2020-08-18: Intruder Alert
| Intruder Alert | |
|---|---|
| An accident sends Vic into Prospect from a dystopian San Diego, right into Astra and Arumi's laps | |
| IC Date | August 18, 2020 |
| IC Time | 5 PM |
| Players | Arumi, Astra, Vic Rasmussen |
| Location | Arumi's Lab |
| Prp/Tp | N/A |
| Spheres | Traditions |
| Theme Song | Who am I? |
Arumi is taking AStra back out to her lab. The red Tesla Model three pulls off the main highway, and comes down the little private road to the small house on a wide tract of empty desert land. Who would expect anything weird and Sciencey to happen OUTSIDE of Arumi's lab? So expecting nothing, Arumi gets out, and smiles. "I think I've got your jacket design encoded for stitching. It's just a matter of incorporating your tech."
Astra grins at Arumi as she steps out of the car, "We're going with the Bomber Jackets I hope?" She asks hopefully, "I hope my idea works as well on actual clothe as it does on the fabric tests.. I've never woven metal fibers into clothes before."
Elsewhere in the universe a miscalculation occurs, accompanied by an almost perfectly annunciated chant and a couple of other near accidents in what was supposed to be a well executed ritual. As a result of the accumulated errors in this one member of the cabal - a Virtual Adept with multi-colored under highlights in her hair - is encompassed by a vibrant purple glow and vanishes along with the computer in her lap.
Outside a tiny beach house there's a palpitable feeling of gathering energy as something magical begins to form within a few yards of Arumi and Astra's position.
Arumi isn't at a beach. We're somewhere halfway between Prospect and Las Vegas, at the border between the Cobre and Mojave deserts. But there's something odd in the air. Arumi reflexively drops her goggles when she senses it, and starts looking around for dimensional anomalies.
Astra senses something's off as well, and digs her tablet out of her backpack as Arumi's slides her goggles down, She plugs in a custom crafted magnetometer as starts checking the area for anything that seems off electromagnetically, "Do you have any idea what's going on?" She asks her mentor.
A spot of vibrant purple appears a couple of yards away from the mage and the sorcerer. If one were able to measure it percicely it would be noted as being exactly twenty-six and a half inches above the ground. At the moment it appears it is directly in Arumi's line of sight. It then starts to expand from a point to a sphere roughly the size of a grape... then the size of a basketball... and then it starts to grow towards the ground and the sky, taking a roughly humanoid shape as arm-, head- and leg-like groths begin to expand out from the central 'mass' of the preternatural energy form that wobbles slightly as if a person who is loosing their balance.
Arumi blinks and jumps back. "Sorry, yeah, something is happening. The flux dispersal... look out." She starts to babble some spacetime talk, but it's happening too quickly, and too close. She puts an arm out, and dives behind her car, trying to pull Astra back with her, epeking over the hood.
Astra doesn't need to be told twice to get the hell away, she follows Arumi over the hood as she dives for the relative safety of the other side of the car. "Any chance you've got the plasma rifle in the trunk!?" She says as her heart starts to race.
The purple form resolves into the shape of a woman, sixty-five inches tall with the original purple point pulsing in its center, exactly where it was when the energy began to form.
With a snap, a woman appears within the glow holding a laptop and stumbling towards the car the pair hid behind.
With a series of crackles, the energy ceases being a glow and begins to play over her surface like electricity flowing up and down her body.
As the looses her balance she attempts to roll into the fall and is effectively pushed as the energy pops out of existance. Instead of rolling successfully she slams her shoulder into the ground. Hard. But other than skittering out of her hands she succeeded in keeping the laptop safe!
"Ow!" Vic says, sprawled on the ground.
Arumi slowly rises to her feet as the situation comes into view. "Who's there?" she calls out. "Do you speak English? <<Do you speak Japanese?>> <<Do you speak Greek?>>" she tries in English, Japanese, and Ancient Greek respectively. "Astra, I'm seeing a person, but with a distinctly weird dimensional.... resonance. Something wierd is happening.
Astra peeks over the hood of the car to see the woman sprawled out on the ground. At least she doesn't look threatening. "Uh.. Klaatu Barada Nikto?" She offers as she slowly stays up and makes her way around the car.
Vic rises up to her hands and knees and crawls to the computer, making her priorities totally obvious. While examining it she says, "Hai, <<Japanese works>>," in Japanese then, "Or English. The other shounds Greek to me," without realizing how humorous the unintentional joke was to Arumi. Shifting to a seated position she then looks up at Astra and grins, "No Gort, not dying, no repair required and..." she pauses then says, "But please, still don't retaliate." She then snaps the laptop, with a stylized T emblazoned on the back, closed and slips it into the bag hanging at her right hip before standing without having to put her hands on the ground. As she regains her feet she asks, "Where am I?" even as she pulls a smartphone with the same T-symbol on it out of a pocket from the same bag.
Arumi giggles at the whole response. She bites her lip, and carefully approaches. "Well, you look like a human. And sound like a human. So what are you doing in the middle of my property, in the middle of nowhere?"
"She doesn't look like one of those Union types you keep telling me about." Astra says with a hint of suspicion, "And she knows The Day The Earth Stood Still, so she can't be all bad?" She squints at the laptop when it's flipped open, "What kind of laptop is that? Never seen that brand before."
"The middle of nowhere? That's where we were..." she says sounding a bit confused. She glances at the phone and taps at its screen. The confusion on her face deepens as she asks, "Where's San Diego?" before otherwise ignoring Arumi's questions to answer Astra's by saying, "Tandy of course," as if it was one of the most unusual questions she's heard during the whole interaction.
Arumi squints. "San Diego? Is that in Mexico? No, you're in the United States. East of Prospect." she explains matter of factly. "I like the Tandy sticker on your phone. But um..." She looks back to Astra and makes a 'shh' gesture to the Union talk... just in case.
Attention returning to Vic. "So you're... wait. Were you ... what's going on? Maybe you'd better get up, come in side, since it's baking out here, and explain. I have water."
Astra glances at Arumi apologetically and then shrugs at Vic, "Never heard of San Diego? And you're joking right? Tandy went out of business in what? the 90's?" She gathers up her things and cautiously keeps an eye on Vic makes her way toward the tiny house.
"Out of business?" Vic sounds incredulous as she asks this. She shakes her head at that and then says, "Yeah," to Arumi as she looks around and realizes this is all out in the open, "Probably a good idea at the very least." She stares at both women for a moment as if she wants to ask something but instead just shoves her phone into her pocket and says, "Lead on."
Arumi nods. "Yeah I love it. Tandy had good computers from what I've seen on Youtube, back in the 80s." She lead the group into the tiny house, and goes to the fridge. "Water, coffee, or Fresca?" she asks, getting everyone what they ask for, water for herself. "Please, sit. Tell us what you were doing."
Astra wipes her brow as she steps inside, "Have you got anything to calm the nerves? Definitely don't need coffee right now." She says with a nervous chuckle, "I'll stick with water otherwise." She says as she leans on the kitchen counter and peers at Vic, "So.. is San Diego where you're from!?"
Vic follows Arumi in and says, "Coffee, definately need to rebalance the blood-to-caffine ratio in my system." As she sits she pulls her phone out again and taps the music player app. As she does she closes her eyes and counts out the fifth to eigth numbers in the Fibonacci Sequence, aubibly but softly, to help her focus as she extends her Prime senses out over the two women trying to see what she senses before speaking. She then nods to herself and, holding nothing back, says, "My cabal was working on a ritual. My involvement was to track and catalog the incoming information. Something went wrong, obviously," to answer Arumi's question and then, addressing Astra, she adds, "Based on the maps I pulled down your Prospect City /is/ San Diego. So... I'm both closer and farther away from where I thought I was, it wasn't a Correspondence related backlash after all." To both of them she says, "That was, of course, my first thought on the matter."
<< "Who Am I?" from the Original London Cast recording of 'Les Miserables' is playing >>
Arumi goes into the fridge, getting a bottle of water and two bottles of coffee. Handing it all out. "Prety sure Fresca has no caffeine but just to be safe..." she explains. Leaning on the wall by the door, she watches Vic, and listens. "I see. So you and your team were doing an experiment, and you've been thrown into another dimension, is what you're saying. And in your dimension, Prospect is called something weird." Putting her coffee down, she walks up to Vic, hands going back to her goggles, and she takes a moment to study again. "Cabal? I... told my assistant not to mention the Union, but you're being pretty open with mystickal talk. Who are you, and who are you saying you're with?"
Astra blushes as she's admonished, "Sorry.. it's hard to keep quiet when a scene outta Terminator's happening in front of you." She smirks at Vic, "It could've been worse, you could've been naked!" She glances back and forth between the other two girls, "So we're going with Alternate Dimension are we? is the sky a different color where you're from!?"
Vic laughs and winks at Astra at the movie reference but doesn't seem terribly concerned by the idea presented. She lets the music continue playing even while she allows her Prime sense to fade. Addressing Arumi she says, "I took the liberty to check you both out before speaking openly," and then introduces herself, "I'm Vic, and my Cabal... we don't really have a name, in my head I think... thought... Wait," glances at her phone, "Its 2020? Wow." After this self-interruption she continues, "I thought of us as the Z-Crew even though we weren't operating out of Los Angeles and no, I'm not a Fed, that's for sure."
Arumi takes a deep breath, considering this. "Okay. Vic. Let me ask again." She waves to Astra like "Don't worry about it. You're fine." Then hums at Vic. "Are you the member of any other sort of organization greater than your local friends, that you are part of as you engage in Fortean activities?"
Astra takes a large swig of water as she listens to the banter, "A larger, formal organization of people who the same sorts of things you do? Fortean's another word she uses for.. Enlightened Science I believe is the term?"
Vic nods to Astra first and smiles as she says, "Dates back to the 1970s and is from the name of Charles Fort, a student of the paranormal who died between the first two world wars." Then, to Arumi, she says, "The Z-Crew were part of a network but we were a loose orginzation. I had ties to a few other crews on The Net," and yes, both words are audibly capitolized when she says it, "And we had a few fifth columnists with the Feds I understood, but I was't trusted with who they were, still too new, only a few months since I'd Awoken after all." She then says, "How about you and your accolite, who are you with?"
Arumi folds her arms. "Okay Vic. So are you with the, um... the Adepts? Or aligne diwth them and not yet a member. My name is Dr. Arumi Hanada. And to be honest, I'm not yet comfortable telling you much more than that. My assistant can introduce herself if she chooses to." Taking a deep breath. "IF I understand you right, we have our own... Feds to worry about, and I Can't tell if your'e on their side or not."
Astra shrugs at Arumi, "I'm sure whatever she's saying makes sense in her world?" She smiles nervously and decides to follow Arumi's lead, "I'm Astra, no formal Doctorate yet, but lots of on the job training around here, it's a good gig. I'm not saying anything weirder until I can start to make sense of *your* weird." She smirks.
Vic nods to Arumi. "I understand," she says, "I may have said too much myself, but with all the conflicting information I needed to try to sort some of it out and this helped." The song ends and she taps another app, no new music but a glance at a file she opened before speaking to both of the other women. "I don't know if you're Fed or not myself either but trust has to start somewhere," she stops with a shrug to indicate that the rest of what she was going to say is likely obvious.
Arumi nods to Vic, and looks at Astra. Getting a second opinion on reading Vic. Then inhaling. "Alright. I'm going to trust you, for now. Our concern is the TEchnocratic Union, an organization formed from the remnants of the Order of Reason around the turn of the 20th century. Does that sound like your... Fed?"
Astra lets out a breath as Arumi offers a little bit of information, "We want to help, but we need a better understanding of where your coming from or else all we can offer is Coffee and a ride into town.
Vic, glancing at the screen of her phone, says, "'The Technocratic Union, formerly the Order of Reason, under went its second transformation in a century when it took a direct hand in the government of the United States of America following the Y2K Crash. Even though we were hit hard, being off the old Internet and not yet fully wired into the nacient Net allowed us to recover from the Avatar Storm faster than other Traditions.'" She pauses and looks up at both of them and says, "Maybe most of that is goggly gook to you but it was the opening statement of my mentor's first lesson." To Astra she says, "I had my phone record and transcribe every word so I can consult it," and then to Arumi, "So glad as he died a couple of years back now in 09." She finally takes a sip of the coffee that was poured her at the beginning of the conversation. "I have no where to go, if you want to drop me off in your Prospect that's as good a place as any, I guess," she says.
Arumi takes a deep breath. "Wow. You know, Y2k was nothing here. Here, all the important computers had to be programmed for 4 digit years about 20 years before the TV news started paying attention, so nothing important broke in 2000. Your.. counterparts here are the Virtual Adepts. We still exist. The Union is still covert. Why don't you rest here, and we'll talk after you have a chance to clean up?"
"What's Y2K?" Astra says as she squints at Vic, then glances at Arumi, "Oh the thing with the two digit year on old computers? I'd always heard it was a bunch of hype." She shrugs and takes a breath, "I think you're actually starting to make some sense, I think I'll take a coffee now after all."
See 2020-08-18: Intruder Alert Part 2!
