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

Wrath

[pain_train]

1. Honey [CW: vomit]
The table top is a smooth piece of glass. It's cold against Wrath's hands. It's sticky. Everything smells like honey. Everything smells like blood.

The Compliance Officer smiles. Honey oozes out of her hair like sweat. Her pink lipstick is perfect. She taps her fingernails on the table top. Her nail polish is pink and chipped. "Have a cookie."

They're honey cookies. She knows this. She can't taste anything else in the world. The sky outside is on fire. Somewhere, Octavian is screaming, in the distance.

"I don't want a cookie."

"It's good for you." The Compliance Officer pushes the plate toward her. "They'll make you better."

"There's nothing wrong with you."

"Of course not, sweetie. You just have a few little behavioral problems. We'll fix them together."

She takes a cookie. It sticks to her fingers. She's crying. "Why won't he stop screaming?"

"No one's screaming," the Compliance Officer says. "Don't worry. We'll fix that, too."

When Wrath opens her mouth to answer, only honey comes out, and endless golden stream that she vomits and vomits and vomits, her stomach cramping, pain exploding in the back of her head, her senses overwhelmed with cloying sweetness until it fills the room and she drowns.

The Compliance Officer never blinks.

2. Battlefield Medicine [CW: mutilation, zombies]
The confusion of a battlefield, organic chaos, with long, whipping limbs, and screaming, blasted mouths too big to belong to anything human. Octavian--black armor, poison green piping, that's how she knows it's him--weaves his hovercycle through reaching arms and long, claw-tipped fingers trying to pluck him from his hovercycle.

Wrath slashes at the seething mass in front of her, and smoke rolls up as the burning blade goes through flesh, something screaming inhumanly, not quite blocked out by his helmet. Her HUD shows friendlies, but not so many as before. And the formation is scattered, broken, twenty different private battles against an overwhelming tide of mottled, sagging, disease-melted flesh. She slashes again, at a lump that looks like it might have been a head, though the features have sagged and run down to the dysthrope’s stomach.

Something grabs her from behind, trying to drag her from her hovercycle. She curses. Hears Octavian, dimly, "You got this, Wrath?" And of course she's fucking got it, she's always got it.

No, she doesn't got it. More hands grab her as she slashes. There's too many. The right flank of her platoon has crumpled completely between one blink and the next. And then all she sees is rotten, scabrous flesh as they pile on top of her. Their teeth on her armor is crushing, bruising, but that's fine because it means the armor is holding. Then she feels a sharp pain, claws breaking through and sinking into her thigh, and she screams. There's only so much armor can hold. Her arm is next. But she's already dead. If she could just free one of her arms, she could at least detonate the power plant on her hovercyle. She's going out in glory, motherfuckers.

The scrabbling darkness crushing her down heaves, moves. A hand grabs her and yanks her free, popping her out like a cork. She falls, bleeding, over Octavian's lap. He kicks his hovercycle into gear and they shoot backwards at full power, then spin and blast toward the inner line.

"We need reinforcements on Red Sector right fucking now!" Octavian shouts.

"Request acknowledged," an overly calm voice returns.

Wrath takes a sickening, bumping glance back; the things scrambling to pursue, but the hovercycle is much too fast. Blink into darkness as she blacks out.

The epi pack from the medkit hits her like a horse kicking her in the chest. She sees the smokey sky, Proles starting to hump up on the horizon, the start of the dome arcing over the buildings. She feels like her skin is on fire. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

"Get a hold of yourself!" He rolls her then pushes her back to the ground as she tries to sit. "Your armor integrity is shit. Did anything actually get through?"

She wants to say no, because she wants to live. She knows that's not the truth, and as much as she wants to live, she doesn't want to take anyone with her. "Fuck." She's not crying. She's too pissed off to cry.

"What’s bleeding? I can’t tell over all the slime." His voice has gone tight and clipped.

"They got through on my left arm. Right leg. It fucking burns, Octavian. Fuck! It’s too late."

Octavian freezes for a moment, then slowly breathes in. He raises his sword, thumbing the controls to start the plasma cycling back up to white heat. "But anything’s worth a try, right?"

Wrath shakes her head. "You're gonna have to kill me anyway."

"I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Let’s make it seven."

Wrath’s small body clenches like a fist. "Do it."

He sets the white arc of his sword against her left arm, mid humerus. Smoke and steam pour upward as Wrath screams and screams.

2. Battlefield Medicine [CW: mutilation, zombies]

[greyerrant]

A ghostly figure cased in white armor of his own watches the field medicine, watches her struggle against the living dead. Battles mirroring his own. He watches her arm removed, and finally speaks.

"I too have known such a war. Such contagion." He lived a year fighting on a planet with only the living dead, trapped in his own shattered mind, in fact, but he doesn't feel inclined to share that quite yet.

Instead, he simply offers his words, resolved to listen to how Wrath responds.

Re: 2. Battlefield Medicine [CW: mutilation, zombies]

[pain_train]

She doesn't want to feel that pain again. Maybe that's why she remembers this moment so clearly, when so much of the rest of her past is a blur. Maybe there's some amount of physical agony that hits a critical point where it cannot be erased.

She doesn't want to feel it again, so she doesn't. She finds herself standing next to the man, her twenty-years older self, though she's wearing her platoon armor still, black with red piping. At least they're not watching her blood spurt; that's a benefit of a plasma blade. Cauterizes as it cuts.

"Which planet?" She looks up at him. Everyone's taller than her. "This is Zeus. I don't remember the number designation any more."

If it would even matter. They're probably not from the same universe anyway.

[greyerrant]

"Istvaan 3" Loken is exceptionally tall in the shared memory-state. Inhumanly so, though clearly human in general shape, though his voice is of a deeper register than baseline humans generally manage. "Was it a victory?" Istvaan was not. Well, at least not for the loyalist Astartes. Only he survived it, to his knowledge, though there were other blackshields and servants of Malcador who later were found to have also escaped the massacre of loyal sons.

[pain_train]

"Sorry, I don't know that planet. We've been... on our own for like thirty years. Since the separatists knocked down the comms array." She offers a half smile. "Yeah, it was. We held the line for over a year until the dome and the walls were finished. There weren't a lot of us left by the end, but the city survived."

"Was yours?"

[greyerrant]

"No. No it was not."

He shakes his head. "So why did they rebel? Your separatists. My brothers had many reasons for turning, as did my father, but I've always found it interesting to see if it was idealism or sheer personal ambition that drove those that destroy peace, and order."

[pain_train]

"Oh. That sucks. Sorry to hear it." Not much more to be said than that.

"They didn't like paying taxes to the interstellar government. Since we were self-sufficient, they said we didn't need to be part of that and we should keep everything for ourselves. Which like yeah... the planet was self-sufficient if there terraforming generators were kept repaired. For sure they blew up the comms array, and that set off an orbital debris cascade so no one could really get through. And they probably also blew up the jump gate, or you'd think someone would have shown up in the last thirty years to check on us."

[greyerrant]

"A dark age." Loken's eyes narrow. How many times has he heard or seen such a story? Too many. "Tax collection often causes rebellion or unrest, as I have found in the Imperium. How was your galactic... or system government termed?"

I.

[paganpoetry]

Charming. [Rowena watches from the corner of the honey-stinking room, taking great care not to touch anything even though she suspects, even without the surreal nature of the vision, that nothing here is real or lasting.] Fascinating.

[She says these things more to herself than anyone else, but she recognizes Wrath both from the network squabbles and from her brief foray playing the role of Wrath's sitcom mother-in-law. She raises her eyebrows.]

Hardly the most appetizing memory, is it?

Re: I.

[pain_train]

[ It's easier for Wrath to take on the role of outside observer. Like this is something that happened to an entirely different different person, far in the past.

She finds herself simply standing next to Rowena, looking at the limp, honey-soaked mass of pink hair and black uniform in the middle of the floor. ]

It's pretty gross.

[ She frowns. ]

It didn't really happen. I don't think. More like... this is what my brain put together that made the most sense.

[paganpoetry]

So am I witnessing more of a dream or a memory, do you think? [It's a brilliant idea for a spell; Rowena's already putting it together in her mind, what materials and forces she'd need to tap into to turn this honey-vomiting bit into some kind of horrific curse.

Rowena steps forward to look very closely at the sick memory of Wrath, to look at the face as real as if it were standing in front of her, but that disappears like air and reappears when she puts her hand through it.] What did they do, drug you and leave your mind to put together a story?

[pain_train]

I guess a dream? [ She does certainly dream about stuff like this. Random neurons firing or something. ]

They recode your memories. [ She can't say exactly how these things are done, but she knows the basic what from other people. From inside, it feels entirely different. ] Insert behavioral modifications and triggers.

I don't know how. They just pick you up and then like later that day you're back on the street and you don't know anything happened.

I

[poor_unlucky_girl]

Funnily enough, the scenario doesn't unnerve her as much as she thought it would, yet she figures it must disturb her deeply because of censored the scene is. It doesn't occur to her that she's not using her power and that Wrath herself may have censored memories in order to cope with them, so since she is at ease she turns to the current Wrath and speaks calmly:

"Oh. Sorry for the honey. I...I do that sometimes."

She doesn't articulate any further. Jennifer is not good at words.

Re: I

[pain_train]

"It's not you." Wrath spits out a final mouthful of honey and scrambles up from the floor. "It's her." She points at the CoHo, still smiling benignly... but unmovingly enough that it's becoming very creepy. "Everything about her is honey. It's... disgusting."

Re: I

[poor_unlucky_girl]

Upon learning the truth, Jennifer barely resist the temptation of bringing her hands to her mouth.

"What...Why is she doing this?"

Re: I

[pain_train]

"She's the Compliance Officer. She makes people... behave." Wrath rubs her sticky hands against her forehead, trying to sort it out enough to explain. "They bring you in. And she gives you cookies that taste like honey. And then you tell her everything bad you ever did, everything bad anyone you know ever did, and she makes you better. The way she wants you to be better."

Re: I

[poor_unlucky_girl]

The way Wrath speaks about this person reminds Jennifer of how a child would describe a teacher they were afraid of. There is something primal about fear, about terror that forces you into a child's position. She thinks of Olivia, the toddler who would cry because 'Mister Hoffman becomes really scary when angry' without knowing and seeing the things that he did, but still perceiving it on a subconscious level.

This officer masks the strictness with honey instead...She's not sure she met someone like that in the orphanage, not amongst the adults. Perhaps her beloved Wendy was the one most similar in terms of behaviour. All the sweetness aiming to be the only comfort in a hostile world that she turned out to be orchestrasting herself.

Wendy had Jennifer's best friend killed. Wendy had everyone killed, and she was a petty child. The thought of an adult with a developed sense of judgement doing something similar makes her feel uneasy.

"I'm so sorry, Wrath. I...I think I knew someone like that, but it was on a much smaller scale." a massacre in an orphanage in the middle of nowhere is just a self contained tragedy, something similar taking place in the military, on the other hand... "I can't imagine how you're feeling right now."

Re: I

[pain_train]

The thought that anyone else had to know someone like the CoHo is horrifying and chilling. Wrath reaches out, a little hesitantly, to rest her hand on Jennifer's arm. "That's... there shouldn't be more things like this out there. She's a monster. Where--what did she do to you?"

tw animal death / implied animal torture, murder

[poor_unlucky_girl]

"Oh, no, don't worry. That was way different."

She dismisses it quickly. Even having accepting what happened, she doesn't like to address past events any more than doing the equivalent of gently tapping one's toes in the water while walking on a shoreline. She knows that if she dwells on it, she will panic and be overwhelmed. Yet the memoryscape temporarily shifts to fit her own nightmare:

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM ARISTOCRATS
THIS MONTH'S GIFT:
FILTHY JENNIFER

This is what is written on the numberless posters that are plastered all over the walls of the orphanage. Monsters with animal heads and improvised weapons like brooms and kitchen knives chase Jennifer, ready to sacrifice her. Fighting her way out, she arrives to the inner courtyard where a blonde little girl her age, about nine years old, in a white and light blue attire stands peacefully. It's Wendy.

Hundreds of horrible imps peer out of the windows on all the sides of the courtyard, on all levels of the building, but for just a moment Jennifer relaxes. She doesn't know what crucial mistake that is. Wendy, sickly as always but kind, is petting Brown the dog.

"So this is your friend, huh? It's so filthy, but adorable." Wendy points out so softly that it doesn't read as the backhanded compliment it is, then looks up at her girlfriend "Oh yes. Jennifer, there will be an Aristocrat Club meeting after this. Today will be the most wonderful day. I hope you enjoy it."

Jennifer notices something on a crate, it looks like a fairytale book.

Once upon a time, a girl found a hole in the ground in the yard.
The Little People came out and told her the news.
Today is the day of your funeral. If you don't like it, then you must sacrifice your friend.
Who wants to be buried alive?
So the girl did what she had to, and buried her best friend.
Well, I wouldn't want to be her best friend!

The remaining pages are blank. Not even the time to close the book that she hears a dog's whimper. Neither Brown nor Wendy are in the courtyard anymore. The imps are no longer watching from the windows.

The inside of the orphanage looks completely deserted and all Jennifer can hear are the cries of her best friend, guiding her upstairs in the attic. There's a table full of bloddy sharp tools and gloves. Multiple times she thinks she sees Brown's dead body, but upon further inspection it turns out to be a rag doll and it's just her fear doing tricks on her. One, two, three times until she gets to that door.

'THIS MONTH'S GIFT: FILTHY BROWN'

She opens it frantically. The imps are now sweeping blood on the floor. Something that looks like Brown's dead body lays in full display, and Jennifer falls on her knees. This one too turns out to be a rag doll. She hears children's giggles echo through the cold attic. Raising her head, she spots the Aristocrats in all their cruelty.

The difference is that this time the 'throne' onto the makeshift pyramid does not have a placeholder for the princess, there is the princess herself, a bouquet of flowers covers her face. Jennifer never knew who the princess was, never got the pleasure of meeting the one who invented the sick game that had all the other kids torture Jennifer in name of 'social class'.

The princess slowly descends from the pyramid, with a sadistic giggle. Her face is now visible and makes for the worst reveal: it's Wendy herself. Jennifer makes some loud moan of anger and pain. Amanda, one of the lower class, clumsily runs to her to whisper in her ear:

"Your friend is in the bag. It's too late now."

Jennifer turns and the horror isn't delayed any longer: there's the bloody bag in a corner, with what remains of her best friend.

The current Jennifer makes a choked noise. She doesn't want to harbour any hard feelings, she doesn't want to feel that pain.

"Wendy was that special person I told you about, the one that gave me the brooch...She was always sick in bed, and I would go see her but...Ever since I met Brown she became jealous. She said I should have given him away because he wasn't a good match for us and that I should have only ever talked to her, only ever smiled at her."

She shakes her head. This feels so silly in comparison to the context of war. Her world was so small at the time.

"She created the Aristocrat club so that the other kids would group up against me and she would be the only one kind to me until I earned a high rank to be in the Princess's good graces. Of course I never knew she was the princess until that very day, she used a doll a placeholder. It was because she was sick, but I would have never thought that she--"

Her voice breaks for a moment and then she clears her throat.

"Anyway, right after I saw the bag I lashed out and beat her up. The others thought nothing of making me their new princess shortly after, funny how it works." the chuckle that comes with it is humorless and self defeating "Later she got her revenge, and had everyone else killed. She apologized and then she died too...It took some time before the police found me..."

She shakes her head once again. She feels guilty for feeling pain after all this time. It was truly all born from petty children playing.

"...But Wendy was just a poor lonely child. It's not the same thing. Perhaps I should have been a better prince for her."

I.

[bothbarrels]

[ Something had happened to North at the end of the last mission. He'd come back to the rig, and awakening after that night, he'd remembered. Everything he'd experienced with Wrath back on Proles, and the reason she had known him when she had arrived.

And that meant that when he sees the Coho and her sweets, he knows. This is what had happened to Wrath, in the same room where the Coho had once tried to convince him not to help the Ravani.

He rushes to her side and pulls her up. ]

Wrath! It's okay, I'm here.

[pain_train]

[ She drags in a few gurgling breaths and spits out more honey. Her expression cracks when she looks at him. ]

North? You gotta go. Before she gets you again.

[bothbarrels]

She can't get me here.

[ He reaches a hand for hers, clasps it in his. ]

We're on the Rig now. This is nothing but a distant memory.

[ He gives her hand a little tug to help her arise. ]

Listen, Wrath, I remembered. I don't know why I didn't before, but I do now.

[pain_train]

She can get you anywhere...

[ She might be able to believe that, but the issue is, there's no believing anything right now.

She staggers to her feet. Everything is horribly sticky. ]

Remembered what?

[bothbarrels]

[ North ignores the stickiness. He concentrates on her, on her disorientation, and holds her hand so she won't fall. ]

You and me. My time in Proles.

At least, I think I did. I don't think it was a dream.

[pain_train]

Oh. That's... really weird.

[ In her experience, when people are made to forget things, it stays forgotten. ]

No, that shit wasn't a dream. You were there.