3..2...1...CONTACT!

[goneawaymod]

Who: The New Hires
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.

Contact.

It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.

The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.

To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?

And if they were there, who was in theirs?

[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.

They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]

Comments

Brother of Mine [freelancers only. tw: violent death/fratricide by inaction]

[ownperson]

The structure is built of yellowed stone or concrete, weathered by age and exposure to the elements; it's all walkways, elevated above the dirt ground, surrounded by trees and the sound of running water.

It might even be peaceful, on a quieter day, but today it's the site of an ambush.

Explosions and the sharp pop of sniper rounds shatter and pierce the still air, the sounds of an ongoing battle, somewhere out of sight. Around a corner from where South is standing, with her back pressed against the concrete wall, her spine rigid and her gun held firmly in her grip.

She's making no move to go and join the fight.

North's voice keeps ringing out in her radio. "South! South, where are you?"

[parannoyed]

[There is gunfire being exchanged and Wash is a) not wearing armor, and b) unarmed. So he clings to cover instinctually. This is his first time dealing with this weird memory-sharing thing, though he's heard about it.]

[(He doesn't know that last time, Stacia saw memories of his.)]

[He knows what this moment probably is, can recognize a scene he came onto just a few minutes too late.]

[ownperson]

[ The South in the memory doesn't answer her brother’s call. She takes a deep breath, so deep its visible in the dramatic rise and fall of her shoulders, and stays silent, still. Her fingers scrape across the metal body of her rifle as she grips it tighter. It's almost like she's waiting for something, poised for action and yet not taking it.

North calls for her again, telling her he needs help, that something's here, asking if she's alright—because something must have happened to her if she's not coming, right?

But that South just stands there, ready to move but not moving. A pillar of purple armour caught in a moment between action and inaction.

The real South, on the other hand... ]

No, no no no, this is not fucking happening.

[ Why this memory? Why this fucking memory? She doesn’t want to relive this, not ever but especially not now, not now she knows— knows that—

Wait, if she’s stuck here reliving this, then who—? Shit, shit shit shit— ]

Who the fuck is here?

[parannoyed]

He peeks around a wall to see she's unarmed.

"It's Washington. And before you get pissed, I didn't exactly ask to come here. Whatever does this telepathic connection thing dumped me right in. I took cover because I do not like not being in this kind of situation without even the memory of armor."

He doesn't want to be here either. Bullets being flung around when he's unarmed freak him out.

He also doesn't exactly want to watch a friend die.

[ownperson]

Around them, the sounds of the fight pick up. The explosions get closer, the shots further apart; reloading takes time and there's less bullets in a sniper than there are grenades in a Bruteshot. Grenades can do more damage than a single bullet.

Past-South keeps waiting.

Present-South all but growls at Washington. He didn’t ask to be here, no, but she doesn’t want him here, she doesn’t want him to see this, to hold this over her, to see the way this is affecting her. She’s shaking, pitifully. Shaking and staring at her past self as if she can will her to move, to fucking do something.

“I waited too long,” that’s what she says, instead of the venom that she wants to spit at him. “God fucking dammit I waited too—”

The next time North shouts for her, it's not over the radios. His voice rings out. "SOUTH!"

Present-South looks like she’s going to be sick as her past self’s shoulders draw tight, and South remembers the way she was gritting her teeth, the way her jaw was tense, the way her hands begun to shake as she just kept waiting.

[parannoyed]

Realizing this is a memory, that South's past self isn't seeing or hearing her present self, he steps out and watches her, waits for the moment Delta told him about.

He isn't smug, just serious, as he takes it in. As he waits for his friend to die.

[ownperson]

The next thing they hear is a scream and something in past South finally seems to snap, a second before Theta's terrified, childish voice screams out too, "SOUTH! It's gonna—"

He's cut off mid-word and suddenly past South is moving, all of that pent-up momentum released, a burst of speed that takes her around that corner out onto the walkway—

The real South wants to turn away, but she finds herself as rooted to the spot as her past self at the sight of the Meta, that pillar of white armour that had once been Maine, standing over North.

“I— I was meant to get there in time. I swear, I fucking swear, I thought I could—”

Why is she explaining to him? Why is she even trying?

North’s not dead when she turns that corner, but it’s still too late. Held in place by one strong hand as the other arm lowers from behind its neck, the thing shuddering as Theta’s chip joins the rest. North doesn’t even get to raise his head to see his sister standing there, staring at the scene in front of her, just staring, frozen in place, before the Bruteshot's blade impales him and blood splatters across the stark white of the thing's armour.

A rifle clatters to the ground in shock.

South, the real South, actually chokes on what sounds like a sob.

She never wanted to see this again, never wanted to see him die again, why couldn’t she look away? Why couldn’t she tear her fucking eyes away?!

[parannoyed]

Wash watches much more impassively, because he'd seen the aftermath of this fight. Seen the aftermath of many others like it, many of those scenes caused by the Meta, others by other killers.

But he still does wince and close his eyes at the killing blow.

And far be it from ripping into South like she maybe expects says quietly...

"Delta lied to me."

[ownperson]

In the memory, the Meta’s attention is drawn towards South, her gun at her feet. She doesn’t have time to run before it’s slamming her against the ground, knocking her out, leaving both Dakotas splayed on the ground. One dead, one unconscious.

The real South still can’t take her eyes off North, not until Wash speaks. Her head jerks towards him. Her eyes are wet.

“The fuck did he even say to you?” she asks, her voice quaking slightly. She hisses at herself, coughs and wipes her eyes. Goddammit, she can’t do this in front of him.

[parannoyed]

"We drove the Meta off and Delta said you tried to turn him over to the Meta, to save yourself. Just like you injured me. He said he learned from the time you were traveling together that you'd done the same to North, that he'd suffered 'a similar fate.' But he neglected to say how similar it was."

His nostrils flare in anger that yet one more person(?) deceived him somehow.

"We'd worked well together and he'd helped me a few times, doing things that went against Freelancer protocol. I thought I could trust him - to a degree. But he was the Alpha's logic. The most logical course of action in that moment was to eliminate the threat. And the most logical way to do it quickly was to say whatever he needed to make me shoot you."

He admits, "I was going to let you live at first. He knew North would be a hot button."

[ownperson]

“I also treated him like shit,” she says, more self-aware than the South that first arrived on this rig ever was. She can’t say she’s surprised, looking back, that Delta pushed Wash into killing her, though it still makes something in her ache.

Delta saw more of her at her worst than she wishes he had. Too many personal moments.

“...s’not like the truth is any better, anyway.” She’s not looking at him, or at North. The Meta gets what it wants from the twins and then it leaves, the memory silent and still. “I— I thought—”

She swallows. Why is she explaining? It won’t change anything, things between them are about more than what she did to North and the details don’t matter that much. So why is she explaining? To remind him to keep hating her for it?

“I knew the Meta would find us, one day. I didn’t know when. I thought that— that if it came, when it came, if I could— if I could let it get what it wanted, let it take Theta...”

She starts shaking, again. Subtly.

“But it came quicker than I thought it would. The idea was to stand back until the last second. Wait for the right moment. Then once it had Theta I could— we could—”

It was desperate and foolish. North would never let Theta go without a fight. North would never let them just run away.

And she fucked up the timing. All that, and she fucked up the fucking timing.

She just wanted her brother back. Instead, she lost him forever.

[parannoyed]

"Well, it was stupid, cruel to Theta, pretty goddamn selfish - considering Meta was using every AI he acquired to kill more agents, and you were a cowardly chickenshit -"

It's a good thing she isn't expecting him to pull his punches, because ha!

"- but it's also not the same as a cheap shot from behind, so at least there's that. You thought that was your ticket to ultimately save him." A pause. "If it was a choice between an AI fragment and a bunch of of dead Freelancers, and one of my sisters, when it's all said and done, I...I don't know for sure that I'd have made a different call. Maybe tried it first and then gunned for the Meta, when they were safe. But in that moment..."

He nods his head back and forth.

"Buuut before you think you've got the moral high ground, if our positions were reversed I still wouldn't have shot you. So."

Still, it's more than he's given her in the past, admitting that maybe she did actually care about her brother.

And by saying "I wouldn't have shot you" now, and "I actually trusted you" during their truce talk, it makes it clear that before her betrayal and what Delta said about North, he'd actually held her in higher regard once than she probably realized.

[ownperson]

She flinches, her teeth gritted, but doesn’t so much as glare at him as pushback against his harsher words. It’s not the way she’d reacted to his jabs before, there’s no sense of defensiveness coming off her.

Before, she had the weight of North’s forgiveness behind her. That comforting weight is gone, now.

There’s no coming back from the choices she made.

“I know.” Her voice is a little thick. She still doesn’t know what to make of the idea that Washington saw her differently, in the past, than she’d expected. “I— I never wanted him to die. I was meant to stop it, I was meant to— but I waited too long. It was too late, if I’d tried to save him then—”

Her life still valued above her brother’s. The worst thing is, she’s sure that if their positions had been reversed, North would have come to her aid anyway, his own life be damned.

He’s the selfless one.

Her eyes scrunch shut as she tries to stop herself from crying in front of Washington, of all fucking people. Around them, the memoryscape starts to shift away from the scene, transforming into a shitty motel parking lot where another version of past South—looking tired and ragged, wearing normal clothes over her undersuit with a bulky duffel over her shoulder—is heading inside.

[infailtration]

Oh no. No, no, no, York doesn't want to see this. He knows exactly what he's seeing, and that this kind of thing happens on the rig -- Stacia told him as much.

His stomach turns but he doesn't close his eyes or cover his ears. Part of him needs to know for sure.

Just how bad is it?

[ownperson]

The south in the memory South doesn't answer North's calls. She only takes a deep breath, so deep its visible in the dramatic rise and fall of her shoulders, and stays silent, still. Her fingers scrape across the metal body of her rifle as she grips it tighter. It's almost like she's waiting for something, poised for action and yet not taking it.

North calls for her again, telling her he needs help, that something's here, asking if she's alright—because something must have happened to her if she's not coming, right?

But South just stands there, ready to move but not moving. A pillar of purple armour caught in a moment between action and inaction.

The real South, looking the kind of exhausted that doesn't come from a lack of sleep, is sat on the floor, this time, her knees pulled up to her chest. She didn't want to relive this even once, but a second time might kill her, she feels it in the pit of her stomach.

She's not sure if York being here is worse or better than Washington. Maybe it's about the same, for different reasons. Whatever good will she's earned with him... well, it won't last long, she's sure.

"I had a plan," she says, her voice much steadier than she feels. "That's... that's why she's not answering him."

[infailtration]

York startles, so focused on the scene before him -- on willing that South to fucking move to help her brother -- that he didn't notice her there. Present South. Who's talking about herself in both first and third person and looks utterly broken. Not that it helps.

"What was it?" His voice is strained, but he's trying to believe her. Trying to be reasonable. "And why didn't you tell him that?"

[ownperson]

"Because I wasn't supposed to know the Meta existed. Because I probably knew, deep down, he'd never go for it. Because it's a shitty fucking plan. Take your pick."

The sounds of the fight pick up. The explosions get closer, the shots further apart; reloading takes time and there's less bullets in a sniper than there are grenades in a Bruteshot. Grenades can do more damage than a single bullet.

But the South in the memory just keeps waiting.

The next time North shouts for her, it's not over the radios. "SOUTH!"

Hearing the desperation in his voice again is enough to make the real South flinch, her teeth gritting at the same time that her past self's shoulders draw tighter. Both South's hands are shaking.

"...I was gonna let it take Theta," she says, and it feels worse to admit this to York, of all of the Freelancers. After everything. "I know— I know that's fucked up. I know it's super fucked up, I just—"

She holds her own hands, trying to still them.

[infailtration]

"Are you serious?" He turns to stare at current South, boggling at the shittiness of that, indeed, shitty plan. "You know how the Meta takes AI? It fucking kills people!"

It threw Carolina off a cliff once it already had her AI, ones she wasn't even bonded to, probably wouldn't have fought for. South is right that North wouldn't have handed Theta over, but to take it from him the Meta would-- did-- fuck. Fuck! Bad enough that she doesn't consider Theta worth saving, worse that she didn't realize this would ensure her brother's death. Or maybe she did? That would be the worst case.

He doesn't want to see this anymore, doesn't want to hear his boyfriend desperately screaming for help. But he doesn't know how to get out of it. He's shaking too, now, uncertain whether it's from distress or anger.

[ownperson]

South flinches away from him. It feels like the ground's going to fall out from under her and it'd probably be better for everyone if it did.

"Everyone else who was attacked by the Meta for an AI was alone. We weren't. I thought— I thought I could let it take Theta then jump in before it killed him, get us out of there, get my brother back."

He wouldn't give Theta up, so they couldn't leave. They could only keep running. Always looking over their shoulders. Even working as Recovery Two she couldn't rule out that they'd send someone to try and collect them both, eventually, and then the Meta...

"I'm not fucking proud of this, York. Not any of it. I wouldn't... I wouldn't make this choice again, but back then—"

The next sound to pierce the air is is a scream, and something in past South finally snaps, a second before Theta's terrified, childish voice screams out too, "SOUTH! It's gonna—"

He's cut off mid-word and suddenly, finally, South is moving, all of that pent-up momentum released, a burst of speed that takes her around that corner out onto the walkway—

She doesn't want to watch this again, but maybe it's what she deserves; her eyes glued to the sight of North, held in place by the Meta as it finishes inserting Theta's chip, not yet dead, but only seconds away from being killed. Seconds she didn't use to try and stop it, because to stop the Meta then she'd have to have died for it, and she was too fucking selfish to do it.

She waited too fucking long and by the time she got there, she just couldn't do it.

It happens quickly, after that. It's not a drawn-out death. The Meta impales North with the blade of the Brute Shot and it's all over, the thing and the floor both covered in blood.

South looks like she's going to be sick.

[infailtration]

York listens to South's defense in a haze of... something. Horror? Fear of what's coming next, because they can't seem to stop the memory? Rage? All of those things, maybe, but before he can cut her off the memory does it for him. North screams, Theta immediately after, and it isn't until the AI's voice cuts out that South moves.

Oh god. He's gonna see it, isn't he, they're going to have to watch--

His breath comes unsteadily and his stomach turns again. It was quick, but that doesn't make it any better because in the end?

"He was alone."

Maybe, if South had gotten there sooner, if she hadn't waited until Theta was taken, things would have been different. Part of him wonders if it's her AI hangup that contributed to this. It doesn't matter, in the end. North is dead on the ground, a bloody pool spreading around his armored form, and York has to turn away and brace himself on his knees.

He doesn't know if it's better or worse than he'd thought, now that he's seen it. Part of him had hoped that Wash had been exaggerating that she let him be killed, that she'd just been scared and run but. That doesn't matter either -- this is the truth.

It's done. They can't change it, even if they want to. Maybe South just made a horrible mistake, an innocent miscalculation, but York feels sick knowing she was right there and did nothing until it was too late.

"I need to get out of here."

[ownperson]

The South in the memory is still rooted to the spot, staring at her brother's dead body, her gun clattering to the ground in her shock. The sound draws the Meta's eye and it surges forward, slamming her against the ground and knocking her out.

North never even got the chance to look up and see her standing there before it was over, but this is the third time South's seen her brother die. The third fucking time she's watched that blade strike and known she'd failed him; back then, back when it really happened, it had been her self-preservation instincts that kept her from acting, but here she's just powerless. There's not even a choice.

"If I could fucking end this, or kick you out, you'd already be gone," she says, tone now taking on a colder edge much more like the way she spoke when she first arrived on the rig. She can practically feel whatever non-negative feelings York had towards her dying.

Her eyes start stinging, tears welling in them, and she tries to swipe them away.

[infailtration]

Ironically, it's how cold she sounds that has York looking back up at her. In time to see the tears she's swiping away. It reinforces that the bitch persona is just that, a shell to keep from feeling things, and he struggles to keep that in mind like he had before.

...she regrets this, he tells himself as he straightens up. She wouldn't do it again, she knows she fucked up. Don't write her off for something you already knew. Double jeopardy... or something like that.

It's just that seeing it is. Rough. And the last thing North would have felt is that horrible emptiness of a missing AI, the same thing that York struggles with daily because of South. Just before that, he was probably assuming his sister was already dead, because why else wouldn't she come for him? York breathes. Don't. Don't go there right now. Any of those places. Just wake the fuck up and pull yourself together and go see North.

But the scenery doesn't fade. He's just stuck there with her, not knowing what to say anymore.

The worst part of it is probably that York understands her. He'd never have done it himself, but for someone worried about their own self preservation, who resents AI, who figured if she fought beside him she'd just die, too... it was a terrible plan and then she did worse to Wash but he can see how it happened. Where it came from.

"I get it," he says roughly, his own voice thick and trembling even though his eyes are dry. "But don't you ever fucking leave him alone again."

[ownperson]

'I get it'. She almost laughs at that, though it'd be a dark and humourless sound. She doesn't even get it herself, anymore. Oh, she knows the logic she used, she knows what she thought would happen, but she doesn't understand why she thought it would work. She doesn't understand how her desperation to get her brother back ended up in him dead at her feet and a part of him lost to her even now, with him alive on the rig.

"Wasn't fucking planning on it," she says, and it's true. Waking up in that goddamn sitcom town, her character an only child, had put fear into her like noting else; fear that he'd died, that she'd somehow failed him again, that she'd lost him again.

She'd wanted him close by, she wanted him there to know he was okay, but even that somehow bit her in the ass.

Her head drops against her knees and her shoulders start shaking. She'll never abandon him again, she couldn't, not unless he asked her to, and the worst thing is accepting that risk. That one day he might decide it's not worth it to keep trying, anymore, that he'll actually disown her the way she thought he was the day she arrived here on the rig.

Around them, the memory starts to shift. She can almost feel it, even without looking, and knows where it's going; it's like the two fucking memories are linked together and she can't separate them, no matter how hard she tries.

The new scene is a shitty motel parking lot somewhere else on the planet. Another version of past South—looking tired and ragged, wearing normal clothes over her undersuit with a bulky duffel over her shoulder—is heading inside.

[infailtration]

South's head drops, her shoulders shaking like she's either crying or about to, and York watches for a moment before stepping forward. He's reaching out to comfort her -- because god help him, he can't just let her cry -- when the scene shifts.

He blinks, freezing in front of her with his hand still extended.

"Where's this?"

[ownperson]

She doesn't even raise her head to answer. "Couple weeks later. Three days after I decided it was safe to stop running all the time."

The South in the new memory goes to the front desk and asks for a twin room, paying and taking the keycard. She heads to the room number she's been given and opens the door, calling back over her shoulder as she steps over the threshold:

"Dibs on the—"

—before abruptly cutting off, and suddenly it's like something's shoved her, except the room is empty besides her. Her legs simply give out under her, her back hitting the door, sliding down inch by inch as the duffel full of armour clatters noisily to the ground.

And then the room is silent, the kind of dead silence that comes with being so utterly, utterly alone. There's no one else there. There's no brother following on her heel, ready to claim whichever bed she didn't call dibs on.

There's no one there but South and—

Suddenly her fingers start clawing at the back of her neck, prying the chip there out with a sort of frantic desperation as tears shine in her eyes and threaten to fall. Delta's chip goes sailing across the room to land on the carpet, undamaged.

And South starts sobbing, pitiful, all-consuming sobs that sound like she's choking on them, gasping like she can barely even breathe for how hard it hits her. She curls in on herself, not unlike present South is sat now, but her fingers are tangling into her hair, tugging at it at the roots.

It's not a sight anyone would expect to see from South.