cradleproject | WEEK 10

[why is she going with these two? because they need one person who knows her way around weapons who won't behead at the slightest provocation. or because she wants to see Jack work his computer magic.]

We'll never know either way if we don't at least attempt to see.

[personally, she'd like information.]

[It won't be too hard for Jack or Clover to bring up what appears to be the main function of the terminal, which is an enormous holographic map of the galaxy. They can see the location of the Pygmalion on it; it looks like they're traversing one of the arms of the Milky Way, though there's no indication of any sort of direction or ultimate goal they're heading towards.

Further fiddling of the map will bring up data of various solar systems, nebulas, etc. A lot of it is vague and none of it seems particularly relevant, but they'll find that there's a solar system relatively nearby that has more detailed records of the planets within - XCS111, XCS112, and XCS113.

Three planets, three people. Who picks what?]

Huh—

[ Jack's brow knits together as he looks at the map, since the galaxy is unfamiliar to him. He looks at the Pygmalion for a few moments, trying to chart out its course, but he can't quite manage that much. Assuming that Clover and Grell let Jack play with the controls here, he'll spend the time fiddling with the map long enough to pull up those planets. ]

Well, one for each, I guess?

[ He comments on that idly, then randomly picks XCS112 to check out for himself. ]

[Clover ever-so-helpfully points at things to click on like a nosy child but otherwise Jack gets to nerd out at his leisure, have fun.]

Guess so.

[Clover decides on XCS111! If Grell needs help, she'll point at the controls and show her what to do so she can navigate her way to the last choice.]

[while it's there, her eyes grow wide as she takes in the galactic map. the other two can geek out over tech while she's having her mind expanded in a way that makes her chest vaguely ache. it's all so vast, and they in their ship are so small, and for a moment - a passing moment that she lets go, it's hard to believe that it's all like this. beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

but thank you Clover, she will need that little nudge to bring up XCS113. what are they to find?]

[Jack's planet info reads:]

PLANET INFORMATION (UNCHARTED):

Diameter (km): 2473
Mass (Earth=1): 2.1
Orbital period (Earth years): .72
Length of day (Earth hours): 17 hrs 6 min
Inclination of axis (degrees): 0.012
Mean temperature at surface (C): 1700
Planetary water coverage: 1%
Planetary landmass: 99%
Atmospheric composition: 93% carbon dioxide, 7% hydrogen
Number of moons: 0
Additional notes: Approximately 84% of planet land mass composed of diamond.

[Clover's planet info reads:]

PLANET INFORMATION (UNCHARTED):

Diameter (km): 2473265
Mass (Earth=1): 378
Orbital period (Earth years): 930
Length of day (Earth hours): 509 hrs 23 min
Inclination of axis (degrees): 0.125
Mean temperature at surface (C): -426
Planetary water coverage: 2%
Planetary landmass: 5%
Atmospheric composition: 96% hydrogen, 4% helium
Number of moons: 5
Additional notes: Consistently rains molten glass sideways.

[Grell's planet info reads:]

PLANET INFORMATION (UNCHARTED):

Diameter (km): 11,953
Mass (Earth=1): 1.4
Orbital period (Earth years): 2.3
Length of day (Earth hours): 28 hrs 34 min
Inclination of axis (degrees): 21.45
Mean temperature at surface (C): - 75 to 63 degrees
Planetary water coverage: 68%
Planetary landmass: 32%
Atmospheric composition: 74% nitrogen, 23% oxygen, 3% other trace gases
Number of moons: 3
Additional notes: Signs of plant life and possible other life forms can be detected.

[Hm. Is that really all there is to this terminal?]

[ Jack reads his own planet's information with interest, but as he gets to that last part, his face absolutely lights up in glee. ]

Holy shit. Diamonds? 84% friggin' diamonds? [ Jack laughs, shaking his head ] I- Oh my god, I wonder if that's where Butt Stallion is from?

[ Jack genuinely has no idea where his diamond pony that poops weapons came from, but he sure did pay a lot for her and he loves her. He is just also terrible at names.

Anyways. Once the other two are done looking at the planets, Jack definitely isn't stopping with poking around the terminal. Is there anything to pull up other than the map? How about a command console? Give him time and he will very excitedly get right into this terminal. Somehow. ]

...Yeah, this doesn't mean anything to me. [She's not a nerd?? She glances over at Grell to see if any of this nerd shit means anything to her before she backs off and lets Jack have at it. Leave the nerd to nerding. Or, like, let the person who knows what they're doing figure it out instead of taking over and clicking whatever's shiniest.]

[on a technical standpoint, it doesn't mean much to her. but the last sentence stands out.]

Signs of life...

[Jack can poke around all he wants, but Grell's still wide eyed and fascinated. what she can read, she reads as fast as she can, and what the map shows at any given point she wants to remember. absorb, observe, record. remember. they couldn't forget any of this.

on impulse, she reaches out to touch the map - it's a hologram, so she doesn't expect anything, but it's just a passing curiosity.]

[Going deeper into the terminal will reveal that oddly enough, there seems to be a video file embedded deep within the archives.

Jack won't get the chance to play it yet though, because when Grell touches the hologram, something strange happens - the entire thing flips, showing what seems to be another map. This one is weird, though; it doesn't seem to be a map of any sort of galaxy, but rather one of thousands and thousands of datapoints, most of them indecipherable. If they study it closely though, three in particular may stand out to them.]

Pandora (GLXY90458)
Earth (VICT925435)
Rhizome 9 (NONA9234092)

[If Grell continues to touch the map, the point Earth (VICT925435) will start glowing before a file appears. Again, most of it is indecipherable - there appear to be a lot of measurements going on, though what they're for is anyone's guess. She'll recognize the images attached though; they're all satellite images of her home, though they're too far away for her to make out any distinct people, only buildings. Additionally, someone's left a helpful note in English prefacing the whole thing.]

Apparently populated with aliens calling themselves "reapers" and "demons". Despite the primitive terminology, they appear to have impressive biological capabilities.

Edited 2016-08-09 05:21 (UTC)

[ Jack's expression at least grows more serious as he gets to work, and he's about a half second from clicking that video file to check it out before Grell beats him to the punch. He looks up with a frown, but it's at least quickly diverted as he looks over the map as it shifts. He's taking in as much information as he can here, then whistles lowly as he reads the note. ]

...So, someone's been watching? Guess that explains the how we got here part.

[ If it's possible, Jack will try to touch Pandora's datapoint to see if something similar will pop up for it. ]

Oh...

[Rhizome 9. She might have passed over another iteration of earth or it's moon without thought, but she can't ignore that it names the base specifically. Clover hesitates, but she does follow suit and reach out to tap the datapoint.]

[where she would have been fascinated and want to investigate some of the points on her own time, the one for Earth - her Earth, she knows it is - reveals its file, and when it does, the color drains from her face. Grell knows those buildings, that shape and sky, and words slip out half mumbled.]

Primitive? We're not...

[what was this? what was all of this about? how could they have... maybe the points for the others will help a little.]

[Both files are similar to Grell's file, with the majority of it being indecipherable measurements and equations. Jack's shows satellite images taken of both Pandora and the Eye of Helios, still intact. The message prefacing it reads:]

Total shithole. Still, anyone who can survive to adulthood here is going to be one tough S.O.B. to take down. Let's keep this one in mind.

[Clover's shows satellite imagery of Rhizome 9, as well as pictures of the interior of the base, though the building is empty. The message prefacing it reads:]

What kind of sick fucked-up game are they running here? We might actually be doing a favor to anyone we bring in.

[ Jack reads the entry for Pandora, and he ends ups nodding appreciatively as he laughs. ]

Yeah, that's— That's completely true.

[ He takes the implication in the messages in stride, at least, but once everyone is done reading, he's going to return to that video file. ]

[At least SOMEONE is enjoying themselves because Clover just looks pissed. At least her last sick fucked up game didn't have a 50+% casualty rate who the fuck does this commentator think they are!!!!

But she turns her attention back to the terminals when Jack does.] Find something?

[the messages carry more of an implication to her than she likes, and only the closest observation would show the slight tremble in her hands as she pushed up her glasses, taking a half step back from the map. selection. how long had they somehow had their eyes there? how much did they see? how much did they know?

not enough, maybe, if the age: unknown was an indication. or perhaps they didn't know if they should add the-

if Jack's found something, he can go ahead and reveal it, it might take her mind away from the conclusions she's jumping to.]

[ Hitting up the archives the video file is stored in opens up what can only be described as a cloud account.

It appears to belong one Jasper Jones, and there's a plethora of self taken photos in it. A number of selfies splatter across the screen, but the face in these photographs are unfamiliar. In addition to the selfies, there's a number of audio files: .wavs and .mp3s in a neat row, and looking at the file names shows they probably weren't acquired legally. Oops. Still, they appear to be music, if titles like Break The Ice - Britney Spears.wav are indication.

As for the video, it opens with Jasper Jones narrating a night in with a woman he calls Daisy. They're going to watch a movie, and eat some Italian, and as Jasper is finishing this statement, the video cuts. This time, he's singing happy birthday to a mature woman, who leans in to hug him at the end. It appears to be Jasper Jones' mother's 77th birthday. The video cuts in the middle of her thank yous.

There is a large amount of videos intermingling, and skipping around, if they choose to do so, shows that some videos continue later in the file. Jasper, for example, gifted his mother a rather lovely necklace. His dinner with Daisy looks tasty. He has a brother who he plays video games with, and Jasper likes to hang out and drink beer in the viewport. It's just day to day snippets of his life. One thing is clear: the Pygmalion, at some point, harbored civilians. Jasper was nothing more than a traveler among the stars.

You might be lulled into a sense of security, even if the video is unendingly dull thus far. Maybe the account is so old that booting it up resulted in a file corruption? Who knows.

There's a minute of nothing but black and the low hum of white noise in the video. With only 7 seconds left, the video flickers back, and even though it's not easy to make out the image due to the fact it seems whatever it was Jasper was recording on was damaged, something is very apparent.

Jasper Jones is running from something with the woman he calls Daisy, and the lights of the Pymalion are dim, dying, and listening closely yields the sound of a third set of feet, but it doesn't seem to come from behind Jasper and Daisy.

It's from above.

There are 6 seconds left in the video. Jasper is pulled up, the feed falls to the ground, and a clatter of metal hitting metal resounds, echoing against the shrill shriek that surely comes from Daisy. There's an organic sounding pop and crunch and the feed only shows the edge of the vent, but it's enough to know that Jasper Jones' has been pulled through thin slit of the vent, his body tucking into itself. Blood splatters across the ceiling and floor. Daisy's scream ends abruptly.

There are 3 seconds left.

A second screen bursts out of the speakers, but this one feels like it's happening in the room. It grows, louder and louder and louder and it's like the seconds on the video left are going away in minutes as the intensity of the scream rockets until it hits a pitch so high that it's clear whatever is screaming is doing this on purpose. A black mass slaps down onto the ground in the video, shiny and scaly. It slips away quickly, a blink and you miss it sort of thing. The feed gives in, and is corrupted.

The last second of the video is the decay growing to the point the image cuts out. ]

Edited 2016-08-10 03:42 (UTC)

[ Jack watches the videos with an odd expression, at least at the beginning. For those more personal videos, his expression is drawn and serious, but with a note of confusion like he's not completely understanding what he's seeing here. Which, it is strange, at first. Personal video logs and diaries hadn't quite been what he had been expecting, but still, he watches seriously and attentively. He doesn't want to miss any detail that could be helpful, no matter how small.

Of course, he gets... Essentially, exactly what he figured he might. Jack watches the gruesome scene without his expression changing much at all. In fact, he seems to take this much more in stride than those personal videos, but maybe that's just the kind of person Jack is? It's never easy to tell. The scream gets his expression to twist up, since it's unpleasant to say the least, but his arms stay crossed as he watches.

It's only once that scaly thing appears that Jack's eyes actually widen with sharp interest. He has no idea what it was, but it's enough for him to step forward and start trying to pull that video up again to try and get a better look at that moment before it disappears. It had been so brief that there wasn't really time to get a good sense of what the hell he was even looking at. ]

The fuck was that? Did you- [ He glances to the other two ] Please tell me that you actually got a halfway decent look at whatever that was.

[Clover isn't watching Jack when he turns to them; she's staring wide-eyed at the screen the video had been playing on a moment before, hands moving from where she'd been covering her ears to block out that awful screaming so she can clasp them over her mouth instead. The video had been dull but...but it was peaceful; she may have gone in trying to find the use in it but she'd been distracted by just how ordinary it was, by pangs of missing her brother and her mom and home and an ordinary life. So she isn't ready when the running starts, when the screaming starts, when it's all ripped away.]

I don't—I don't know what that was, I didn't—didn't see...

It had scales, that's as much as I can discern precisely....

[it's a break from the sort of dull things she had watched and found no enjoyment in, the memories of someone's days who held little to excite her, and then suddenly that shift. instantly she'd shifted from the idle curiosity into focus, sharp even as the image destroys itself. whatever that thing was, it was present, and it was dangerous.]

And it was intelligent.

[then, softly so only Clover and Jack can hear her, no one else, nothing else.]

Do you think it's still here?

[ Jack frowns deeply, and there's a few moments where he's rather deep in thought, but he looks to Grell when she speaks. He considers that too, but then nods slightly. ]

Look, to be honest here? Gonna say we should assume it is.

[ He stands back and sets his hands on his hips. ]

That's gonna be a better bet than the alternative. Better to be proved wrong on that assumption than the other.

...Yeah.

[and boy oh boy is she ever grateful to be armed with a stupidly dangerous laser weapon at all times, even if she's hoping she never ever sees that thing.]

We should...tell the others, too. About all of this.

WEEK 10

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