<> (God, no kidding.) (Amen. @_@) (No comment.) (THe only way I remember is that AN has 2 'seasons' on UD.) <> <> <> <> * Vera takes a seat, folds her arms, crosses her legs and tips her hat down. * Ian flops into a chair and looks grateful to see even the DunnOfficeMax tables. <> * Rochelle looks around, then sits down a good distance from Ronnie. She slumps crosses her arms on the table, putting her face in them. * Fitzroy brushes away a few ramen containers on a chair and sits down. * Threnody actually does something pretty similar to Rochelle. It's a very "are we getting milk and cookies now?" sort of scene. * Leopoldo takes a seat in one of the chairs. * Katherine regards the room and says with a sarcastic tone, "Fine ATC construction, lover." She just takes a seat wherever and rubs her temples. "God. One thing I did not miss." * Rochelle could go for milk and cookies. <> "It's nice to see your bodies inhabited by people who can walk. The Sleythin that were in them previously went absolutely batshit, and we had to just drop them in a liquid tank till your jump." * Threnody slightly raises his head, glancing his hands. "...that explains a lot." Aha. Yes. It.. does. * Ian ponders. "Is there any [ale] around here?" (And [whores].) ( Oh god. Lizard prostitutes x.x ) (Lizards need prostitutes, too!) (Remeber the She-Sleythin.) "Times prior to that weren't much better. Those people were even more disoriented than you were, most of the time. God knows how many multiverses just got fucked up... but. Shit. We've got enough problems." <> "Hell no. Vernon polished off the last of the alcohol about a month back, and getting a resupply is hard with Red Atlanta under martial law like it is." ( I suppose it's better than spider prostitutes. ) ("The price of eggs increased sharply this week, due to the latest round of police crackdowns...") * Threnody blinks, and actually sits up. "Martial law?" What?! * Rochelle doesn't react. Comfy. <> "Yes. It's been a few months, and most of the ESC went under martial law much sooner than that." "Reports are slow from the northern countries, but they're in pretty much the same boat." * Katherine opens her mouth, probabbly for some sarcasm, but shuts it once she talks about the ESC. "Jesus, Ronnie. How bad is it?" <> "Pretty fucking bad, Kat... pretty damn fucking bad." ("Ore... ore no ramen... ;_;") (... wha?) (Thren does not use "ore.") (Never mind. Calc will get it, at least.) (And no, probably not.) (Sounds like a Slayers quote?) (Modified, but yeah. Moving on.) (^_^_v) * Leopoldo is complacent with booze. <> Yum. <> "A few months after you left, we started getting a different kind of possession... one with full use of the body. Not the raging lunatics you'd encountered before you left. The people like Leo's sisters." * Fitzroy shifts in his seat. "Meanwhile, it looks like they figured out how to possess non-24s. Thank god, never to the full extent. They can only do that with 24s ... meaning most of these full automatons are children. It's a pretty fucking bad situation." * Threnody winces. Mm... How much of an extent? * Ian curses under his breath. "From what we can tell? They get basically everything but the memory on these kids. Powers, the works." I meant the non-24s. * Katherine gets a frown on her face and leans back in her seat with a murmured, "Christ." * Leopoldo nods. "Lunatics, like the 24s used to be. Pretty much useless for an army, but hell on a city." * Fitzroy shakes his head. "I'd forgotten about this mess." <> It'd be nice if we could. "The latest to come out of SIG-ASP. That's our prevention method - without that, we'd have no hope." * Rochelle moves at that, turning her head on her arms to see. They're not organized...are they? Hm. "Stops anyone from being invaded. Problem is, even with us and CEC cranking 'em out as fast as we can, we're woefully short. We can barely cover core personnel, let alone start covering the populace." <> "They aren't in most cities. Mobs of crazies gently herded by a few kids, who keep out of sight and definitely out of reach. Of course, then you've got Twilight City." * Rochelle turns her attention from the circle thing to Ronnie. * Katherine blinks, then pales. "... oh fuck." * Ian winces. <> "If I weren't so damn weak in the programming, I'd have nuked that city to glass years ago." Mm. That'd kinda suck. <> "... oh. Sorry, Rochelle. Just ... under a lot of pressure, is all." <> * Katherine mutters, "Shoulda just let Chako do it." * Rochelle shrugs. * Threnody looks... perturbed at the mention of Twilight City, but doesn't say anything. <> "So we're at a stalemate. They can't get footholds, because we can cure any possession of a lunatic... but once we take the rings off, they're easy prey again." Sounds fun. Goodie. "And they have Twilight City pretty hard. If we pull people off to mount an assault, they'll overwhelm us so fast we won't know what the hell hit us." <> "I almost envy you your little vacation. Have fun on ancient Sleythin, by the way?" * Ian sighs. "At least now Vernon can move on from dealing with us..." ( If we leave the rings on they're incredibly tough ++ though! ) Not really. It was a waste of time. * Threnody leands back in his chair, looking at the patterns of whatever on the ceiling. "...what do they *want*?" The things were on Sleythin, though. Or something. (IT++!) * Rochelle puts her face back in her arms. * Katherine smiles slightly. "Hey, someone believes me." <> "... the what?" * Rochelle says to the table, "The things that we were s'posed to go see." <> "The Old Ones were on ancient Sleythin?" Yup. The purple glow on some of the Sleythin? Yup. THAT'S what that was? Duh. * Threnody sits back up. "We don't have any *proof*, but it's one possible interpretation." Is that what they were? * Katherine grins. "Christ, Roch, you shoulda told me you agreed." <> Thought they'd be scarrier. * Rochelle looks up at Kat and shrugs. "Thren? What era were you in?" * Threnody blinks. "The end of the Great War. The naval strike on Satal'she." Huh? What about it? <> "How much did you guys understand about the multiverse concept?" * Threnody rubs his chin. "Come to think of it, all of the Satal'she commanders were female, and Sleythin isn't exactly patriarchal, but at the same time, females weren't found in the military caste, at least not in Tholdeka." * Katherine glances over at Thren then at Ronnie. "Do any of us look like theoretical... uh... theoreticians?" * Threnody blinks, looking at the table. He's in his own little world now. "And all the glowing ones were commanders..." (Please say I am remembering right or I'm going to sound like a lunatic.) (You are entirely correct.) (That's what I remember too, yeah.) * Ian nods. "Right before we came back...we shot one of them, didn't we?" * Fitzroy nods. "Fantastic, just fucking fantastic." <> "Look." * Katherine says, "I tried, anyway." "Universes A and B used to be the same, until this point." <> "That point, as far as Vernon has managed to put down coherently, is a major decision somewhere in the past of the Universes." (*hobbles around muttering "trousers..."*) "Okay? So see, the universe you were just in was only _one choice away_. That means the two universes are really close, as far as these things go. From what I could calculate, the difference was ridiculously simple and occurred somewhere entirely outside the fucking galaxy we exist in." ( And the decision was "Do you want ketchup or mustard on your hotdog?" ) (No. It was whether hotdog buns came in packages of ten or eight.) And? (Oh my god, don't go there.) * Katherine rubs her arms. "... so you think that the Sleythin left that part out of the historybooks?" <> "So... since the Egg hasn't deigned to tell me anything about this incident in his species' past, either he's holding back, yes, or I'm entirely wrong. And we've gotten pretty damn good at multidimensional physics." * Threnody hmmms. "Mother always said the Tholdekan version of Sleythin history sounded revisionist." * Katherine nods very slightly. But it might not be his fault. Tholdeka was... uncounted eons before the Egg was created. (At least, I assume it was unless the lizards were VERY GOOD with garage radio kits.) "Then he's in the best position to find out. Either way, I need to talk to him." <> (Ha.) (I'll just make this crystal radio, lalala ... whoa!) (According to you, that's about how the Cube came into being.) * Katherine rubs her temples a bit more. (No, that was a drunken prank by IBM techs.) (Vacuum tubes >>>> crystal radio.) * Threnody doesn't actually wait long before he looks at Ronnie expectantly. * Katherine nods a little again. * Fitzroy scratches his head. <> "Look, you guys just went through some serious hell." <> "They haven't gotten to the asteroid colonies yet, at all. A little on Venus, but. If you make it to a colony you ought to be okay while we sweat this out... and it's maybe better to wait for the end with family, huh? You'll get a handful of the impedance rings and a free escort wherever." * Katherine snerks. * Threnody looks a little disappointed. Only works if you got a family. (...damnit, Ard, I know I remember that reference from somewhere and I am killing myself trying to remember where I heard it.) (What what?) * Rochelle isn't really looking at anybody. She's shifted so her elbow's propped on the table and her chin is in her hand. * Ian sighs. "I have *too much* family." (Hot dog buns.) (Oh!) (Bulletproof Monk!) (Hee.) (... yes.) <> "But if you're up for a little more torture, I need somebody to go to Sleythin for me. The Egg's sulking or something - he's turned off his ITT circuit." (Yay me.) * Threnody puts up a hand. "I'll go." ( Oh! Oh! Pick me! Meeeeee!) * Ian sits back, thinking. "You don't need to decide quite yet. You've got a week, and some parts of SIG-ASP aren't all that bad to hang out in." (It's that or go home to Mother. Ha ha ha.) (Yeah, really. Ha ha ha.) (Mother. Man, that had some serious Norman Bates vibes to it.) (Knives.) (MOTHER WOULDN'T LIKE IT.) Look... I know how you guys like this kind of thing, but I'm just not cut out for it. I'll go. It's dangerous, but...if things are getting worse, and this has a chance of helping, there's not exactly anything else I have to be doing. * Katherine signs and glances over at Thren, then Leo. "Probably not so bad anyway, Leo." * Fitzroy shrugs. "I don't really have anywhere to be.. especially if TC is as bad as it sounds now." * Rochelle gets to her feet, walks to the door, opens it, and heads off without a word. If I may, I'd like to stop trying to be a hero now and get on with whatever semblence of life I had before? Maybe I'll stay here. See what I can do. * Fitzroy gets up and wanders over to the ramen stash to grab one. <> "Your sisters are waiting. Ask one of the techs outside and they'll lead you to them." * Katherine sees Roch go then turns to Leo. "Yeah, Leo, s'not like you have to justify it to us." Slight grin. "Been there." Thank you. * Ian gets up and actually hugs Leo. "Good luck, Leo. You've already done plenty." Come back any time you need money, Leo. If we actually survive as a species. * Leopoldo sighs and walks out. "Good bye. See you after you do what needs to be done... And if it comes down to it, yeah." * Vera waves. "See ya around, Leo." * Katherine watches him go and licks her lips (it had to happen sometime!) before turning back to Ronnie, "You're only nominally human anyway. So where are you socking away the very important non-combat family?" <> "Your mother's around here somewhere. You know Chako would never let her be out and about." * Katherine 's eyes widen for a sec before she sighs and mutters, "Yeah, I know." "Especially with Chako and the rest of the Europans on the rampage." * Vera gets up and stretches. "Gonna go have a smoke." She wanders out. * Threnody says, a little too quietly, "How about Earth?" "Isis is down there, with Tim. It's been hit a little less hard. Less population." * Threnody breathes out. Only a little. * Ian rubs his temples, letting it all sink in. "Do you know who in my family is safe, Ronnie?" * Katherine looks over at Thren for a second before closing her eyes and looking down. <> "No, Ian. I've had no time for keeping track of anyone who's not immediately essential. I'm sorry." * Ian nods. "That's all right. You said it's tough to contact cities right now?" * Threnody makes a little bit of a face at the terms "immediately essential", but doesn't say anything. "Yeah. Broadcast points are basically beacons." * Fitzroy leans back in his chair and eats ramen.. He doesn't seem too upset, yet he's definately not that happy. "Any immobile one has long since been destroyed." * Ian sighs, and heads over to snag a ramen. <> * Ian is familiar with the system. Fire one! <> "Anything else? I need a battery recharge like crazy." * Katherine chuckles and smiles weakly, "How many more times did we get married before this shit came down? NO matter how many times I hear it, it's still funny as hell." "Three, I think. Then people rapidly forgot about it." One would hope they might. (Need... food...) * Katherine shakes her head. "There go the giant threats to our lives. Always ruining good scandals. Where's Luanne?" * Threnody perks up. "And Anders, for that matter." <> "Bad business all around... Luanne's in one of the rooms next to Anders, with the rest of his group. They've actually been pretty useful." * Threnody suddenly blinks, looking aghast. (He can't realize things faster than I can. The problem with a characterthat's smarter than me. ;_;) (?) You said...the Egg cut off ITT, right? "Yeah." * Threnody glances at Ronnie, unnerved. "Then... we really have no idea of what the situation on Sleythin is like... do we? And we just came back from finding a strong possibility that Sleythin women, or at least some, are susceptible to possession..." (Amazon Sleythin in the Avocado Planet of Doom.) (Now I'm imagining the Chakosaur with her giant turret pointed at the Egg.) <> "... perhaps. It's a risk anyhow." "Either way, I mean. God, I need rest cycles. I've been at 98% load for months." * Threnody nods. "Sorry." <> "You guys get some rest - we'll bodyslide you to Sleythin sometime this week." ... what a party. * Threnody slumps, looking nice and depressed. Rest? We need to secure a supply of alcohol. * Katherine stands up. "I plan on securing my cat." * Threnody also stands up. "I think I'm going to secure Rochelle, for the time being. I'm worried about her." * Katherine snickers to herself and singsongs as she walks out, "You get your cat..." <> (I can't tell, did Leo get up and leave or is he still here?) <>