[OPEN] mod plot | sacking of olympus: harbinger descends

[unplug]

CHARACTERS ▶ All characters opting in
LOCATION ▶ Olympus
SUMMARY ▶ The Zion Defense Grid with civilian relief corps arrive at 1100 6/18, and Commander Gwisin gives the orders for rescue, assault, and investigation. This log is player-run and includes The REAPER simulation option (1 of 3) in the Matrix, as well as rescue activity in the Real. Kill some zombies, save some abducted babies.
WARNINGS ▶ Violence and reference to human experimentation, possibly R.
NOTES ▶ This is Part II of the Sacking of Olympus plot. Questions/investigation here, for example, what happens when you shoot compartment x of the centipede

▶ Sacking of Olympus Part II

REAL: THE ZIONITE RESCUE OPERATION ◀

Gwisin's orders are terse over the comms, two hours before the fleet makes Olympus. Make contact and communication to the best of your ability, restore comms if possible. Provide emergency care, fire control, and evacuation, before the unidentified bogey arrives at city center.

Pandemonium reigns over the populace of Olympus, civilians trapped by fires, drones, and debris. Olympus’ forces have rallied but remain thin on the ground, and the Zionite reinforcements are direly needed. Electronic communications remain down except for the Matrix pirate signal, darkening the panic and despair that have descended over the city; REAPER drones harry every human or ship that tries the ground or air.

Organizing this wide-scale rescue in the face of explosions and still-unexplained abductions comes down to ingenuity and manpower.

REAL: HARBINGER DESCENDS ◀

Thirteen hours after the Zion rescuers arrive in Olympus, the Harbinger does too. The cavern ceiling, dead center, cracks, crumbles, boulders the size of hovercrafts hammering down on the city center. By now, thankfully, the heart of the city is empty of civilians, but as the Machine breaks through, it's instantly clear that isn't going to be enough.

Harbinger is massive. Digging mandibles up front could eat a squid whole, and have room left over to total a hovercraft; its name emblazoned on red on each segment. Scarlet optics glow against its black chassis, and drones flush out of the gasping ports in its sides the same way insects give birth in dozens. Ponderous but unmistakably powerful, the centipede-shaped robot crawls out into a dangle into empty air. Keeps dropping its head toward the city in neat, clockwork degrees, almost elegantly, to let itself down onto the rubbled cavern floor. Erratic gasps and comments sound off across the disrupted networks: the oldest of the humans, civilian or otherwise, have never seen a Machine like this in the Real.

But maybe you remember dreaming a monster like this, from another lifetime.

Pilots throughout the city gun their engines, preparing for a feat of comms-blind synchronization. The battle truly begins.

MATRIX: REAPER COMBAT FREE-FOR-ALL ◀

When the Harbinger arrives, the Matrix pirate signal augmentation doubles in strength. Triples. The operator reports start to come in, distorted from the REAPER signal jamming, but unmistakable. There's a simulation out there, like a bridge to-- what? The Matrix? The programming language carries unmistakable similarities to the Dowager's feed from Kitty Jones' call to the Atalanta, but there's nothing specifically like that strange, consuming pattern in the girl's neuro-output. At least, not on this level of the sim. Not yet.

Jack in, and the first thing you see is the cold belly of a spaceship. What you hear are the screams, bouncing echoes off catwalks and cold corridors. Next, figures coming in a wave of seemingly unstructured attack. In the vanguard, the Husks, screaming zombies-- sinewy, discolored flesh mingled with useless tech components and bioluminescence. Not far behind, the bulbous Scions with their single energy weapons. Bringing up the rear, the Banshees float in deceptively slow at first, only to accelerate into a dazing flash of teleportation, skeletal-faced, real death waiting in their razor hands.

One thing is certain: they're guarding something, though where in the recesses of this ship, the operator must largely guess.

Comments

[dissent]

Despite the reception he's received, he does pull, letting his weight fall backwards and pressing hard with his legs, because he's not remotely strong enough to haul her up with just his biceps alone, and he never learned the force magic specialty that messes around with gravity. He pants hard, and his feet slip a little, but eventually he hauls her to a better height for clambering to safety herself.

Still, he doesn't let go until he sees all of her on the platform with him, longer hair and dark clothes and all, and then he falls back. His black robes are all rucked up awkwardly, and one of the feathers from his pauldrons is caught in his blond hair (Anders always wears the same thing in the Matrix, the same outfit he wore for years because, you know, video games. Though he does also look inexplicably younger, like his self perception doesn't extend to the faint early strands of silver he has in the real, or the crows feet in the corners of his eyes.)

"Don't thank me for saving your life or anything," he mutters, bitter.

[hacker]

As soon as her shoulders were up high enough, she assisted him, hoisting herself up onto the platform with her free hand. She threw herself flat on the metal, rolling onto her back and groaning. A roll of her shoulder dispelled some of the tension that placing all of her weight on it at a dangle had caused, but it only reminded her of how sore it would be in the—

Well. If that kind of thing translated to the Real, anyway. She realized then that she didn't quite have the experience to know where these things were concerned.

But Anders was talking, and she didn't much like thinking on it anyway, so she struggled up to her knees, breathing hard. The rifle was a loss, and she peered down off the ledge she'd almost fallen from after it.

"Saving my life," she scoffed, looking back over her shoulder at him. "Considering how many you ended in a terrorist attack, you'll have to forgive me for not jumping at the chance to thank you." The snide remark, it seemed, did not preclude the possibility of working with him, because she paced a few steps over, then pulled her handgun from the holster she wore on her hip, scoping the top level for enemy creep, then glanced back at him over her shoulder. "Where the hell are all these things coming from?"