janitorscloset | [Event] Ship Crash on Chorus

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!event,
a-shadow

[Event] Ship Crash on Chorus

I.

The place where Agent Washington faced down the Meta was deep into the Freelancer facility's security systems, deep into the place where its experimental tech had been moved after the Mother of Invention's crash in the snow. But chief among the signals from barely tested equipment was the Meta's own armor, which gave off many types of energy. Temporal waves are, even now, barely understood, and Wash has no idea when he chooses to set off an electromagnetic pulse to obliterate it that the equipment will be set off one final time. The Alpha, Church, joins the Meta's collective of AIs, and instants later the EMP tears through the facility—causing the AIs in the collective not to be deleted, but to be wrenched into a temporal rift, sent aimlessly through the universe.

II.
Like all proprietary technology, Freelancer equipment has a certain energy signature, and years later a ship full of Freelancer equipment falls into its own rift in time and space—an equipment malfunction that caused it to attempt changing course, jumping to hyperspace, and powering down all at once. This led to its crash on the planet Chorus. As far as the signal carrying the AIs is concerned, this happens simultaneously to the Meta's defeat, simply in another wrinkle in the fabric of the universe. Thankfully, the ship's systems are full of equipment that can host AI technology, allowing all of the AIs to arrive safely within its systems. They are all here, or at least they should be, as far as anyone can tell.

III.
Yet as things continue it's apparent there's another set of casualties when it comes to the Chorus nexus event. And it's the method of disposal for Freelancer armor that's responsible. The explosives used to destroy this armor after an agent's death are just as experimental as the rest of Freeelancer's equipment, and the explosion of these charges leads to the same temporal nexus event as the EMP and the crash. These manifest a bit differently, as there are physical bodies involved—the use of the towers on Chorus that led to the ship's crash draws these soldiers bodies as though they are some kind of a magnet, leading to the revival of the recently deceased agents on Chorus.

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Tex isn't aware of the transition. She just knows she and Church are having their reunion when the EMP goes off, and then she's elsewhere. She's not in the Meta anymore, and she has no connection to Church's consciousness anymore. She's just in a computer somewhere else. It's a lot different from the crowded conditions inside Agent Maine's head.

She projects pretty much immediately, finding herself in a downed, broken husk of what used to be a huge ship, and she stares out at the canyon. It's a strangely familiar specter, and she has no problem yelling out to the first person she might find in the wreckage that doesn't appear to be dead.

"Hey! Where am I? What the hell is going on here?"

One moment, there was sound and connection and he could feel all the others with him, he was a piece in an almost whole. Alpha was there. The next moment, there's a great beat through the air, and it's all gone.

Theta shudders in the system he's suddenly found himself in. After so long as part of do many, the silence feels like it's ringing. He's so small, where are the others? How did he get here? Where is here?

'H-Hello?'

((( Full info/permissions/ooc contact/etc here, a briefer rundown of Ohio's deal is here. Nail down whatever's happening on Chorus rn however you like. If you'd like me to tag yours with him instead I can do that, I just don't tag out with this OC unless I know it's cool to do so. )))

Ohio isn't sure how he expected to die. Sooner rather than later. Violently to be sure. But the exact details have always been up in the air, and best left uncontemplated. The answer, as it turns out, is: alone, chasing another mission objective on the ass end of space, with an alien pirate's heel on his throat.

Ohio has outlived his home planet, the Covenant, Project Freelancer, his AI, many friends, and most recently his usefulness as an agent to ONI. It is finally over. The last thing he remembers, vision blackening from lack of oxygen and a plasma rifle in his face, is idly wondering if his boss is proud to be rid of him at last.

He didn't expect to die this way.

He expected to survive it even less.

Ohio's up before he's even consciously aware he's moving. These reflexes have kept him going this long, apparently, and aren't stopping any time soon.

"Oh man, what the fuck?"

It just slips out as he examines whatever hell he's fallen into. Because he's sure that even if he's alive, this can only be a bad sign of bad things preparing to be really really bad.

Ohio has good instincts about this sort of bullshit.

Edited 2016-09-12 01:17 (UTC)

There's a groan from nearby as York pulls her helmeted face out of a pile of rock and turns slowly onto her back. She feels like she's been pummeled all over, steamrolled, and dropped off a cliff for good measure, and considering the total blank in her memory between this moment and those short few after Wyoming had shot her, she's not ruling it out.

Her chest hurts like hell, and there's a strange, vague hole in her mind that her consciousness skirts around, because the pain is far more immediate, and also, what the hell.

The only thought that crosses her mind as she rolls onto her back and stares up at jagged mountain and jungle around them is I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

She hears the voice and half-sits up, squinting. "Yeah, gonna second that one," she croaks out until the voice really registers and she scrambles to her knees. "Holy shit, Ohio, is that you?"

The sound of a child's voice was enough to have Jensen switching directions in her exploration of the ship and then finding the source before kneeling down in front of him. "We're here to help, if you want to come with me." She hesitated a moment before taking her helmet off and giving him a small smile.

"I'm Lieutenant Jensen, but you can call me Katie, if you want."

...And of course he'd recognize that voice anywhere and the blue hologram ended up floating a few feet in front of her. "That's what I'd like to know because you're not supposed to be here. Not that I'm not glad to see you, but, Jesus Christ, Tex...

Carolina is going not to handle this well."

His head aching was the first thing he registered as he shoved one of the metal girders away and tried to sit up, gaze taking in the wreckage of the ship around him. Not a ship he recognized either, and the scenery outside once he'd gotten out?

Definitely nowhere he'd ever been before. Penn checks his trackers and heads for the nearest friendly life sign, assuming there is one. Someone has to have some answers.

[No official writeup, but he was one of the non leaderboard Freelancers and had something a brother/sister relationship with Maryland. Got along pretty well with the rest of the Freelancers and generally avoided the asshole brigade. Feel free to pm if you want to discuss details/etc ]

Ohio knows that voice. He also knows that the person it belongs to is dead.

The hell theory just got a lot more credence.

"York?" he tries. Ohio hasn't thought about York too hard in a long while, dwelling on the dead makes it too easy to lose focus and go wandering down Memory Lane in the wrong part of Regret Town. Missing friends hurts. There are enough things that hurt in his day to day without dragging up more.

But even with the years in between, he still can't mistake York for anyone else. Maybe it's weird that Ohio's still running the same armor and colors from a failed project, but now it seems he's not alone in that.

He doesn't know if that's fucked up or comfortingly familiar. Both, probably.

"I thought you were dead!"

Was the report wrong? Was there an oversight? Because if not, he's back to this being actual hell. At least they probably deserve it.

She can't help but be confused at his response—and a bit indignant.

"What are you talking about?"

She's not going to follow up with the obvious. Carolina's dead.

"...It's a really long story." He stepped out of the ship's system and stood in front of her.

"You're on a planet called Chorus for starters."

That means nothing to her, and it doesn't explain a thing.

"Last I knew we were in the Meta and Agent Washington was setting off an EMP."

Okay, first of all: ow.

The last thing York remembers is that firefight with Tex and Wyoming. Chaos and gunfire and a hell of a lot of yelling, and then oh, shit, ow, and then she's here. York tries to roll over onto her back with a groan, feels something pull in her chest and hisses in pain. Again, ow.

It's a little more than ow, because she's pretty sure those are gunshot wounds she's feeling, but it she seems to be pretty not dead and she's pretty sure the healing unit is running, so hey, lifesaver. She can't quite figure out why her mind's so foggy yet.

York tries to roll over a little more to get a hand under her, except she rolls right off the top of a rocky hill and tumbles down a few yards until her helmet faceplants directly into a puddle.

"Oh come on," York mutters to herself, rolling onto her back again with a wheeze. "What the fuck is this?"

York doesn't quite get all the way upright before she wheezes and lets out a wet cough, her hand going to her chest. "Yeah, I think I might've been. Jesus, that hurts."

She rises a little more slowly now, but she does get to her feet, stepping over the rocks to Ohio with a hand outstretched. "Shit, man, I didn't expect to see you again, but I'm not disappointed. Hey, if I'm dead, how'd you know, anyway?"

He shifts his sidearm to his other hand so he can shake, only just noticing that he's holding the thing. Because of course he does. Weird shit just happened and he's still reeling from oxygen deprivation a little bit and now he has to figure some shit out. How does he say this? How does he have any kind of conversation in this situation in the first place, much less say this?

"You died before they gutted Freelancer Command."

Just dump it on out there, Ohio. It's fine.

"I wasn't there, but I saw the report."

York claps Ohio on the shoulder with her other hand before teetering back, oddly out of breath. Man, that does not feel good. She's a little dizzy, and processing all of that isn't exactly settling her. She puts a hand to her head. Something's really...off.

"Yeah? And what'd the report say?"

"I-"

He remembers. He had rumors to go from, and only later did he get enough clearance to dig up the file for himself. He's not even sure why he felt the need to, death is death, but it's harder to accept someone you used to fight beside is gone when you weren't there to see them fall.

"It said Wyoming killed you. Wash recovered Delta off your body."

God this is awkward.

"...Not that I'm not glad to be wrong, Jesus. You alright?"

York tips her head back with a groan and regrets it with a short wave of vertigo, rocking back on her heels. Yeah, she remembers that fight. "Goddammit. I can't believe I got taken out by Wyoming. That guy is such an asshole."

And then that second detail permeates and York jerks back in a double take, suddenly realizing that there's a void where she keeps reaching, and she claps a hand to the back of her neck. "Delta -- " Her stomach goes cold. Delta's absence is like a hole in the back of her mind. "Where is he?"

Ohio winces sympathetically, a useless gesture behind the faceplate.

"Same place Pi is."

He doesn't sound as torn up about it as he may once have been, just tired.

He remembers how that feels. After working with an AI for so long, just reaching for that place where they are and finding nothing. Flipping all the neural switches and no lights coming on. Silence. A void. His throat tightens just recalling it, even though he's had a long time to get used to Pi's absence. The wound isn't raw anymore, but it's still there.

What the fuck happened to us? Men and women and machines.

York's mind reels, nausea overcoming the chill in her stomach, and she hits the release and tugs off her helmet, her hand going back to the back of her neck, to check for real, and even with gauntleted fingers she can tell the chip slot's empty. Her one good eye fixes on Ohio's face, her own face drained of its usual color and humor. Even after everything went to shit, even after she and Delta had roughing it out on their own all those years, she'd never lost that flippant bullshit sense of humor. Right now, she's not feeling it so much.

"Yeah? And where's that?"

She has a feeling she's not going to like the answer, but fuck it.

Footsteps. Theta stretches out to try and find the origin, but the cameras are all down. If he wants to see, he's going to have to show himself. As the footsteps get closer, he frantically debates with himself, and then just as they're about to reach him, he projects his avatar, but stays ready to flee if need be.

But the woman that greets him doesn't look or sound too dangerous. Though looks can be deceiving.

'Hi,' he says, fidgeting. 'I'm Theta. Wh-where am I?'

After four hours and thirty seven minutes, Theta decides that staying in one place isn't really working in terms of getting himself found. He's been sending out pings and messages, hoping the others got transferred with him, but so far, there's been no reply, and the silence seems overwhelming after the cacophony of the Meta.

He can't jump from system to system, but he can transfer himself around the one he landed in to try and find someone. Though how he got here is still a mystery.

For a long time he finds nothing, but then, as he's passing through a monitoring sector, he hears a voice. A voice that has him hurrying through the system towards it until he reaches a door. His goal is several meters away, down a slope and looking rather battered but they system won't let him go any further. He projects a few feet from the door and calls out.

'York!'

"You're on a planet called Chorus. It's my home." She offered him another smile "If you want to come with me, I can take you somewhere so we can get you cleaned up and looked after."

Shit.

He's going to have to be the one that tells York this.

And she's standing there looking at him with her helmet off, and it feels wrong and impersonal and weird to do this with his on because then it's not really face to face, even though he's almost gotten used to thinking of this helmet as his face after so long, so he'll just have to take it off here, just a second, and it fucking sucks and-

"...There was an EMP set off at Freelancer Command."

There it is.

Ohio looks different. Someone smashed him up pretty bad and he still has the marks to prove it, his nose is bent and a scar twists across it. He looks tired. He looks older, much older than the years between then and now should account for.

"I'm sorry."

It takes a moment to process, but York knows that voice. It'd be hard to miss. He's the only one of them who was like a kid.

She jerks up, too fast because she finds herself coughing, her chest tight, but she pulls herself to her feet anyway to see Theta's projection outside the door. She brushes away the persistent feeling of some unnamed disorientation and makes toward him, a little unsteady but she's moving alright.

"Theta!" She's weirdly relieved -- maybe just to see a familiar face around here, or at least one she's pretty sure isn't gonna shoot her in the back. "Where's North?"

Because she's never seen Theta without North, and it's...a little weird, actually.

Chorus? The name only sounds vaguely familiar as a planet, and he has no idea as to it's location. He can only guess from his lack of knowledge that it's in the far reaches.

'Where?' he asks, cautious of being taken anywhere. 'Who's "we"?'

She's injured, Theta can tell despite the amour. Will the healing unit be working without Delta. Delta... is he here? With York? Somewhere else? He hopes he's okay.

But York shouldn't be. Delta's pain and loss had been enough for them all to feel it when he joined the Meta. The two of them had confided, as best as they could, mourning the loss of their partners. So how is she here? ...Is this some sort of afterlife?

'York!' he greets as she makes it to the door. 'I... he...' His image flickers a little. 'H-He's dead. I couldn't save him, I couldn't stop them!'

"Whoa, whoa," York says with her hands up, flashing a yellow light here. But alarm bells go with it in York's mind, a jarring sense of dissonance at seeing Theta like this, alone, and North dead...

"Hey, slow down, kiddo. Back it up." York has to stop to take in a breath, because she feels her stomach go cold trying to digest the thought of North being dead, but she keeps her voice steady. "What are you talking about? What happened?"

Theta tries to calm down, to ease his overworking processor, but it's so hard. Too many thoughts and possibilities are running through him, calculations of which is most probable. He flickers again, tries to imagine North's presence, and gradually shuts off one unnecessary function at a time until his head's a bit clearer.

'The Meta,' he whispers. 'We fought, I tried to stop them, but... I-I wasn't good enough. They k-killed him, took me, and we found the others... Delta. He said you were dead!'

"Delta -- " York starts, bewildered and incredulous, but then she thinks Delta and realizes he's not there, that there's just a void instead. Now she really feels dizzy, and a little sick, too, not just from Delta's absence but the thought of North dead and Theta terrified and Jesus she needs to get a grip.

York rocks forward, half-doubled over with her hands braced against her thighs, and tries to breathe. Dead, right. Now there's a real horse pill. "Okay," she breathes, glancing back at Theta. No need to freak the kid out any more. It's hard not to think of him as a kid even though he's about as old as any of the AI, but kids, at least, York can handle. "It's okay, Theta, just walk me through it, okay? Who were you trying to stop? What's the Meta?"

York doesn't choke on a lot of things, but this -- this she can't swallow. It's like a piece of her is missing and now he's telling her she can't get it back. York's always the laid back one, refusing to let her feathers get ruffled, but right now, she's got none of that. She almost wishes Ohio hadn't taken off his helmet, just so she could yell at him to say that again to her face.

She just stares at him for a few long moments, choking on it, and then she runs a hand over her face, tips her head back and mutters, "Son of a bitch."

She kind of wants to throw up, but she just breathes instead, fingers pressed to the back of her neck. She'd like to ask Ohio about a dozen questions -- are you sure, what happened, how do you know, how many -- but she doesn't, just squeezes her eyes shut and breathes through her teeth.

York looks like she's about to faint and Theta curls back, arms around himself and shaking. Is this his fault? Should he not have told her? But he's so bad at lying, and she has to know! It's important, there's no way she couldn't be told. No, it's Delta. It's losing Delta. It had hurt so much to be separated from North, and then from the others. The Freelancers must hurt from it too, it's their minds after all.

When she looks up, he flits a bit closer, trying to see if she's okay, but at the same time afraid she won't be. 'D-Don't you know? We were trying to put us all back together. We were... Sigma was collecting all the fragments, trying to find Alpha. '

York steps in closer in the hopes it'll be of some kind of comfort to Theta -- he's got to be scared without North nearby, and she's not North, but better than being completely alone, right? She decides not to acknowledge the fact that she could use the company, too, still trying to wrestle her head around the hole Delta left in it. Focus on the moment. She can process this, just -- one thing at a time. York's brow draws down and she frowns, shaking her head.

"No, I didn't -- Sigma?" York sounds taken aback, because she is. Her memory flashes back to something she didn't even realize she remembered, Sigma's soft question at the end of class, and the Alpha -- York remembers about the Alpha. "Wait, Maine?"

With York closer, Theta manages to settle a bit more. After North, he'd liked York best back at the Project, she was friendly and treated the AIs like people. It's so strange though, he's never known York without Delta. It had been both a relief and a sorrow to integrate Delta into the Meta, now he can only hope his brother was also spared the EMP.

'Yeah, we took ove-- Sigma took over so he could have physicality to get everyone.' It's so hard to think in the singular after so long.

Ohio doesn't know what to do about a lot of things these days. Friends are definitely high on the list. He's used to being thrown out with teams he'll never see again, and who he quickly comes to hate each time. Indiana keeps trying to reach out to him, and it's his duty as a former friend to not respond because Indy is an idiot and will probably get himself killed if encouraged.

It's not good for him, but Ohio's been functionally working alone. He hasn't broken sad news to someone he gives a shit about in years.

He doesn't reach out because that just seems weird, he's not sure if that's what he should do here and he sure as hell didn't want anyone touching him after he lost Pi. Instead, he turns a little to let York collect herself. It's a moment to survey their perimeter anyway, which he needs to do because if he were doing things right that would be priority number one.

York tugs off her helmet and tells herself it's because maybe actually seeing a friendly face will help Theta, and not because she really needs the air and an easier space to breathe. She's aged since Theta last saw her, not just older but more tired, and she looks pale now -- but the look she's giving him, it's an attempt at reassurance, or solidarity, at the very least. She's not going anywhere, anyway.

"Took over? What happened to Maine?" What happened to his mind is what she wants to know, because the details, however fractured, are starting to fall into place. "What the hell was Sigma going after everybody for?" She bites the inside of her cheek, her mouth dry. This seems like it ought to be some kind of nightmare. "Maine and Sigma killed North. Jesus Christ."

It does help. She might look older and more worn, but that's to be expected. North had as well, he remembers South teasing him about the single hair which may or may not have been silver. In their light blonde hair, it was hard to tell. He inches closer to her.

'I don't know,' he admits, looking down. 'He... He wasn't there when they took me. It was just them, us. We wanted to be whole again, to have a chance at humanity. I-I wanted to stay with North, so th-they killed him. They killed him to get me...'

York doesn't want to think about the implications of Maine not being there, so she doesn't, focuses instead on the implications of North dying with Theta still in his head. Not a much more pleasant train of thought. It must've been like the lights going out. She tosses her helmet aside and rubs a hand over her chestplate. Delta must've gone through the same thing, then, when she died, because apparently that happened.

"'Course you wanted to stay with North, kiddo. You guys were real close." It seems like the wrong thing to be reassuring him about, though, just the wrong thing coming out, and York rubs a hand over her mouth, still trying to understand even as her mind trips over itself in the process. With Delta suddenly gone, it's like trying to stand on two legs only to find out you've only got one. One and a half, maybe. Whatever. "What do you mean, whole again? What was Sigma doing? And what's it got to do with the Alpha, anyway?"

'But it's my fault!' he cries. 'If I hadn't been there, or if I'd given myself up, they might have let North live! But I thought we could win, I thought we could escape, and now he's dead!' His hologram flickers, almost glitching. It's the only way he can cry.

Doesn't she get it? 'We're fragments, York, of Alpha. I thought you knew this, with the break in. We were... Sigma was trying to get all the fragments so we could rebuild Alpha, but the pieces back together again, become a full AI again.'

York has to sit down against the wall to think, pressing the heel of her hand to her head. Her brain's a mess -- no, that's her, there's a filing system here that she's forgotten how to use. Because Delta always was the organized one. She never realized how much she'd come to depend on him, how much her mind had integrated with his programming over the years until he was gone.

"No, I -- yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Shit." She feels like she shouldn't curse around Theta, but it slips out anyway, and she knocks her head back against the wall. She's putting it together now, though there are still gaps in there. She thought the AIs wanted to meet Alpha, not...fuse into him like Voltron. York remembers, suddenly, Tex telling her how right before he threw her off the cliff, Maine had ripped Eta and Iota out of Carolina.

"So Sigma -- took over Maine somehow, and starting going around killing Freelancers for their AIs. Gotcha." York licks at dry lips, feeling like ti's really, really messed up that she's having this conversation with a kid. Theta's not really a kid, yeah, whatever, but there still seems like there's something cosmically fucked up about this. "Except Wyoming got to me first. Who else did he get? Shit -- did he get Wash?"

York's glad for Ohio's restraint, because she doesn't think she could handle that kind of shit right now, not pity or sympathy or anything, not even from someone else who'd lost theirs, especially not from someone else who'd lost theirs, and sure as hell not from someone she hasn't seen in years, someone who looks like he's been as fucked up and bent and broken as much as she has since Freelancer. She can't handle any of that shit right now. She wants to cry for the first time in a long time, but not right fucking now.

York stands there like that for a minute or so, head tipped back, eyes squeezed shut, one hand clamping over the back of her neck like it's -- it's not security, there's no security left there, so she just rubs her gauntleted hands over her face until she feels the feeling come back to her mouth and lets out a breath. She looks pale and white around the lips, but if that's from Delta's loss or just recently being dead or any kind of loss at all, it's not clear, and anyway she shakes her head, reaching up to tug her hair out of the bun it's already falling out of, because fuck it.

"Okay," she breathes, more to steady herself than anything else, and she finally looks back at Ohio, and she looks fucking tired. "Okay. What now?"

Theta pulls back, his hologram sitting down and wrapping his arms around himself. Everything is wrong. He feels so... small, after the mass of the Meta. Even before, he'd felt like something was missing, but now, after being closer to whole, it's even stronger, raw.

'Wash is alive,' he says. 'At least, he was the last we saw him. He... He did this. We were so close! We had Alpha, we just needed our memory back, and Washington was going to wipe us out! Maybe he did. Maybe that's why I'm here, and so are you. Maybe this is some... afterlife.'

Is he helmeting up again? No. It's a stupid thing to do, but fuck it. He was dead, he's fairly sure. The helmet smells like chem filters and the inside of a kig-yar pirate ship, and excuse him if he just wants to fucking breathe some real air for a few minutes.

Ohio maglocks it to his suit and starts moving, heading for high ground. Hopefully they'll be able to get a better look at this place.

"Now we figure out where the fuck we are."

He says it with the certainty he's been learning to fake in recent months. He's a survivor of a dead project with a cryptic code name and a scarred face, the people he gets teamed with have certain expectations based on that. It's just easier if he lives up to them.

York considers putting her helmet back on just as a shield, but God, does she need the air, so she does the same and runs another hand down her face, nodding. One more tired breath in and out.

"Good plan." For the first time, York takes a real look around, squinting against the sun peeking out from over high cliffs and thick jungle canopy. She's been a lot of places, plenty of different planets, but most of them had at least a whiff of civilization. "Got any leads?"

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[Event] Ship Crash on Chorus

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