goneawayworld | 3..2...1...CONTACT!

Entry tags:

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

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.]]

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"Yeah," Brand says, more softly than he would under any circumstances other than while watching a memory of the man who raised him. It's almost a shame that South didn't try to show him pity, at least then he could punch her and stop fucking feeling everything.

Rune's father (South might get the impression of the name "Lord Sun", the same way she got "ambergris"), passes by the two invisible watchers again, turning the light back off and closing the door behind him. The memory around them begins to fog and fade away.

South follows Lord Sun with her eyes instead of looking at Brand, now, giving him about as much privacy as she can when she's in his memories. Funny how such an innocent memory can make you feel all sorts of other things you don't want to feel. Bitter-fucking-sweet.

As the memory starts to fade, she expects whatever this is to just end, but the darkness of Rune's large bedroom is instead replaced by the darkness of a much, much smaller bedroom. There's a bunk bed against the wall and the bare minimum of furnishings for a couple of kids.

South's eyes widen. "...you've got to be fucking kidding me."

A flash of colour illuminates the room and the silence of the night is broken by the distinctive whizz-pop of a firework cutting a path through the sky. On the bottom bunk, a head of messy blonde hair pops out from the covers, which are quickly thrown back. A young girl, lanky like she's recently had a growth spurt, sits up on the bed and waits, for a while, until the next whizz-pop fills the air and suddenly she's scrambling to her feet, clambering up the ladder to the top bunk without making any effort to be quiet.

Brand sharpens, pulling out of his own head.

"Looks like it's your turn," he says, since this certainly isn't one of his memories. The coltish blond seems much more likely to be South than anyone he knows.

South groans dramatically, dragging a hand over her face. "Ugh, it is. This is my fuckin' childhood bedroom. Or, well. Mine and..."

"Drew!" the young South whisper-shouts, perched precariously on the top rung of the ladder and shaking the lump beneath the covers, another head of blonde hair, poking out just beyond them. "Drew! Wake up, idiot!"

'Drew' groans, sleepily dragging his covers tighter around him. "What?"

Younger South shakes him more aggressively. "Fireworks! C'mon!"

It doesn't take a genius to know who it is in the top bunk. You'd have to be pretty goddamn stupid not to guess, really. South's arms fold tight under her chest as she watches, the hand not tucked into the opposite elbow digging its fingers firmly into her bicep.

It's not like it's a bad memory. Just— bitter-fucking-sweet.

"You're gonna hear my real name, or, well, part of it," she says with a sigh.

Edited 2021-04-19 19:25 (UTC)

Not having to look at Lord Sun being alive has at least allowed Brand to put away all of the feelings his memory had brought back up. He snorts, then shrugs.

"So? People change their names. I'm not going to start fucking using it unless you do."

He doesn't elaborate that Max had shed his old real name like a snakeskin, or that Layne swapped out their original pronouns for something new. That would be talking about stuff. Instead, he gestures at the lights outside the window.

"This a particular holiday, or...?"

"Good, that's the point. No one else on the rig knows it besides my brother. Like to keep it that way, y'know?"

As soon as she says fireworks, 'Drew' sits up, barely awake, to let the young girl take his hand and pull him towards the ladder. She starts climbing down, hopping off three rungs from the floor and landing with a loud thud whilst he's still at the top.

The second his feet touch the ground, she grabs his hand again and drags him out of the door to a half-laughing, half-startled yelp of, "Tasha!"

They don't stop to put on shoes or slippers or even socks. The twins run outside, bare feet on concrete, pajamas too thin for the cold and too small for kids growing as quickly as they are, making it out just in time for another whistle and pop to break the air.

The real South shifts on the spot as they're dragged along with them. "Probably some holiday. It's kinda hard to place this, I used to uh. Used to drag him out of bed for fireworks whenever they happened. We were pretty fuckin' poor and fireworks were a free show, so..."

She shrugs, dismissively, as if it's not important enough not to elaborate on, but it had been a little tradition, of sorts, until she decided she'd grown too old for such 'childish' things.

Brand grunts in acknowledgement. People have reasons to change their names or keep their old ones close to the chest. But given that this is apparently important, he adds, "fuck, only two people call me 'Brandon' these days anyway, and one only does it to annoy me."

Not necessarily the most accurate assessment of the Tower, but fuck him.

Brand glances around at their surroundings as the twins who were South and her brother drag them outside. He shrugs again in response to her answer.

"I probably wouldn't know it anyway; I've only got a vague grasp of human holidays."

"Huh. Y'know, I never would've guessed Brand was short for anything." Especially paired with 'Rune', which she hardly considers the most typical name, either.

The younger South, Tasha, drags her brother over to a nearby wall and he gives her a boost without a word shared between them, helping her clamber up onto the top of it. She reaches down, hauling him up after her, a team effort to get the best vantage point possible. It's clumsy, they're still just kids, even as tall as they are even at this age, but they know what they're doing.

They perch on the top of that wall, heads angled towards the sky, tired eyes widening with wonder at the colours bursting over the dark tapestry of the night sky.

"Eh, depending on when you're from, you'd probably know even less. This was like, the 2500s? And on a colony planet. We had some local celebrations other colonies didn't have, too," South says with another shrug, because talking about the mundane details of the memory is easier than watching the seamless teamwork and tired joy in the kids' eyes with any real focus. Her own eyes betray some of the emotion running under the surface.

Things had been so simple, back then. Not that she realised it at the time, no; childhood felt complicated, when she was living it. Their home life sucked, there was pressure coming at her from all sides to be more like North, they were surrounded by an intergalactic conflict that could have come down on their heads at any time... but all of that's simple, in hindsight, compared to where things ended up.

"Surprise," Brand says dryly. Most people probably wouldn't think it was short for anything, at least before Addam showed up and started using 'Brandon' all the time. It's not as annoying as when the Tower does it, so Brand lets it lie.

Brand watches the kid versions of South and her brother and nods. "That'd do it. I'm from the early 2000s. Earth's chucked a few robots at Mars, but that's about the extent of its planetary expansion."

Fireworks are still the same, though. It seems there's nothing humanity loves more than making things blow up all pretty.

"Good night?" he asks, because that seems a relatively safe question, without getting into anything that would be too much like talking about stuff.

"Mars is a colony itself and has been for fuckin' centuries by my time. Weird to think we all used to just live on one tiny fuckin' planet, sounds cramped," she jokes.

"Don't fall asleep," Tasha says, elbowing Drew in the ribs. "Don't wanna explain why you fell and cracked your head open."

"I won't," Drew says, elbowing right back, with less force. Tasha grins at him, leaning against her brother's side and dropping her head on his shoulder. It's the kind of easy, uncomplicated sibling affection South barely realised they'd lost a lot of, over the years. Mostly because of her.

South shifts on her feet, unfolding and refolding her arms. "...yeah, this was a good night. They always were. We'd be so fucking tired the morning after, but it was worth it, y'know."

"Still got plenty of room on Earth for nasty fuckers to hide in," Brand says. "Especially when they've got access to magic. It's going to be a pain in the ass to chase them around space."

Assuming magic works in space. Brand has no fucking idea. But they'll still have their money, and that will work out there as long as there's other people to take it.

There's not much to watch, other than the kids and the fireworks, and the woman who's memory this is. A 'good night' probably means that no one tried creeping up on the kids. Brand still keeps watch on their surroundings out of training and habit.

"Mm," he agrees. Then, "fuck, we're going to start sounding like old people if we keep reminiscing about childhood misbehavior."

"Can't tell if you're expecting to live a really long time, or you're just real optimistic about how early you're getting space travel."

There's not much else to the memory, though it doesn't immediately end, either. South knows that they sat there until the fireworks stopped, delighting in every colourful explosion, pointing out their favourite kinds, simply enjoying themselves the way they always did on nights like these. Just a couple of kids making the best of it.

South snorts a laugh. "Fuck, we are. We're too young to act that fuckin' old."

Brand's mouth flicks briefly up in a smirk. "Magic," he said. "Rune and me could go for centuries if we don't get ourselves killed first."

That, combined with the way South's memory was petering out, seemed to be enough to pick their next destination: a city alley at night, swept clean except for Brand, Rune, and a taller man with long sandy blond hair and a matching beard. And a fourth man, dark skinned and even taller than the first stranger, silently descending the fire escape of one of the buildings. He wore an impeccable black suit, and his dark hair was braided back from his face. Brand huffs in annoyance and jerks his thumb at the man.

"He's over four hundred."

Edited 2021-05-10 21:53 (UTC)

South blinks at him, looks over at the guy he's pointing at, then back at him. "What the fuck. Centuries? Four hundred? Okay, that's bullshit, for the record. Magic's bullshit."

She's incredulous rather than annoyed, despite her typical aggressive way of being. She looks back at the new scene, already wondering who the unfamiliar faces actually are, but not asking.

"How old actually are you, then? Since clearly you don't fuckin' age normally if he can be over four hundred and not look like a bag of fuckin' bones."

"Magic is absolutely bullshit, and a pain in the ass besides."

Some of it is cool, but mostly it's annoying. Until people rely on it too much, then it gets fun again because they can't fucking concentrate to use it when Brand is punching them in the face.

"Rune and I are thirty-five," he says, which isn't completely unreasonable. Could be good genes that make him look closer to pushing thirty than pulling it. He points at the blond man. "Addam's early forties." 'Addam' doesn't quite look it either. "Atlanteans age a slower once they hit adulthood, but Mayan's the only one here who's gotten rejuvenation treatments."

'Mayan', identified by process of elimination, has finished descending the metal stairs and engaged the other three in conversation -- which is a nice way of saying that he and Brand immediately began arguing with each other until Rune bodily inserts himself between them.

"Mayan, why are you here?"

"Because he thinks he knows you better than you know yourself, and he doesn't," Mayan tells Rune. "You forced his hand, and how he's changing plans on the fly, and I don't think those plans will work. They will backfire, and he will need to step in. Do you have any idea what it will cost Lord Tower if he supports you?"

"I didn't ask for his support," Rune counters. Mayan raises his eyebrows.

"You never ask, but you're a liar if you're telling me you don't expect it," he says, which shuts Rune up. The Brand in the memory starts to muscle Rune out of the way to start fighting with Mayan again when Mayan raises a hand for peace and rubs his eyelids. "Sorry, I'm just as mad at him as you. He just had to be so clever, feeding you those mushrooms, didn't he?"

"Mayan and the Tower are about as big of a pain in my ass as magic is," present-Brand says by way of explanation. He glances up the side of one of the buildings -- the one without the fire escape. "Helpful, but a fucking pain in the ass."

Calling the way South's posture shifts again 'relieved' would be an exaggeration, but it's the closest thing. "Okay, so you're like three years older than me, but look younger. That's less fuckin' insane."

Whatever's happening in this memory sounds like a goddamn mess already. Magical politics or some shit, probably. She can't help but snort a little at how Brand is so up in this Mayan guy's face, that's probably about how she'd handle whatever the fuck this is.

"They sure fuckin' sound like a pain in the ass. Guess helpful and annoying as fuck have never been mutually fuckin' exclusive." Not long ago she'd have made an open quip about how that could sum up her brother, too, but today she doesn't have it in her.

"I could look like this again when I'm four hundred," Brand says, mostly to make South make a face. If she doesn't know his sense of humor by now, it's her own fucking fault. "Probably won't, but I could."

Mayan and Rune are still talking and it absolutely sounds like politics, complete with references to a game board with people as its pieces. The Hanged Man is mentioned, and it sounds more like a title than anything, though "Layne Dawncreek" sounds like a name. They go back and forth, with memory-Brand butting in, until Mayan confirms that there's nothing he can say to keep them out of the building. Present-Brand rolls his eyes and Mayan hands something to Rune.

"Maybe if the Tower had done a better job of 'containing' him, we wouldn't have been such a fucking inconvenience," he mutters. He glances at South and points up at the building without the fire escape. "The only reason the kid up there isn't dead like all the others the Hang Man groomed and lured into his clutches is necromancy-lite."

She absolutely makes a face, even if she's pretty sure he's also fucking with her on some level, because of course he is.

Then he explains more about what's going on in the memory and makes her pull an entirely different face, as she instinctively follows his pointing hand. "Fuuuuck. At least that sounds like you got them out, messy fucking political sounding bullshit be damned."

Unlike apparently a bunch of other kids. Talk about horrible.

"Yeah, we got them out and to the hospital before they were too far gone," Brand confirms. "Fortunately, we were all there when the Hanged Man blew up the Dawncreek's house. But he's dead now, and that solved all of those fucking political problems."

Sure, there are going to be more in the future. But that's the future. Brand smirks and adds, "plus now we own a fully-armed World War II battleship and a dinosaur with arthritis."

Go on, South. Guess whether he's fucking with you. Guess.

She blinks at him incredulously for a good few seconds, trying to get a read on if he's telling the truth and the truth is just batshit, or if he's making shit up now, but that smirk tells her nothing.

"A fucking dinosaur with— okay you've got to be fucking with me now. Or— seriously? Fucking seriously? How the fuck is any of that real let alone connected to a bunch of terrible magic-politics?"

Brand laughs because yes, his and Rune's life is fucking ridiculous. "They used to belong to the Hanged Man, and after we took him out, we got a share of his stuff," he explains. Then he sobers. "The battleship is currently haunted as fuck, though. Nasty shit."

"I swear you could say fuckin' anything to me and no matter how insane it sounded, how fuckin' sure I was you were fucking with me, I'd never be able to be sure. Because," she says, emphatically, "what the fuck. Nasty haunted battleships and decrepit dinosaurs, that you got because you took down a guy called the Hanged Man. No part of that should be believable."

Fucking different universes, man.

"What are you supposed to even do with a freaky haunted battleship and a dinosaur?"

"I think Lady Death thought it would be funny to make us ask that question," Brand says with a shrug. "I'm keeping the battleship though, once they lay all the ghosts to rest. Don't have a crew yet, but you never know when that sort of shit is going to come in handy."

Probably not going to keep it near the Sun Estate though. Not until things are less raw for the Dawncreeks.

The memory around them is fading as Addam starts pushing through the wall into Sathorn Unique. Brand braces himself in preparation for what this stupid memory sharing deal is going to throw at them next.

"The fact you think a battleship might 'come in handy' one day is inane in itself, for the record. And I'm saying that as a soldier who like, lived on a fucking space-age equivalent."

Which, apparently, is all the memory bullshit needs as a cue to drag them into a memory taking place on that very ship. They're immediately welcomed by the sounds of fighting and explosions, as a black-armoured figure tears her way through a bunch of soldiers.

And then the giant metal sliding doors at the end of the room open. And South, decked out in her purple and green armour, steps out carrying an unwieldy looking weapon.

"...oh, for fuck's sake," South groans a second before her past self says:

"You think you're so fucking tough, don't you Texas? Well let me ask you something: who's the monster now, bitch?"

"Ah, shit," Texas says, and starts somehow dodging the missiles that shoot from the pod with reflexes that aren't exactly baseline-human.

Current South covers her face with her hand, peeking out between two fingers. God, that sounds so ridiculous from the outside. What was she thinking? Of course, the answer is, she wasn't, she was angry to the point of stupidity, but whatever. This part of the memory is probably the least of her worries, stupid and dramatic as it is.

Edited (typo) 2021-07-20 00:37 (UTC)

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

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