medichines. Should be a breeze to get some around here, if you want to do that before we go down to the surface.
Heliotrope: Yeah. I got another erand to hit before we go too. Add it to the list.
Heliotrope: Sorry today has been so interestingTM
Mekhajakumaar: Such is the life of a secret agent!
Heliotrope: I can't think atm, but could you look into Emilio’s two friends?
Mekhajakumaar: Can do!
Veronica runs a quick search on the mesh for those names, finding hits for them all over Elysium city - and some very spicy social media pictures. Khadijah and Ryong look to have been living it up: both have been posting a lot of pictures of them surrounded by beautiful people in glittery, revealing outfits and scandalous positions. Veronica even thinks she recognizes a few of the people tagged in their pictures.
Mekhajakumaar {TacNet}: These two have been getting up to some sin since getting into Elysium. I’m going to follow up on Fame with some people I know, see if I can learn more.
’ emojis on its faceplate as it pings every member of the team over the Eye and only saying more once every sentinel has pinged it back. As soon as everyone has, the emoji on its faceplate switches to a ‘
’ icon.
’ emoji on its faceplate and volume substantially lowered in this out-of-the-way place. “Your luggage without the wait, stored safely in individual containers for your convenience! Please remember to keep all items stored out of sight while in the Skyport and respect local laws, and have a pleasant day!”
