[OPEN to civilians] mod plot | sacking of olympus: merchants' voyage

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CHARACTERS ▶ Civilians aboard the Dowager
LOCATION ▶ The Gates of Olympus, at least to start with
SUMMARY ▶ Entry text features several backtag-friendly hooks that summarize 48 hours of travel and the arrival to Olympus. Feel free to start your own threads! Two more threadstarters will be added: 1) the 'sacrifice' thread, as the RNG was completed tonight (6/15/15) and Kitty was selected; and 2) the debate among crew and passengers of the Dowager about what to do before the Zion Defense Grid arrives.
WARNINGS ▶ PG-13 to R for non-graphic descriptions of violence
NOTES ▶ This is the civilian part of the Sacking of Olympus plot.

▶ Sacking of Olympus Part I

Travel Time ◀

[It's only a two-day journey, and these civvie hauls are very different from any Zion Defense Grid mission. To the taste of most people, it is considerably more pleasant. Sure, the Dowager is small, but you get used to close quarters in Zion. The crew is small and accustomed to their diversity of roles; passengers only have to share rooms if they're cheaping out, and it's not hard to find a bit of engine crawlspace or a crate serviceable to sit on in the supply hold, if you desperately want privacy.

For those who mind company less, Bullet sits them down to dinner both nights, pretends not to notice Old Man Willow tipping moonshine into every willing cup, asks lots of questions but not the kind that would bother most people, obviously just looking for an opportunity to tell stories. She's shipped out to Olympus seven times in the past year, thinks it's gonna make her rich. She warns Anya that Antiochian kids are going to be the real bastards for discipline, but somehow the Irkallans are the most beaten-up to look at, will fall quiet at the faintest sharpening of a word. Perhaps misunderstanding, she gets into telling Stephen all about the beautiful boys that came into Olympus last month, before inquiring savvily with Benji about the cost of a custom crew tattoo, you know, like a logo, and she's already got some good ideas, not noticing her pilot Xerxes making throat-cutty-no-no motions behind her.

Bullet doesn't prod Bloom and Driver too much, but she ends up asking Kitty how old she is and if she prefers blonds or brunettes, so. that's. weird. she doesn't even drink.

The best part is probably the food. For one thing, it's not the infamous ZDG protein slop; for another, Bullet has no objections to Willow asking Kitty for advice or a helping hand in the narrow galley. He explains that they take a quarter of their fees from produce and food supplies. The time passes quickly, and after the first day, even Xerxes, Willow, and the taciturn gearhead Quartz start to get to talking too, about the constellation of farm lights in Kosala, vegan silk, pirate gore, and of course-- Olympus.]

Final Destination ◀

[Most of the subterranean human civilizations of Earth are like Zion, fortified holes in the ground, like massive burrows that bear little resemblence to the cities of old.

Not Olympus. This section of sewer system had run through miles of intermingled granite and limestone, which no doubt would have been converted to a mine at some point in the impending decades. That is, you know, if humankind hadn't suddenly and spectacularly lost the war. Olympus is a city in the old style, taking advantage of the massive series of inter-linked caverns that ancient sewer engineers had created long ago. Neighborhoods consist of squat, simple, but strong buildings bricked out of coarsely hewn stones, its boulevards in concentric circles emanating from a central square. Mines and processing factories are cordoned off into neat industrial sections, like wedges of a pie between the newer residential areas. There's no farmland and every boulevard is lit as artificially as the next human settlement, but it had its austere, nostalgic loveliness.

Had.

From the city's open gates, the Dowager passengers can see that the light rising from the city is too orange for electric lamp-light. Something's very wrong. Of course, there had been signs earlier: no response to the hails on the comms. Then the wreckage. If the bulbous, black drones scattered below her front lights aren't telltale sign enough, there are also broken APUs, damaged barricade tech, an exploded transport there, and a couple human corpses so thoroughly dusted over they're almost indistinguishable from the ruined metal.

You'll have to be at a port side window, to be the first one to notice the blood-red sign REAPER painted on an upturned chassis, right before Bullet gives the order.] Turn off the goddamn lights! [She hisses, her voice already bitten back with restraint, despite that nothing functional seems to be within range of auditory detection, and these drones don't look as efficient for the hunt as Sentinels.] We're going cold, now. Xerxes, take us--

--On it, ma'am. [And at the same time the ubiquitous mumble of the engines abruptly cuts down to near-silent, the Dowager's lights go out.

Except for the eerie firelight glowing through the bridge viewport, and the faint swarm of insectoid silhouettes high above the city skyline. The pilot ducks the Dowager down behind a mound of rubble still bristling with sparking electrical wire, in hopes the guttering remains will provide cover and disguise their residual heat signature. At first, those in the bow might think the fritz of electronics outside is throwing static into Xerxes' comms console, but it's not too long before the educated tech can tell: there's something jamming their signals.]

Comments

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Lizzie. Liz, come in.

[Only she can hear the voice, sudden through the burst of static inside of her own skull. There's a quality to the way Quartz says her name, as if this isn't the first or second time he's screamed at her across the line so far, but it's faint to her hearing under the wash of white noise sinking into her ears.]

Liz, we're getting some unusual neuro-kinetic activity here and your BP is 145/85. Liz? Lizzie, that's pretty high--

[Somewhere in the Real, Bullet is bent over Quartz's shoulders, an instant from snatching off his headset and sharpening his questions into an order. Fear makes people hard, sometimes. Some people.]

[alsohawkeye]

From the place with the sweets. You did that ad.

[ The face and the name snap into place in Kate's mind that second after Fenris says he knows her; that would probably have been enough for Kate, but managing recognition on her own definitely helps. She drops her hand from behind her back but lets it linger on her hip, because while Lizzie doesn't seem to need shooting something here is still clearly not right.

Hawke's suggestion gets a quick nod and she heads quickly inside, though not quickly enough to catch Kitty when she stumbles. Hawke or Fenris is closer and Kate's lunge-step forward is more to draw their attention to the issue (no doubt unnecessary) than get in their way. ]

Come where?

[ The question is sharp, sharper than Quartz in Lizzie's head, and urgent. ]

What's going on? Is it-- [ she fumbles a moment, to get the idea clear in her head, to find the right words. Lizzie's talking around the truth for some reason and while she's generally a cut to the chase sort of person Kate will try to keep the code going a little longer if possible. ]

Is it the thing we were warned about? One two three four?

[rathercommon]

[ Quartz's voice in her mind - the content of what he's saying is lost on her, because he's speaking the way he would to any operative, and she doesn't know those words, but she understands the tone. Kate's voice, too - a series of questions, one after the other. And below that, softer, in neither her ears here nor her ears in the Real, another voice. Oh, Kathleen, what are you doing? ]

Shut up a moment.

[ She mumbles that aloud only here, but she's speaking to all three. It takes her a moment - a long moment - to disentangle her thoughts and set aside what doesn't matter. Mum gets ignored fiercely, without hesitation, just as she was in life. Quartz...No. Quartz gets ignored, too. They've sent her through; would they be able to get someone else in, even if they were able to pull her out? She's here, she's going to do this. So that leaves Kate's questions to focus on.

What a strange question, though. One two three four... Kitty's brows draw together. One two three...? What on earth is Kate going on about? It's clearly some code of her own, but - After a moment of baffled squinting, some spare bit of memory blossoms, some connection is made, and Kitty remembers the Oracle's message on the network - forgotten in the rush of preparing all the goods her cafe was sending to Olympus, in the charm and delight of speaking with the Dowager's lovely crew, in the panic of the attack and the fight to be allowed to go. Is that was this is? Of course - it came quickly, without warning shots, broke the peace brokered by Neo those years ago.

If that's the case, then...what does that make you, Kitty? In that scheme of one-two-three-four?

Her expression finally clears as she understands. And she gives a little bob of her head, a grunt of confirmation. ]

Yeah.

[ Then, awkwardly - ]

Erm - sorry for telling you to shut up.

[ Right. She takes a breath. ]

Do you know that town - Olympus? Out way to the west. I just got word - some people were trying to travel there, you know, but when they got there, they saw that things had gotten really cocked up. There'd been that war, you know, and there was supposed to have been a truce, but when they got there they saw that there was a raid going on. A really, really big one. My friends going there say that they need help - so I said I'd find some people who'd notify people in charge. Because from the sound of it, it's going to be more than just a bit of back-up needed; they're going to need a whole bloody army - Um.

[ She feels, suddenly, like she's been frozen. The faces of the people around her recede; she can feel every millimeter that her tongue moves in her mouth, every tiny rush of air past her teeth...Then the feeling recedes, and Kitty suddenly, abruptly, sits down on the floor.

Appearances, Kathleen, Dad seems to say into her ear. ]