⇨ POLARIS 2.0

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Days 110 - 114
Where: Polaris
What: After a mysterious explosion shakes the station, the staff of Polaris struggle to maintain order while the test subjects fight for freedom with the aid of hidden allies. Productivity info is here.
Warnings: More graphic experimentation.

THEORY & CONCLUSION↴ At the midnight between Day 109 and Day 110, something happens. For most people, it won't be clear what - yet, they are shaken by it just the same. Violent tremors appear out of nowhere, rattling the entirety of the Polar station, violent enough to throw sleeping test subjects off their bunks. The source is unclear, but there is a sudden flurry of activity from staff as power flickers and is lost in various parts of the facility. Subjects, for the most part, will be left to their cells while they try to sort things out. The next morning, the staff are late picking people up. It's more like 6:30AM than the usual 6AM when they arrive to take people to the farm, which is a bit of tardiness that is entirely without precedent. Any questions about the incident the previous night will be waved off with the explanation of 'technical difficulties' that have been 'resolved.' ► DELTA: The three new Deltas will be left in their cells for even longer, waiting to be picked up, instructed that they would be escorted elsewhere instead of to the farm. Around 6:45AM some unfamiliar technicians will arrive and tell them that they are here to begin their processing into Delta. They are led into a previously untouched section of the station, where they are invited into a somewhat more intimate medical room to be asked some cursory questions and given a check up. Then, their suits will be removed, and they will be provided with their new uniforms, which they can apply like normal clothes. Delta life begins there. There will be a top level for the initial parts of their processing to be played out. Ultimately, however, they will end up being given a tour of the new Delta facilities, which amounts to a waterfront area that borders the new apartments they'll be staying in, as well a small supply shop where they can pick up an allotted amount of 'amenities' per day, based on their level of productivity and other achievements. This includes luxury items like food, pleasant smelling soaps, or other hygiene related tools. There are even small things like decorations or pictures of other places available, though they are fairly expensive. The first day will mostly involve the processing, a tour, and some basic training regarding the new tools they will be using, such as the mandatory visors and basic computer access. The next day, observation shifts in the farm will start, as will participation in trials. ► FARMING: The Farm will continue as normal, though it seems like there are fewer staff observing it at the moment. The ones that are there seem a little bit more tense than usual. Power is still down in some places, but the Farm is thankfully still active. Sometimes the productivity turn-in scanners might be a bit glitchy, so try not to panic if it measures fewer points than you're due. ► TRIALS: Trials are continuing as projected, though with the most broad of experiments already under way, they may be more selective. If you have an idea for a trial you can be sure to share it with the staff, and they will take it under advisement! Any information you want to provide is encouraged, they will say, especially if it involves notable traits about you or your fellow test subjects - or perhaps behavioral patterns you've noticed. You might even be rewarded!

Comments

[atouts]

Childermass bites back anything else he might have been about to yell out, most likely for help, for anyone, but this isn't a safe place by any reach of the imagination. So, he'll quiet himself, hand still on Lambert's shoulder.

"...I won't," he promises, voice lowered but still seized with worry. "What is it? What's wrong?"

[soft_focus]

[Fortunately she's made of stronger stuff than to curl up and cry over That.

That or she's just grown too optimistic and familiar with the patterns of the Carnival as of late.]

...If you think of it like that, I guess that's true.

You can't get away if you don't think you ever will- you have to actually hope, and try.

[She blinks, and stares for a moment before continuing.] ...Everyone here has done impossible things before- I don't think it's fair, to say we can't do that again.

So we can definitely run away from the 'monsters' here.

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya stares at Strange for a moment, and then just shakes his head.

"Then have faith I have no intention of leaving you behind in whatever I do." He straightens himself, letting the frustration roll off him as he carries strength and confidence in his posture

"My duty upon making my contract was to protect the other members of the carnival from harm, and I count being kidnapped and tortured for eternity among that. You will here when we're ready to move."

He's confident. It's an impossible situation and yet Syrlya's tone is genuine. "We're getting out of here, Strange."

He has to be able to do that much. How will he save a world if he can't save a company of thirty?

[starseedling]

As Lambert squints at the horizon, a golden arrow will whiz towards the pair of them, hitting the balcony. Steven jumps, and then reaches for it eagerly. He unfurls the note, taking a look.

"'I'll do my best,'" he reads out loud. "'Remember to tell him what I can do.'" Then, he slaps his forehead. "Oh right!"

"She can give you different powers... fire, or light, or the ability to find things! Or, she can just make you stronger. I thought that you needed her help more than I do, right now."

[kingsroads]

Strange shakes his head. He doesn't mind saying this part out loud, just because it's where the technicians found him. There's no need to be cagey about his final location like he is about his smoke form.

"I got caught because some odd teleport pad thing recognized me as a security threat. It shut down, the room that I was in started to fill up with some smoke, I passed out."

As he talks, the box jostles against his arm a little bit: Strange can't help but wince when the impact happens. Still, he tries to steel his expression back into a little smile as they carry the box over towards some others.

[whattaprick]

Lambert waits out the next wave of pain rolling through before he answers — and though he’d like to brush off the hand on his shoulder and claim to be fine, it’s a much more steadying presence than he’d like to admit.

“My bones,” he says, finally. “They’ve been replacing them. It’s taking a while to adjust.” He seems to have steadied some, but he’s still flat on the ground and it’s kind of annoying to have this conversation this way.

“Help me sit up.”

[hippocarnival]

"A teleport pad?" Having not gotten the dream map yet, Yuya's mostly just curious. It sounds fittingly science fiction, like the rest of the station. Except with more magic.

He catches that wince, though, and it makes him pause. He glances between the boxes ahead and Strange. "You're putting it over there, right? We're almost there."

He looks ready to take it if Strange can't make it, though.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya shoots the Technicians a look. Maybe they're here unwillingly too, but still, screw them.

"You'll definitely get out of there." Because they'll all get out of here. That's what Yuya wants to cling to, because otherwise he doesn't know what else to do. He's dangerously close to the fall himself.

[atouts]

Knowing about the bones seems to startle Childermass into immediately jerking his hand away from his shoulder, if only for a second or three. He has to take in a breath, steady himself in an entirely different way, and then reach for Lambert again. He'll do what he can, rolling the witcher to his side and helping him into a more upright position.

"That's why your tail looks so thin, isn't it?"

Oh, he noticed. He hadn't really thought hard about it last time they saw one another but now, it's all too obvious.

[whattaprick]

Lambert looks up when Childermass retreats, but he can’t really comment on it as he’s shortly occupied by having to roll over, helping as he can. If nothing else, the shoulder he’s holding seems warm and human enough, but he’s — heavy, heavier than a man his size should be, even with Lambert actively helping him. Once he’s facing him it’s obvious there’s something wrong with the general area of his sternum, straight lines and bolts where they shouldn’t be, a glimpse of dark, smooth material peeking out of skin high on his neck where the bodysuit doesn’t cover.

But he’s up and that’s what matters.

“Yes,” he says, simply. That’s self-evident. “But that’s not important right now.”

He leans forward instead, bowing his head on the guise of slumping over, and murmurs, raspily. “You’re working with Syrlya now, aren’t you?”

[prazerbutterfly]

"Same here," he confirms, his back oozing into the furniture he's in, "If we're stuck here, we may as well make ourselves comfortable. I've no objections to whatever tasks they hand me." Being that Sans was the only one he didn't really want to screw over in all of Polaris. Not again. "Though it seems Deltas work together more than against."

"Which 'home'?" he asks, Sans' name on the tip of his tongue but not voiced in case they were being recorded.

[atouts]

Sorry, Lambert, it doesn't look as though Childermass is paying attention to the question right now. He's staring at the bolts rising up under his suit, the metal that's visible and catching what light there is where they are, how wrong it all is. He nearly draws away again, leaning back, but not taking the hand he's left on Lambert to help support him when he slumps over.

It takes a moment before he actually realizes Lambert said anything else and—

"I... I'm sorry, what?"

[prazerbutterfly]

Even the Earl and Cyril used someone until they completely dried up and had nothing left to give. Pain and suffering fit in with desperation. Even if he could voice this opinions though he wouldn't outright say them to Reira, who in his eyes would always be a kid.

His hands flex to show his discomfort with her words and then fold down at his sides again, looking away from her now towards someone else nosing around at the corners of the Farm. He records this because he should and because it is obvious. He frowns though, his mouth forming a firm line.

He closes his eyes under the visor and tries to convey feelings of Hope and Understanding but they fall rather short.

[soft_focus]

Cynically, it's a matter of 'proper' use in her eyes. They could be worked to the bone for something certainly.

But for fruits going nowhere, it feels 'stupid'. Hope and understanding are things that she catches whispers of, but when they fade, she sighs. Looking up to him, there is some silence before she speaks. "...I guess I shouldn't think about staying. ...Thinking about things like that is how people end up staying instead of leaving."

"...And everyone at the Carnival seems really good at getting out of things," she observes gently. "...They don't even need the Ringmaster to do it. That's what it's felt like before, anyway. ...So..."

She doesn't know about any plans, or that anyone is even working on a plan. Why would she? She's 'not allowed'.

But she'd bet on it. "...It's probably like we're in a book right now," she eventually says. "...But we're at the part where things seem really bad- we're not at the part where the ending comes, and things get better again."

[kingsroads]

There's a mean little part of Strange that wants to point out that his duty to the carnival doesn't exist any more, the carnival isn't here...but he wrote an entire book on a possibly-dead figure of English magic. He can't talk. He also can't talk considering that Strange is just as bound and determined to get people out by any means necessary...it's just that by 'people' he means 'himself and now Ignatius and maybe some others.' So Strange's bitterness softens for a moment as he ponders what exactly to say next.

"You'd better keep to your word," Strange says, with a little frown. Even though he's frowning, there's more of a resigned tone in Strange's voice. It's not like he's empathizing with you a little bit or anything! "I'd hate to show you up by escaping on my own if you fail."

This is a goddamn lie, he'd adore to show Syrlya up, but now isn't the time for that.

[chronosynthesis]

He could say that, but Syrlya doesn't care because he knows that it would be reasonable, without the Ringmaster, to assume dismantlement of their fragile organization. He's just not that kind of person, though, when these people are still in front of him and the number of them likely won't be able to escape on their own.

He'll bury himself in that duty every time.

He snorts, because he doesn't believe that second part for a second either. "I'm sure you would. Keep an ear out, Strange."

He waves his hand, dismissing the conversation as he turns to go again.

[whattaprick]

Fire, light, the ability to find things... Lambert mouths the words back at Steven, then cocks his head.

“Couldn’t you use that too? Weren’t you missing something?”

He remembers something like that. He thinks.

“Can’t she find that for you?”

[atouts]

"I don't even know what it is," Childermass snaps back. He doesn't want to collapse in horror, so anger's the next best option. "Who wants to learn to use anything that's been done to them? I want it out, I want it gone, I..."

He trails off there, the last bust of his anger. He lets go of the nearest bolt in his back again, only to let his shoulders sag as he looks up at Lambert again.

"I don't know," he sighs at the end. "I should get back to work."

[prazerbutterfly]

When you dig through trash, you pick out the best and discard the rest after all. Modify, correct, exchange, until it is perfect. Then use it until it is nothing more than a waste of time. The perfect bait, the perfect akuma, the deaths of others, more Akuma from the resulting despair. Even he understand the MOI's reasoning.

And now that he was Delta? He saw that more clearly, more straight forward and he had a strange appreciation for it. It felt... normal.

"I should remind you that fraternizing is against my instruction," he states outloud, unable to say anything further. One sided conversations are troublesome, with out without her banter.

[starseedling]

He self consciously reaches down to touch at his gem, here in dream form, even as it's absent in his waking life.

"Um. I guess so. But... It's not as important as getting you guys out of Theta. And... you're the Nightrider! Right? That means you're really important, and you always help us get through this stuff."

He smiles sadly.

"Besides... I think... Ignatius gave me a bit of my power back, somehow. Just like Childermass said. I can use that." It doesn't have any finding powers, but he'll deal.

[soft_focus]

"I don't know what that word means."

She's not even lying. "...You need some words anyway," she adds, for once not saying 'why'. That would needlessly give her empathy away. At least this way she can pretend she just studied his tail too long or something.

[whattaprick]

Lambert tracks where his gaze goes, and a sting of self-consciousness makes him raise his hand, cover what he can of the bolts.

“I know I’m really pretty,” he jokes, raspily, with a crooked grin, “But I need you to focus right now. I’m not sure how much time I have out here.”

There are other people he still needs to talk to.

[kingsroads]

And Strange gives Syrlya a little nod before he goes back to his work of heavy lifting and literally trying not to break his arms.

[prazerbutterfly]

He sighs, like she's an inconvenience, putting on a facade, his arms folding behind his back, straightening up like he's issuing information more than letting her know a simple word.

"It means I am not allowed to talk to you socially or disruptively as if we're in some sort of social relationship. I can only provide you with information you need to complete tasks within the farm or if an idea for a trial is present."

I'll probably fade this out in a few tags given what she's Planning lmfao...

[soft_focus]

She pauses. Is that what it means then? Well. Reira stares as if studying the other, pondering her options and her words. Pondering what there is for her in the farm, more than anything else.

"...So I can still sit where I want, and talk then."

She's very deliberately being a shit, she has decided. It's just so much better than endless fruit picking.

"You're still doing your job. So it's okay. ...I'll just talk about things that are important for me and no one else then." ...For now, at least. "...Like how the fruits look like things from some of the games on the 'party console' at home." Carnival is home, naturally. She's very immediately dropping into inane chatter though.

Because it's something. Perhaps even something normal. She sort of feels like it is at least.