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

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Considering the cloth she's cut from, the people she grew up with, maybe Benji is somewhat used to finding smiles where there aren't any -- like her own, small and repressed, are only so because so few people ever did. In the same way Driver does not beckon her in with invitation, she bends her free hand around the edge of the door, and pushes it open just far enough to fit her narrow frame, and step through.

She separates one mug from the other, careful with the brimming warm in what feels like warmer metal, offering it out. ]

I wasn't sure if you were awake yet, [ she says. Is moved to explain, with a head tip; ] We'll be reaching Olympus soon. Actually soon, not 'just one more day' soon.

[ These kinds of pilgrimages are still new. ]

[Driver only realises he's thirsty, has probably been thirsty for a while, when the sight of the drink's wavering surface tickles the glands in his mouth till they water. The mug warms his work-stiff fingers as soon as he's settled with it. Actually soon is good to hear, too. Despite his abundance of chill, he's been feeling a little cabin crazy in the absence of a window to roll down.]

You excited?

[Still seated down there on the crate, he watches Benji from below while touching his lips to the cup's rim, eyebrows raised like a flag in declaration of deadpan ribbing. How could you not be excited, this was your idea, I am basically human luggage on this voyage. Look, I'm excited. So excited.]

Yes.

[ Aware of teasing, the word is placed down delicately but insistently, a smile cutting a little broader as she goes to find a place to sit as well, bony knees together. ]

Bullet's done a very good job in talking it up.

[ She smiles more with her eyes over at him as she takes a sip of the warm drink. ]

Maybe excitement is surpassed by my relief to be seeing some new scenery, I really couldn't say. Do you hate it?

No.

[This he says after some reflection, waiting for his tea to go down, leaving the crease of his lips wet. He doesn't lick it away; it glints when he talks.]

This's the first time I've... you know. Gone on a field trip. Scenery looks pretty similar so far, though.

[The inside of a cabin. So exotic. Driver's own imagination can go spiralling off in as many directions as it wants, but it all comes back to the same sucking place in his thoughts: everywhere probably looks the same now. The dark, hot, filthy-scrubbed feeling of so many people living in a finite space, no pleasant way to escape each other except by sticking a big spike in their brains and pretending to leave.

For some reason, he keeps wondering how Olympus will smell. Whether the air will feel fresh. Maybe there's water there, natural cave lakes, strange depths still waiting to be discovered beneath the scabs of their poor burned-out planet. New architecture, shapes he hasn't seen in Zion. Terraces and train tracks. Maybe a road.
But really, in all the ways that count, he expects it to look the same.

He looks down into his cup.]

Do you do this a lot?

[ There's a tolerant but not insincere smile for that first observation, showing in creases at her eyes. Yes, yes, it does all look the same now, and she sips tea before she can protest. He'll just have to see for himself what another city is like -- the different energy, the different customs, the different people and ways of life. Those are the things that make a city, after all.

Benji is not an expert on cities, let it be noted. ]

I did. I do, I guess, still.

[ She waves a hand, indicating what is happening in this very moment -- she is, indeed, on a field trip as they speak. ]

Staying in one place, it's like reading the same book over and over. A good book, and it's familiar and comfortable but, you know. I didn't, um, back in the Matrix, I didn't get to travel a lot, but I knew people that did. Pilgrimages to Canada, or out into the Midwest. It wasn't my-- I guess it wasn't my job. And now it can be.

Not that I'm quitting the Dock any time soon.

[Driver's eyebrows lift in anticipation of what he's about to say, the cup only just leaving his lips again.]

You can quit? And I've been workin there this whole time? Man...

[Humour's good for opening like an umbrella against sincerity. Not that he minds sincerity too much—he just doesn't always know what to do with it. But anyway, they're talking. Hopefully Benji's laughing—or looking like she's laughing inside, the way they do, that's fine too.

He should probably say something else.]

I did some travelling. You know, before.

[ Laughing on the inside is right; a warmer set of microexpressions, suppressed and polite and dainty. But she senses he might say more, and doesn't interrupt.

And he does. Minimally.

It's enough, anyway, a nudge open of an avenue of conversation that Benji opens her mouth to pursue when the lights go out. Instead of words, there's an intake of breath, soft and sharp, and stillness from her. The engines have hushed to the bare minimum thrum. Like someone tripped over a very important power cord. ]

We're dark.

[ And she means that in a more military, precise sense. To say it 'could be anything' is not all the way correct -- it is almost always machines. ]

[We're dark, Benji says, and the hollow of dumb shock just under his ribs fills with something cold, blossoms outward, tightens every muscle it touches, a wash of tingling up the back of his scalp. He can feel the clarity of his newly adrenalized gaze, though it's useless. This tactic, going dark, he's used it before, but on a much smaller scale and in much smaller vehicles—apparently it feels a lot different when you're not behind the wheel. Also, the cops in his neighbourhood didn't usually rip your shit apart with telescopic limbs. So that's an added concern.

All he can offer in reply is the soft sound of fabric moving, the sense of his body's shape rising calmly before her, and remaining there in tense readiness.]

[ Benji has her own associations, but in truth, she's been on these hovercrafts enough times that that her association is now native. Still, there will always be little memories -- twisting the valve on a lantern with the water quiet and inky, or hiding beneath the floor with dust and spiders. Even then, that had felt more like something from the animal kingdom, predator and prey. The machines were so different. And she has only heard stories.

There's the soft, if clumsy sound of her placing down tea wherever seems convenient and available. Her breathing isn't quicker, but it is a little louder, the only give away that she's stood at all.

They wait there, waiting for god knows what.

Then, the sound of boot falls. Two sets. Crew moving, headed the same direction. ]

The bridge?

Yeah.

[Probably, he means, but an economy of syllables feels wise, even if it isn't entirely necessary. Is it like a submarine, like in a movie, where one cough could kill them all? Probably not, or people wouldn't be moving around the hallway. Maybe there's some auxiliary glow out there, but it's dark as hell in here—he'd better mind his feet so he doesn't go tripping over another, less important, power cord.

He turns his head toward where he thinks Benji is, aware of the minute muscular confusion as his eyes try to focus on anything, find nothing.]

Let's go.

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

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