eldest

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Have you ever heard of the phrase "outside context problem"? It's this idea that you might be on the top of your game, a trained, champion heavyweight boxer, with augmented reflexes and a wicked right hook, you even know the best moves to counter somebody pulling a knife, and then somebody makes you box an octopus.

Elodie comes down the side of the scaffolding in an undulating surge, gravity-assisted momentum transforming into forward motion on hitting the ground. It's a slithering motion and she's lost at least a foot in height as she spreads out to yank herself forward, interjecting herself between York and the heavyweight.

Heavyweight doesn't know quite what's going on here, but wants York. Leads with a jab, likely a test, sounding out a new face. Pretend to fall for it, block but badly, arm sweep catching it on a "lucky" pass.

Heavyweight decides, goes straight for the haymaker followup, wants to get this random woman out of the way to get to the real problem. Best defense, don't be there. Duck aside at an angle nobody else could manage and stay upright, push aggressor away to gain distance.

Heavyweight's seeing red and is going for real. Fight's lost already, can't win if you only have fury, but you can't see that either. Two jabs, uppercut, feint left and then commit. Hand slaps aside one jab, tentacle gets the other almost without thinking. Catch the uppercut on the elbow, pull and to the side, throw him off balance.

Heavyweight wants to go harder but it's her initiative and her fight to lose. He's twisted to the side and trying to recover but he's in close. Tentacle grabs his back leg and yanks, balance totally gone. Another one catches his side, holding him up, arms grab under the armpits, shove him down and kneeling and hold, tentacle on each limb, hand on the back of the head controlling where he's looking (away from York, no reason to add to the venom). Put enough of her weight on him to make sure he knows he does not want all of it on him.

8 seconds, probably about 400 photos snapped, one red-carpet star totally humiliated.

Maybe this wasn't a good idea.

"You okay?" She calls back to York.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

One must remember, the bending reed survives the storm a grand oak falls to.

That flashes into her mind and she doesn't snatch a knife from up her sleeve and bury it in Han's arm, claw for her eyes, or in fact do anything rash and possibly bad, at least long enough for her mind to catch up to "probably friendly don't attempt maiming". Which is... good. Yes. It's good.

She's being carried. A noble, in a tight, improper dress. No veil, nothing to protect her, in front of dozens, a witch, a knight. This isn't... it's not being done to blackmail, it's being treated as okay, it's. This was Uusha's problem to deal with, she was in charge. There is a hand close to impropriety and it's staying rock solid still, much as Piripiri is frozen in place like a cat about to panic and decided to claw or bolt.

"I can keep this up all night!"

Oh you silly, stupid girl. This is not how this goes. Not from you, not for some random maid, and never for her. None of this makes sense, and she's drawn in on herself, and she muttered all of that out loud, clutching at your arm and oh tiny gods those muscles. Breath, and center, and stop the panic and the butterflies.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Piripiri needs a second to respond. She's gulping air like a city girl who's never had to actually run for distance before, and it's about two parts show to one part actual distress. Poor girl's had a day and this hardened knight shows up fresh to charge the castle, again. She even debates lying, trying to trip up the knight, but that leads everyone (Azazuka included, and just why is she here still?) into the fire. So she tells the truth, sort of.

There's a balance here, you see, and it's got three edges. She needs to keep the enemy knight's attention off her, so she needs to seem like a simple maid who got extremely lucky. So give the information in the wrong way, or give information a maid shouldn't know was important, and you're now under suspicion, which is bad enough alone when there's supposed to be a rakasha around. Worse if you're already planning a well-timed trip. Now, that being said, give too little information, and they all walk into a trap and she's right back in Ven's outfits. Not that she'd mind seeing some of these others dressed up all helpless and pretty but all the same, she'd rather not. Finally, give too much information, and the knight can be prepared for everything and succeed, which is really not what she wants here. So find the center, and begin.

"The demons with the coats," ("wrack-dolls" says the witch, and good to actually have a name to put to them), "the wrack-dolls, they seemed like they were working like normal guards? Like, they were on the walls. I got lucky and kicked one down a hole, I think, but it was so dark I'm not sure. I don't know how to fight them really. There were snake ladies but Ven's probably really mad at them for Azazuka and me escaping? And the Laema herself, I think. She'd wanted me to call her, um, 'my terrible Lord' as a title." Maids track titles, right? Ignore the sympathetic flash to the poor, doomed snake who she'd counter-seduced. Maybe Ven hadn't found her yet? It could have happened. "And there was a door, a gate that felt wrong. I think it went to Hell proper. There was at least one window too, in Ven's bedroom, when they made me clean that. And there was a weird, furred snake, that ate us and that's how we somehow got to the castle in the first place? I don't know how that worked, or if Ven can use that to leave, or if it's even still around. I don't think I saw any other people other than Ven, me, and Azazuka."

She takes a few more minutes to catch her breath, before going on. "The layout I didn't see as well? There's a courtyard with an empty gate out into the jungle on one side and the Gate to Hell on the other." She shudders, and it's not fake. "I didn't get a good look beyond that, I'm afraid."

There. Enough information to not fall for the obvious traps, one hopes. Not enough information for the knight not to end up close to an edge. All she needs to do there is push. One last, bitter aside. "Did you have to take Azazuka? Or me? We just escaped from here where, you know, they captured us. History shows neither of us are much good at fighting Ven or her demons."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

"Hey." A raised finger for Bigsby buys Elodie a few seconds to pull out a pad of cheap paper and scribble her number down on it. "Buy you a beer later. Shit sucks." She spares one, withering glance for the HR rep, enough to make her scorn obvious, but not enough to fully antagonize. The sellouts are terrible excuses for human beings, sure, but they're still people, she can understand their motives. There's no malice inherent in any of the positions down under the line, and while management was an asshole and thus worthy of contempt, it's not her fault the whole thing's going up this fast. She's just the person with a thin enough conscious or enough to lose that she can live with her job, if she stood up on her own somebody else'd be taking her spot in ten minutes, possibly for a pay cut. Same deal as in prison, really, only difference is that HR here gives her beatings verbally on behalf of the suits.

So now she's alone with a hard hat and a scaffolding harness, and there's no question at all that she's putting them on and pushing further in. She's already on so many corp's shit lists, she's already getting the unofficial boot when she gets noticed if they can manage it, and if they can't find a reason to kick her out, so much the better. So let's get ready.

Find a vantage point, but be picky, you're out of the way and hard to spot from the crowd. You're just a camera guy getting b roll in advance for OESN, and unlike the poor bastards putting the set together, you've got time. Run your big fancy camera over the crowd (and we are actually keeping this footage, gorgeous background footage here), but do a sweep only for about a minute at a time and take a few minutes between. Pull out your vape (she's got a vape with a dummy cartridge, all smoke but no high, for when she wants to look like she's smoking but doesn't want to burn a precious cig) and take a good smoke break. Get lazy. Point your directional mic so it just so happens to hit various groups backstage. See what you get, don't hover on any group long enough to get noticed, make sure to keep up the camera sweeps periodically, and (most important) get out before everything goes to hell.

Also, watch to see if you can spot York with the camera. He should be getting close to something, now, and she wants to be able to go get him basically as soon as a problem gets big enough. She's already gotten a fair bit of what she was aiming for: this was last minute and somebody's willing to throw money at their brainchild to make it work. We have a who, a what, a where, a when, and even a how. All that's missing now is why.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Ah beans.

There's a few different things clashing here. Azazuka's going to be safe, no response means either she needs no further information or the Dominion is under so much of an attack that nobody's watching incoming messages, and one of those is patently absurd. So clearly somebody's on their way to pick her up and escort her to safer areas. There's a part of her that still wants to stay and impress her new student, make sure she's got the personal attention to get to safety and start training properly, not just the bits and bobs from the walk. On the other hand, time and quiet to consider the offer would be both kind and traditional.

Similarly, Piripiri's had a full day. She really would like to take a nap, eat some stew, and rest up herself. But things aren't calming down, apparently, and a sip of tea in a quiet corner would be the best she got. So she gets up, patting Azazuka on the shoulder, and grabs her little satchel of ritual ingredients, before going back to serving tables. The poor teamaster has had a bad day, and the ritual will help her nerves, at least.

Finally, everyone's had tea that wants it, and she sits back down at the central table, with a nod to the unruly one and the witch. She can afford to help them out a bit, while watching to see what she can do to trip up Uusha. "I never did actually introduce myself, did I? My name's Piripiri."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Elodie keeps her eye on York for a good three minutes after he takes his pill potion, watching for any adverse reactions. It only happened the once, but it was a very memorable once, and she's added activated charcoal and ipacac to her carry-with-her medkit in response. When he fails to fall over foaming at the mouth, climb onto a building to howl at the other side of the station far above them, or do anything other than vibrate impatiently at her to hurry up and go, she stows her gear. The mic fits in her bag, barely, but she's held industrial tools less hefty than this camera and it just goes across her back on a sling rig.

"Okay. Go use the magic lanyard to make nice and then mean with the fancy people on the red carpet. Between the tentacles and the media profiles from the bad days" she says it with less bitterness than normal, her therapist would be proud, "'m useless over there. I'll go chat up the workers around the stage, be helpful, and see what they've overheard that they technically shouldn't've." And for that, she gets the point of view camera that attaches to her jacket out and on, along with a old and thus AI-proof cassette recorder. There's a brief moment where she's got her eyes closed and her breathing pointedly steady, silencing old ghosts that haunt memories of the bad days. Game face back on, total time, maybe two seconds.

She turns to York, quaking at the leash like a hyperactive Terrier and eager to be let off to work his magic, about to find truth and speak it to everyone but especially power. One of her tentacles poke out from her coat and makes a shooing motion. She turns towards her own destination, knowing the man's off through the crowd already and leaving an empty trail behind him that oozes closed as those shoulder checked or elbowed between resume their original place. With that, she's off, getting out of the damnable crowd herself and around the side where nobody's paying attention, hopping the chest-high barrier in one fluid, abhuman motion. From there, pick your moment. Watch. Wait.

Wait.

And step in as the workman in battered jeans and a high-vis vest is about to lose his balance with that scaffolding, take the weight and turn it so he falls and looks like a dumbass instead of breaking a leg. "You okay?" She asks, and it's genuine concern in that moment, nothing faked. Make a friend, then ask them for favors and juicy bits. That's what friends do for each other, right?

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

She fixes the headphones back in place with one on and one off first. They're playing catchup on who's after what and that's dangerous till they get ahead, so information comes first. She knows more now than before, but that's just sketching the outline of the way this is going tits up, as opposed to being oblivious about it, more's needed to climb the screw and find who's driving it before they finish the job. She does let the camera rest on it's strap for a second to help brush off Ted and pat him twice on the back, light enough that he doesn't go sprawling again. The mic doesn't waver from Mishka during all of that. Dynamic balancing is one of the positives about her tentacles. Ever seen the old, old videos of strapping a camera to a chicken for stabilizing? That's her now that renting a chicken is more expensive than maintenance on her augs.

"Anything good?" And this is why working with York is refreshing. Mind on the job when on the job. She makes a sympathetic nod and wince towards the camera in response to the newcomer's hand out to shake, sorry honey I've actually got to work for a living, and turns her head to watch York's reaction. That it also makes it that much more of a pain for the NBN goon to listen in, that's a plus. "Mishka Ardent. The tweedledum to his tweedledee, who is that? Quick version, tweedledum's making a play trying to loop in anybody sympathetic to mainstream liberalism. Translate ACAB to police reform, and then find a midpoint short of that. Might be behind the push to blow this to hell. Mishka's actually listening instead of bitching so he's got weight. Elodie, good to meetcha." Harkness gets the "sup" nod.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

"Yes, it's a signal. We're still in Ven's reach hypothetically, I'm trying to get you further away and safer while she's distracted." She turns to Azazuka, keeping an eye on the bowl. "So. First. And I haven't gone over this from this side before, so please pardon any slips. We talked briefly about learning how to do, ah, what I do. And I want to expand on what that means. My job usually means I have to do dirty, unpleasant, and spiritually unclean things. I get hurt regularly. There is always the possibility that I will die somewhere like that castle and nobody will know or care who I was. Winning looks like getting chased through a jungle by guards that want to kill you or worse. Losing means being stuck in a hole with no light while somebody else decides what to do with you."

She blinks once, deliberate. Break the idea into two.

"But. It means that you'll always have some, low chance of getting out of anything. Even if it's between certain death and near certain death, there's always that slim chance that somebody trips on a rock. The rope frayed in just the right place. So that's the upside." She sips her tea, checking to make sure nobody's paying attention. "There's one other problem. You're going to need to learn to trust me. And you're going to need to actively chose this, even when it looks like I'm doing nothing more than trying to hurt you, break you, or kill you. My sitfu threw me off a bridge once. I might do the same to you, if you want to learn what I know."

Another blink and slow, deliberate sip of tea. Mmmm. That knight ordered good stuff.

"And then there's the other danger. You're going to need to find somebody or something to hold to, some reason that you are doing this that isn't just self interest, because if you just want to learn this for yourself then you will turn into a monster." And I may have to kill you, she does not add. "Your reasons will be different from my reasons. Which is fine. But there will come a point, if you get fully trained, where you're going to learn to not trust me. Because I'll have taught you but I'm not your elder and I won't be treating you as an asset, so I'm neither controlling you nor responsible for you, and that means if there's a conflict between my ideals, what drives me to do this, and you? It's not even close."

She leans back from where she'd been focused intensely on Azazuka. "So if you want to not have to deal with the many, many downsides of what I can teach, I have no objections. I'm getting you to safety either way. But I want you to know what you're getting into, before you commit."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

In prison, Elodie had a cellmate named Toni, and Toni had a saying: "each surprise is three disasters waiting". Toni (Fen Li originally, before she ditched her name along with everything else) had many sayings like that, each matching her unique brand of pessimistic.

Elodie is currently standing elbow to elbow, in a crowd, without York. York is notably absent from this picture, which is a real pisser because York's the reason she's here at all. She had a plan for the evening. She had dinner ready to cook, she had rearranged the main room in her cramped, two room apartment to have a spot to watch the Pinkerton Old Guard duke it out with the Mumbai Kaisers in the grav-ball game Sasha'd been hyping up for weeks. After, a walk downtown. She hadn't seen her kid for two weeks before and she wanted to make the most of it. And then York fucking shows up with a job that only she can do, and it'll only take two hours. She shouldn't have listened, and now she's here and he's not standing next to her being contrite.

Who she is standing with is an android from NBN, one of if not the biggest news channels, probably here as b-roll for Buffett, and an anxious intern named Ted who'd withered as the crowd swelled. Ted had started talking about who he was (intern for a political comedy site), why he was there (see above), and had worked his way through his life story and it's woes to periodic grunts and mmms from Elodie. She had reframed from glaring because any distraction from NBN goon on her left was welcome: they'd be responsible for keeping her arrest and trial constantly in the news cycle with ghoulish details of structural damage, estimates of how close the bomb came to cracking the station like an egg (not at all, but that'd make for bad ratings). They'd even done a special ten years on, just in case it'd slipped everyone's mind, the shitstains. She'd been itching for a smoke ever since she noticed their logo, but tobacco was expensive and to be savored, not to mention she'd be risking her spot to get to a smoking area. This whole day is a surprise and an unwelcome one, and she can already count three ways it went wrong.

So instead of a hand-rolled cigarette she's got a mic in one hand, the camera in the other, both pointed at Mishka Ardent, who she'd decided was most likely to say something stupid when unknowingly hot-micced. Chunky headphones over her head, one ear covered and one left free to listen to Ted and more importantly York, when he gets back. A canvas duster covers most of her, and enough of her not-legs get blocked out that nobody looks far enough down to see she's got no feet to match the lacking legs. A bag slung over the shoulder that the camera isn't on, leaving her with about thirty kilos of gear, and a press pass clipped on completes the look. She carefully doesn't think of the inner pocket with her smokes and lighter and focuses in on Mishka, perfect smile framed by perfect hair, in a perfect suit with a perfectly retro art-decco arm lending just enough asymmetry to keep him in style. Whatcha up to, asshole? Talking about anything good?

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

They listened, she did what she could, the risk did not manifest into a problem. Good. And they... her eyes flick between Giriel and Han, here... they certainly know each other.

With a nod and a mouthing of "I'll be over there", Piripiri gets up from the table and snags Azazuka and a low bowl half-full of hot water from behind the counter when the teamaster's attention is away. With that, she finds an unused, unnoticed corner, and starts her own small rite.

Into the bowl, first, goes a small satchet of powdered herbs. A small string of dried flowers is next out of her small pouch, untied and three very carefully placed in the water. A white lotus. There is no immediate danger, agent safe. Chrysanthemum. Azazuka is present or in custody. White heather. Protection needed, or in this case a pickup request.

She sits back behind a shelf in the back room of the teahouse, holding the bowl, and breaths out, focusing on the water and feeling the magic in it awaken in response to her call, and the flowers revive, before sinking down into the water and vanishing. Now. If things are very dire, Red Wolf can use this to talk. Unlikely, but possible. Otherwise, she'll see her answers, and act accordingly.