⇨ 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

Childermass

[atouts]

D110-113

[atouts]

what were we doing again?

The morning of Day 110 finds Childermass being returned to the farm hours later than the rest, having never joined them on the later than usual ushering out to their daily work. When the technicians finally do release him back to the farm, something is... definitely not right. He isn't a man prone to standing around, looking hopelessly lost, and yet that's what he spends an awful lot of time these next few days doing.

He'll often stare at people for minutes, brow furrowed in thought, or, very often, go about tasks uncertainly and there's a fairly good reason for that. Inevitably, he'll stop to ask someone, "I'm not sure what we're meant to be doing here. Are you?"

Which will be asked multiple times, unfortunately, as it will turn out that his memory has taken a turn for the worse. Polaris is a mystery to him, even some of their time in Shabon is hazy, and faces are recognized, but the why and who of them keep slipping away.

roommates

While rooming with him in a cell will find him a bit more responsive than just gloom and more gloom than before, though it comes in the form of muttering to himself, even if his cellmate is trying to sleep. He keeps going over facts, names, things he ought to know, trying to make them stick after he's been told them over and over.

It isn't malicious, but it'll undoubtedly get old.

[ ooc: no one's planned on rooming with him these days, so feel free to just grab a night and mark it accordingly. ]

wildcard

[ or if you have something else you want to/need to throw at Childermass, go for it. ]

110

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya pauses when Childermass asks that question, straightening up from trying to dig while favoring one arm (it's not easy) to look at him in bewilderment. The changes from the blue Rose are still obvious in his coloration and the blooms at the back of his head, but who knows if Childermass remembers seeing that.

"... Do you mean the farming?" Surely not.

Re: 110

[atouts]

"Yes?" Childermass... doesn't really sound sure if he means farming or not, actually. He supposes that would make the most sense right now, though, but Syrlya's coloring has him squinting at him. He wasn't blue before. That guy. He's sure he knows his name, the plant man from the militia, but more importantly— "Weren't you red before?"

Wine red. Yes, he distinctly recalls that much.

[chronosynthesis]

"Not since we left that bathhouse..." He squints at Childermass, skeptically. He's seen the cause of amnesia too many times with the carnival, it's not a far leap with the surveillance that Childermass may have been caught and manipulated the same way.

"Tell me, what is the last thing you can remember? Anything after that?"

[atouts]

"I recall... the bathhouse," Childermass says that much with certainty, "I had just pulled myself back together and then... did something terrible happen? Again?"

Yes, again. It seems to be the fashion with their travels.

"I remember agreeing to release someone." On fire. That fire faerie. "After that, it becomes a blur. I know we moved. Here, apparently. I know they found me unconscious in my cell."

Because what else could it be?

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya isn't feeling any more confident in this.

"They found you unconscious?" That's still notable, though, and be raises an eyebrow."you are missing quite a few days of memory, then. At least a week."

[atouts]

"They said something about soul damage but weren't sure..." Childermass trails off as he considers a week, a whole week of missing memories.

He teeters back a step. It's a more overwhelming worry than he typically feels, along with something that feels far too warm, deep in his chest. He ends up pressing a hand against his chest, trying to take a deep breath and stabilize himself. It's not easy.

"At least a week? How could I forget an entire week?"

[chronosynthesis]

As Childermass leans back, Syrlya leans forward to try and put a hand on his shoulder to keep him stable.

"I don't know." But he can take some guesses. "Think, if you can. Do you remember the Technicians doing anything? Any impressions of anything... strange?"

They don't have the ability to just drag him away and knock him to his senses this time. Maybe if Childermass can just pull together enough to confirm his suspicions...

[atouts]

"Should I remember them doing anything?" Childermass asks. With Syrlya hanging onto him, he'll stop moving for now, thankfully keeping his feet under him rather than retreating and tripping over anything.

It's an honest question. The trials are, thankfully (or perhaps not), not within his recollection, either.

"It's as I said. They pulled me out of my cell and asked me what happened, not the other way around. I... couldn't tell them. I think I may have done something?" He sounds more and more frustrated as he tries to figure it out. "But why would I do anything to my own soul?"

110

[soft_focus]

[Well, whatever arguments were or weren't resolved through the night, Reira has decided she's going to do something about...something, somehow. She's in a nice high rank! She can probably afford to...well. Not so much help but advise, maybe? (Not much she can CONTRIBUTE on the production margin after all.)

There are a lot of people here who just don't seem to know How to work, see. She's taken aback however, by Childermass' question.

He's not the sort to forget things she's pretty sure.] ...Mr. Childermass...? [she starts bewhilderedly.]

...We're supposed to do farming things. ...because that's what the faerie who got us wants.

...for now, I guess.

[atouts]

[ That one girl, the one with the empathy, what was her name? Did it begin with an R? Childermass doesn't reply immediately, frowning down at Reira as if, again, trying to figure something out. It doesn't come to him. That's annoying. ]

What the faerie wants... [ He looks away briefly, at the farm around them instead. That doesn't make sense. ] Who? The Ringmaster?

[ That name, at least, stands out, only— ]

No. That doesn't make sense, either. She has a carnival, not a farm.

[soft_focus]

[Oh dear. It's pretty easy to see what's...'wrong'now.] ...you forgot what happened..?

[She can't help but voice it as a question regardless however. It's just unbelievable. What does this even do for the Technicians?? (Assuming it was even their fault.]

When we were all having the vacation, someone called the 'Huntsman' came, and everyone says he killed the Ringmaster! We were all given to 'The Mother of Invention', and now we're at her home.

[...So what if it's a lab, the Mother lives here, therefore it's her home.]

...

...What...do you remember?

[atouts]

The Ringmaster can't die.

[ He's seen her 'die' before. It's just a thing she does.

The rest, though, is a mystery to him and somewhat distressing. He's pretty sure he's heard Mother of Invention mentioned before somewhere, as well, and it has him taking a step back from Reira, attention flitting back to her with fear plain on his face. ]

The Mother of... that's... isn't she from the Winter Court? We're in a Winter faerie's realm?!

[ For now, Reira's own question goes ignored. The very idea of being held by a Winter fae is what immediately arrests all his thoughts. ]

[soft_focus]

Well it's what everyone said, so if she isn't dead then the Huntsman still has her and we have to go save her.

[At any rate she didn't expect that level of...Fear. Even without empathy it's jarring.]

...Maybe..?

...ummm...Mr. Childermass, we should find out what you forgot so that leaving is easier...

[atouts]

[ Fear, unfortunately, takes enough hold that Childermass ends up staring at her like she's done something wrong. It's upsetting, not remembering, and it really isn't some child's fault but... ]

How am I supposed to find out what I've forgotten if I've forgotten it? It's forgotten. I can't know what I've forgotten.

[soft_focus]

Well, it's easy! [For her credit, she's taking this panic Really Well.

Probably because she has to go by facial expressions. And also because she's had pretty much everyone tell her off about how 'wrong' she is the entire time they've been here. She's grown somewhat numb to it all.] What do you remember? The last thing before you got here, today! Whatever comes after that is what you forgot- so we can just ask people about what happened in those times.

[atouts]

Those people... [ He looks off towards where the technicians are. ] They were asking me what happened and now I'm here.

[ Not exactly what she means, though, is it? He takes a deep, shaky breath and turns away, taking a few steps, then turning again, back the other way, pacing as he nervously rubs the knuckles of one hand. ]

There was the bathhouse. I remember that. We freed someone. He was on fire.

Day 113

[whattaprick]

When Childermass bumps into Lambert on the Farm, or seeks him out, he might have to try a bit harder than usual to find him, mostly on account of him being flat on the ground. His exact expression at the moment is difficult to determine, since his face is turned towards the earth, but his hands are digging into the dirt like claws, back arched in agony as his legs spasm nervelessly behind him.

He isn’t making a sound, otherwise, but he is breathing raggedly. Not a good time.

[atouts]

That isn't a sight he's ever wanted to see, Childermass realizes, the very moment he finds Lambert. While he can't quite comprehend why it causes such a visceral reaction right now, memories of who's who and what they mean to him still jumbled, it won't stop him from throwing down the work he'd been carrying in to run to the witcher's side and land heavily on his knees by him, reaching out to touch a shoulder.

"Lambert! Can you hear me?!"

[whattaprick]

The witcher doesn’t flinch at the touch, but it does prompt him to open his eyes from where he’d been squeezing them shut, turning his head enough to look at Childermass with one golden eye.

“Don’t ... shout,” Lambert manages to get out, around gritted teeth. The last thing he needs is for technicians to decide he’s causing too much of a fuss and cart him away for any ‘adjustments.’ His eye shuts again as another shuddering spasm travels down his back, weaker this time.

[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?"

[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.”

[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?”