goneawaycomms | Agent North

The deck works! I can be up there in five, ten minutes?

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["Stacia" turns out to be one of the younger and smaller members of the crew. In spite of this, she's wearing a jumpsuit in the largest size Jorgmund stocks, which means it has to be tied and belted in various ways for her to not trip out of it entirely. If North and Theta have done much skimming of the comm network, secret and otherwise, they'll also know that she's pretty open about being a werewolf, which probably explains the jumpsuit.]

Hi! Thanks for agreeing to meet with me, I know it's not like we get a lot of free time here.

Absolutely. You seem like someone with a specific something in mind.

Oh, and Theta wants to say hi.

[ Theta's hologram pops up then, and he waves. ]

[Stacia smiles and waves back.]

Hey Theta, thank you for coming too.

[It's practically an automatic reflex at this point: if someone introduces you to a spirit they're toting around, you greet it politely like you would anyone else. Sure, Theta is apparently a traumatized AI rather than a spirit, but it seems like the same rules ought to apply. She glances from Theta to North, and back again.]

You guys doing okay after yesterday's bullshit? Because yeah, I've got some stuff to talk to you about, but I'd feel weird about not checking in first.

[ North sets a hand on the railing and leans. ]

We're okay. He can't hurt us here, not the way he did back where we came from.

Edited (whoops i forgot the timing on this) 2021-02-07 21:46 (UTC)

[Stacia nods sharply.]

Good, glad to hear it. Let me know if you need me to, I don't know, sucker-punch him for you. I imagine all of you could do it yourselves if that's what you needed, but the offer's there.

[ North smiles. ]

I appreciate it. I do.

[ And now, down to business. ]

So what's this all about?

To business, then.

[She makes a noise like a half-laugh.]

This might sound weird considering that I just offered to beat someone up for you, but this is a secret I'm revealing about someone else and I don't do that lightly. York says I can trust you on this and I've already chosen to trust him, but to make it clear to how seriously I take this kind of thing: I told him that if he used the information I'm about to share with you to hurt the person in question, I'd gut him.

[She looks up at North. It's a long way up, she's a foot and a half shorter than he is. But she's deadly serious.]

And I've fought things bigger than you and walked away clean except for their blood on my teeth.

[Then she cracks a smile.]

But I mean that in the most reassuring way possible in this case, because I assume you'd want anyone with this kind of information on Wash to be that serious about it.

[ The things Stacia says are surprising, but he takes them seriously. He nods when she finishes speaking. ]

What is it?

Somebody's headfucked him. Probably Jorgmund, but I don't have a lot of details.

[She leans against the railing and glances around casually to make sure no one's near enough to eavesdrop.]

I don't know if you had the Ghosts of Christmas' Whatever visions, but I saw two future's for Wash. One was a bad future where he tries to kill some people here to cover up something he's doing and gets killed in self-defense. The other was a good future, where he gets to go home and die of old age surrounded by friends. State funeral too, which is nice, but not really relevant.

The good future was locked away behind a door that I opened because someone was pounding on the other side. SOS in Morse code, I looked it up later. When I broke through, I saw a ghost version of Wash all lit up like science-fiction horror with a hole in his skull and wires and blinky bits in his brain. He said "help me" and vanished.

[She looks back up at North.]

I've asked York to check him for cranial scarring. I know someone here who might be able to get us into his head to poke around, but I figure I should get some of his friends on board instead of going traipsing in there on my own. Guy's bodily autonomy's been fucked enough.

[ North's brow draws together more and more as Stacia speaks. The SOS, the Ghost version of Wash, the desire Wash obviously has for something to change. When she finishes he tries to relax it, tries not to look as worried as she's just made him. ]

Get in his head, like, what, a psychic?

[ He doesn't discount that something like that might be possible here; it's just not something they can do at home. Not without a Project AI. ]

Ish? [Stacia tilts her hand back and forth in a so-so gesture.] The way I understand it, we'd be able to see his memories. Find out who did what and when and why, maybe get some idea how to reverse it.

[She's picking her words carefully here. She prefers not to lie unless she has to, lies can tangle and trip someone up if they get careless. She's just not going to tell North yet that she found a magic key that opens up doorways into people's memories. That'll come later. She only trusts him and York so far yet.]

[ He frowns slightly, considering. ]

That sounds like a huge invasion of his privacy...but it's also sort of sounding necessary.

[Stacia snorts.]

It's an enormous, staggering, monstrous invasion of his privacy. The fact I don't have any reservations about doing it probably says bad things about me as a person. But that's why I'm reaching out to people who care about him, to keep me honest. [She smiles wryly.] Though I'm also willing to take all the blame myself if it'll mean he's got support after.

[ She's right. She really is. He knows this. ]

Is York on board?

York's confirming that there's scarring where I saw a hole in his head before we make any moves. I'm willing to go digging around in the guy's memories without his consent, but I'm not exactly excited about it. Feel free to talk it over with York if you like, maybe the two of you can come up with an alternative. I'm willing to admit that there might be alternative avenues I've missed because this one seems most efficient to me.

[ North looks troubled, and he stares out toward the horizon for a bit before answering. ]

Yeah. I think we'd better have that talk. I'll get back to you with the conclusion.

Fair enough. Thanks for listening. Any questions you want to ask or reassurances I can offer?

Just...that you're not the type to blackmail or gossip or any of that if you find out something private. I mean, you could say that and be lying but it would still be good to hear you say.

[Stacia purses her lips.]

I'd work my way up a Jorgmund org chart with a song in my heart and laughter on my lips, because they've enslaved us and fuck them. But Wash, you, the other New Hires...those are secrets I'd keep. Because we're all in this shit together, and we're not getting out unless we can trust each other to one degree or another.

[ That's what she needed to say. He feels something drain out of him, some kind of tension regarding this aspect of the issues behind this. ]

Good. I'm going to leave and go talk to York, and I'll get right back to you. Where will you be in about an hour?

[Stacia thinks a moment, doing some mental math.]

Training area. I'll either by trying to get someone to spar with me or I'll be in the shooting range, depending on how I'm feeling after some cardio.

All right, I'll see you there.

[ An hour later, fresh from his talk with York, North tracks her down in the training area. He finds her, and gives a little jerk of his head to indicate that she should come to the side for a private conversation. ]

York and I talked. He's mainly concerned about getting Wash's consent for something like that. I am too, to be honest. So we need to go in with an explanation that he'll agree to before we do anything.

[Stacia raises her eyebrows and nods.]

I'll be interested to hear what kind of explanation you two think would actually work for him to let someone into his head. He just about fell off of the bench he was sitting on when I snuggled up under his arm and squeaked something about a "personal space hula-hoop".

[ North smiles faintly at the image. ]

Sounds like him. Anyway, I'm hoping if we tell him we have a fix for his memory glitches, that would help him agree. He's not fond of letting people in his head, as a rule, and York and I are both concerned about what the consequences would be if we did it without his permission. Both for him and for us.

[Stacia thinks it over.]

I absolutely agreed that the consequences could be very bad for everyone involved. The only reason I've been hedging around bringing it directly to him myself is that I think he knows they've messed with his head. Maybe not how much they messed with it, but he's aware of some of it, and he hasn't asked for help outside of when I was already in his head.

[She shakes her head.]

I don't know him well enough to guess at why he wouldn't ask for help, which is why I reached out to you guys: people who know him rather than people who know me. But if he's hiding something, he's not going to want us in there at all, and bringing it up will make him wary.

Am I explaining this in a way that makes sense?

Agent North

text -> action

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a lost notif, sorry about the delay!

no worries, things happen!

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york's player and I handwaved their convo!

Re: york's player and I handwaved their convo!

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