Network: Video

[dr_riley]

[ The video opens with a fairly standard head and shoulders shot of Drake, who seems to have made himself comfortable at a desk or counter of some sort in the research building. The lighting is much dimmer than the bright flourescent of a regular lab setting, but workable and almost pleasantly ambient. He has a few small desk lamps and behind him are various machines and computers - or at least they look like computers, a few of which seem to be on, as they blink out different colored patterns in the background. There are screens and dials and big, boxy looking equipment scattered around, and who knows if any of it works or what they're meant to do.

He looks annoyed, as per usual.]

Hello! If I could have your attention for just a moment. I don't mean to interrupt everyone's happy fun times, but -

A beach party?!

Really? Right now? That's the response that a threat of this magnitude gets? Did you all miss how insidiously pervasive that complete memory stamp was? Or how it went on for a month, and would have gone on longer if the Agrii hadn't broken through?

Miss Starling wasn't too happy with me for expressing an admittedly prematurely low opinion of you all when I suggested that the ship might be too full of finger paints and coloured pipe cleaners to fit necessary equipment I wanted to bring back from Coruscant.

Well, friends, this idiocy is exactly what I meant. Thank you for confirming that I may as well be on a planet inhabited by talking ficus plants. This is-is-it's...I have never seen this level of incompetence and irresponsibility after such a direct, powerful, multifaceted attack.

I'm trying to find out what caused it and how to prevent it from happening again. And I expected the same or better of everyone else.

Mr. Kaplan provided a list of names of some people who were here during the time a race called the Atroma were present. He thinks they might have had a hand in amplifying the effects of his abilities. So if anyone knows a...

[ He looks down and a scrap of paper comes into view]

...Wanda, a...Soldier? Lance, and Keith? please send them my way, I need to have a chat. Or if you're listening, feel free to get back to me here or leave a message.

If any of you have even the barest hint of a sense of self-preservation, I would appreciate some help. I would ask elsewhere, trust me, but apparantly everyone's lost their minds and there's no one left who isn't a sudden hippy with the memory of a goldfish.

And by the way. The mobile analytic laboratory probe is ready for field work. You're welcome.

Comments

[doubled_speed]

Did he tell you he could help you understand? Help you regain control? Help FIX it so it won't happen again?

That's what they fucking told Frank and Mary to sign on the dotted lines, B.

[wearingthestars]

Tommy, it's not like that. No one is going to fix me. Or weaponize me. Or...any of what they did to you. The only people who have done any of that so far are the ones that made me go down there, and I need to know how to stop it from happening.

[doubled_speed]

I don't agree. No fucking consent to this. Not happening.

[wearingthestars]

Well it's my consent that matters right now. I'm not volunteering to let him cut me open and study my brain. It's just some tests. You don't get to tell me I can't.

[doubled_speed]

And if the fucker messes with your magic? I'm fucking INVOLVED with that. Fucking HIGH chance I only exist because you do, genius. So when you consent to questionable 'scientific' study, you might well be fucking risking me too.

Nope. You can't do it.

[wearingthestars]

That's not fair, you know I wouldn't risk hurting you.

[doubled_speed]

Yet here you fucking are, considering it.

[wearingthestars]

I'm not walking out onto a shooting range. It's a few scans or something. It's not a big deal.

[doubled_speed]

JuSt A fEw ScAnS!

You really fucking don't know how assholes like this work, do you? You come over here and magic yourself into MY memories for a change, Billy, and you see just what 'a few scans' becomes when they decide that isn't enough. Come here and see the fucking scars

[wearingthestars]

THIS ISN'T LIKE THAT. I know what fucking happened to you, okay??? I know.

And this is completely different.

[doubled_speed]

You know. NOTHING.

As your big brother and twin, I'll protect you from your own bad choices. Whatever it takes.

[wearingthestars]

You don't get to decide this for me, Tommy. That's not how it works.

Above Chat Deleted

[doubled_speed]

[Instead of a response the whole conversation thread between Billy and Tommy finds itself deleted. Communication datapoint is FUN.]