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

II. Monster-Hunting

[freakenstein]

[This was a hell of a first memory to get dropped into. With no idea what this was or how he got here, he quickly scrambles away from the fight, pressing himself up against a far wall. The fight was quick and violent, more so than anything he was used to, and he'd gotten very used to being on the sidelines of supernatural skirmishes over this last year.

It didn't take much to clue him, with what little context there was, that was probably what was going on. A building like this, in the middle of the woods, likely long abandoned, with an elderly woman that strong? What were the chances of it being anything else?

The gun goes off and he can't help cringing further against the wall and covering his ears.

Watching the stranger drop to the floor, breathing heavily and trying to recuperate, he eventually peals himself away from the wall and starts guardedly picking his way across the room toward him. But the other guy doesn't even seem to notice him, let alone react, and as a second person comes rushing in, Merton jumps like a startled cat, freezing in place until it becomes apparent the two are working together.

Weirdly enough, she doesn't seem to take notice of him either. That probably should have been worrying, but really, he'd take being ignored over being accosted with questions about how he got here that he couldn't answer.]

Stunned?

[Looking back down at the women heaped on the floor, he found that very hard to believe. He could look up and see splattered bits of skull and grey matter on the ceiling, how was that "stunned"? Even among most of the things he and his friends had gone up against, that would have been very lethal.]

Wha-what is she?

[Keeping a careful distance, he eyes the woman with a mix of fear and curiosity as Dan encircled her with the salt.]

[hallelujahjunction]

[In the memory, Dan finishes tying the body up, props her sitting up and steps out of the circle. As he does, a peel of smoke rises up from the crater where the woman's head is, and slowly, gruesomely, the shards of skulls and blasted skin and gore around the wound seem to disintegrate into ash and then rebuild, like a sand castle formed by invisible hands. Soon, the ash takes on color and texture again, and what was once a skull split like a busted melon is just the head of an old woman blinking her way back into consciousness.

"Madame, je ne veux pas te blesser-" teenage Dan begins, squatting next to her, stumbling over the words and sounding as gentle as he can.

"Your French is terrible," the old woman says in a thick accent, spitting at him.

"Point taken." Dan wipes her saliva away from under his eye. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to rough you up none."

"I have some water," Tab says. Her accent is even thicker than Dan's, almost impenetrably rustic. She passes her water bottle to Dan, who holds it to the woman's mouth. The woman takes a sip and then spits again, this time on Tab, who scooches back with her firearm still drawn but not raised. "Sorry, ma'am. Just thought you might could-"

"You're hunters with the Agency, aren't you?" The old woman sneers at them. "Bounty-hunting bottomfeeders of the supernatural world, making money and hanging up trophies of monsters who didn't ever hurt anybody. Next time you wait for someone in their bedroom and pounce on them at four in the morning, spare them the fake hospitality."

"Cut-off age for the Agency is fifteen, ma'am," Tab says. Despite the fact that she's tall - and looks taller, compared to Dan, who at this age maybe clocks in at five-foot-five - and in dim light, it's becoming clear how youthful her voice is. "We ain't affiliated."

"But you are hunters," the woman says, and neither of the teenagers argue that.

"Yes'm," young Dan finally says. "But that ain't why we're here. We're here to warn you that the Agency is coming, and they ain't as stringent on monsters as we are. The way we see it, you ain't killed nobody. You ain't even turned nobody."

"And yet you wait in my house under the cover of night to shoot me and trap me," the woman says, teeth bared.

"Unfortunately, we didn't see no other way to get an audience with you." Dan adjusts the way he's staunching the bleeding on his neck. "And in the name of getting all our agendas on the table, we came to warn you because we thought you could help. The Agency's onto you and going to send a team to capture you this weekend and sell you for parts. We done figured that we do you the kindness of warning you so you can clear out, and maybe you point us in the right direction to get some information."

The old lady laughs and then reaches for Dan, stopping as her hand hovers in front of the line of salt, then looks at Tab. "Ah, I can see it now. You're cursed, aren't you? Both of you? All of you? You smell like a litter of siblings. How many of you are there, seven? No...six."

Tab lowers her gaze.

Meanwhile, the actual Dan, who's been in the corner trying to pretend he doesn't exist and that nothing in this memory will register with him, finally gives up and opens his eyes - and sees Merton there, hears that question, and thinks of how to explain a lot of what seems overwhelming to explain to a kid.]

She's a soucouyant. Bloodsucking shapeshifter. Very magical. [Dan pinches the bridge of his nose and locks eyes with Merton, partially out of polite conversation and partially because it's something to look at that isn't his doomed little sister in her camo with her handgun.

He holds out his hand to shake, and partially to make sure that Merton's physically here as well and not just an image] I'm sorry, this is a bit of an intense workplace memory to get dropped into without warning. Hi, I'm Dan.

[freakenstein]

[As what's left of the woman's head starts to smoke, turn to ash and rebuild itself in front of them, he watched with a mix of amazement and morbid fascination.

When her healing process was complete (if it could even be called that, it looked less like healing and more like reconstruction), and Dan started talking with her, Merton started moving cautiously closer again, but made sure to stay out of grabbing range and kept himself primed to run. In case anyone in the scene suddenly took notice and turned on him, or the salt circle failed. It was more than a little jarring to see things turn from what had appeared to be a fight to the death, into an attempt at a calm rational conversation. Even more so when it's revealed just how young the two are, and that they were apparently trying to save the women from some monster hunting "Agency". He can't help grimacing at the mention of her being "sold for parts".

There was a familiarity to the situation. In a way. How many times had he had his friends had to save a supernatural entity from themself or something worse? But there was something different about this, too. These two clearly hadn't just stumbled onto this woman the way he and his friends usually ran into these things, they had sought her out.

A curse. The mention of that, the stumbling over the number of siblings, "Seven? No...six", and the look on Tab's face all painted a pretty clear and grim picture.

Caught up in the events playing in front of him, the sudden gravelly voice and appearance of another person cause him to jump again like a sprung coil, stumbling back a few paces before he catches himself. It takes a moment for him to recognize the man as one of the people from the network blowout, and realize that, yes, he was actually talking to him.]

A...A s-soucouyant? [Briefly, his eyes light up as he looks back at her. A soucouyant was something new to him. He'd read about them, but he'd never seen one. Though if this one was anything to go off of, he was pretty glad for that. If even a "passive" one could be this hard to deal with he wasn't sure his motley little gang could handle a hostile one. Still, anything new was always fascinating. Even when it was terrifying. But he swallows that excitement as he watches as the older man brought his hand up to the bridge of his nose, pointedly looking at him and not the scene playing out before them. He hadn't noticed Dan trying to desperately close himself off from the scene before, too distracted by the violent scuffle, but it didn't take a genius to notice his discomfort now, even as he tried to politely introduce himself.]

[Walking back those few stumbling steps he'd taken in his initial shock, he took Dan's offered hand, equally reassured by the solid weight of it.] I'm M-Merton. Th-this is your memory? How is that possible?

[It's not that he doesn't believe it. He's experienced way weirder. But, literally, how was this happening? Someone's powers? Something Jorgmund did to them? Another Josh situation?]

Is it something that just happens here? [ As uncomfortable as Dan looked about the situation, he didn't seem surprised or thrown by it.]

[hallelujahjunction]

[Dan winces at how clearly he startled Merton - he's a bit high-strung himself, which comes with the territory of not just hunting monsters, but having been on the run from evil since being a little younger than Merton looks.]

Pleasure's mine, Merton. With Stuff, anything's possible, I reckon. This is the, ah, the third time this has happened while I been here, and it's been about a year. [He tilts his head towards the teenagers and the shapeshifter.] It's okay, ain't nothing else private or upsetting about this memory.

[The rueful way he says makes it clear that that's unusual; usually, the memories are upsetting, usually, they all feel violated at the end of this little horror parade, usually, secrets just go spilling everywhere.]

Warning you in advance that it might could be your memories next any minute. Sometimes they alternate, sometimes it just seems to be one person in the spotlight for a while.

[In the memory, the younger version of Dan says: "yeah, we're cursed. We're getting hunted down. We're looking for a witch named Hepzibah. We figured, you know, ask a witch to find a witch."

The soucouyant reaches over to the edge of the salt circle, but can't push her hand past it. Tab offers the water again, but she declines it. "It's only because you claim you're doing me a favor that I'm going to give you any help at all, and that help is: don't bother. You'll all die soon enough. There's nothing that can be done about a witch like that, once you cross her."

A smug little smile crosses her face, and she has two large canines that drop down over her lower lip. "What did you do? Wait in her home and assault her too?"

"We didn't do anything, we're just kids-" Tab starts, but Dan shakes his head at her.

"Please, ma'am. We'll help you pack your things so you can leave town. We're good at carrying heavy things."]