Succession

[in_extremis]

WHO: Anyone on the first train out of Temba!
WHERE: Not-Temba, the Not-Transport Station
WHAT: First look at the new city! Tony has some specific things in here he's doing, but you can make it your own first impression experience.
WHEN: As soon as possible after receiving Ga Re's message, time to Ex Floor.
WARNINGS: I'll let you know if this gets weird.


a. Arrival! [OTA! This is a mingle option, so display your preferences accordingly]
The last time they got an urgent message from the Agrii about travel plans, they were headed to space to fight a war. So when Ga Re said far, Tony was not expecting to be standing at the train tracks, staring at the vehicle with some bewilderment. It hadn't been that long since the last time Tony had come this way, and it hadn't looked to him like this station was going to be in service for a good, long time at that point. Even now, as he looked down the tracks to where they disappeared into the woods, he wouldn't confidently say they looked serviceable. Even if the train itself had the juice, it very much looked like a rusty bolt and warped metal was its first and last destination.

That was a problem to solve when they got to it. Tony wasn't the only one ready to find out what was going to happen, and he glanced around the platform to the few people who had dropped what they were doing to come see Ga Re's train with a faint, wry smile, before turning back toward the city to watch for Jon with a flurry of encouraging text messages to spur him on. They had plenty of time already to hang around Temba, it was time to go forward.

The train itself was a sleek tube, like a subway car, lined with seats on the inside that weren't particularly comfortable or inviting. It wasn't giving a long-distance impression, without much room for luggage or travel comforts that a long-haul vehicle might. It didn't even appear to have any kind of control system that Tony could find after some frustrated investigation; just walls and windows and a button to open and close the door, that swished enough times to be irritating before Tony fully gave up on it. He was about ready to apologize for not solving the go puzzle when the car gave a rattle and lurched forward of its own volition, starting its slow roll toward the woods. From there, while Tony bounded for the window to watch Temba disappear behind the foliage, the train rapidly picked up speed, until the leaves were whipping by and then they were suddenly plunged into darkness.

An hour, when you don't know when its going to end or where you are even going, is an incredibly long time.

Abruptly, somewhere deep in that dark tunnel, Tony could feel a snap at the back of his neck, a tingle that numbed the base of his skull enough to touch it gingerly as he realized with a pitch of dread that he couldn't reach out to the network anymore. He reached for Jon's hand first, waiting for a steady breath as he stared distantly out at that endless darkness before he stood to get the rest of the car's attention. With his communication device in hand, he announced, "We've been bricked."

It was possible that Tony should have better prepared for this. It was possible that he should have been ready for the rapidly mounting anxiety as the train burst back out into the sunlight, lashed from all sides once again by the dense, untamed growth of the abandoned planet. And he should have been thoroughly anticipating stepping down from the train as it sighed into the strangely familiar station, and looking back over his shoulder with the realization that they had no control interface, and no way to contact anyone back in Temba.

Were they stuck here now?

b. Transport Station [For Bucky, but you're welcome to join!]
If they were meant to be here for the foreseeable future, the immediate experience wasn't what Tony would call hospitable. He never experienced Temba as it was when the He Rows first arrived, only coming to know it well after some progress had been made and there was clean, running water, and he hadn't realized how thankful he was for that small mercy until he disembarked the train in this new abandoned city. If he didn't have the map to orient himself and assure him that this place was a strange mirror of Temba, he wasn't sure how quickly he would have recognized the shape of the transport station obscured as it was under the tangle of vines and enthusiastic bushes. It took Tony some work to pick his way out of the snarl of it, thorns managing to catch in the seams of his heavy, metal boots and snagging where they met the nanoweb on his thighs, to turn and take in the structure as a whole, looking for a place to start. Where Temba could be shockingly quiet, here Tony could hear a whole cacophony of life calling and chattering high up in the branches of the expansive trees. The air itself smelled sweet with the overripe rot of lush fruit that hung heavily everywhere Tony looked, and littered the ground where more plants yet would grow. Tony wrinkled his nose and planted his hands on his hips. The train wasn't broken, that much was clear. There had to have been a way to make it run.

Comments

a OAT wait OTA

[deal_me_in]

It was probably no surprise at all that the Hunter was among the first to scope out the dilapidated station the moment Ga Re's message had dropped some magical words: Make train go.

The thought that something was beyond those tracks was always something lingering at the back of his mind, popping up now and then but always waylaid by distractions and other things that Cayde never acted out on following them to see where they led. True that plans were being pieced together for it, or at least thrown into the ring for consideration, but this new revelation cut out a lot of the in-between, and even if it was questionable by way of timing, Cayde was never one to complain for an excuse given to explore. Ikora probably heard him shout 'Go time!' before he launched himself off the roof of the clocktower, and Echo were he in his outpost would have seen the Exo do just that.

In no time he was at the station, studying the train. He flashed Tony a grin, not at all surprised to find him among the earlybirds. Not bothering to wait to see who else was coming, Cayde went ahead to board the train and have a look at their apparent mode of transportation. Trains dated back to Pre-Golden Age days, and while he was only a little disappointed that it wasn't steam or coal powered he still couldn't help but imagine those scenes from those old west legends. He was just sad he didn't have a pair of spurs. Or a hat. Of course, neither was he given a warning once the thing started onward, sending him pitching face-first onto the floor. "-ow! Who's driving?!"

The excitement wore off pretty quickly once the train started moving. Hopefully people wouldn't get annoyed by a restless Hunter as in between sitting around he'd be up and down the aisle, crossing cars, sticking his face against the windows. Tony's announcement about them being cut off from the network wasn't something he panicked over, quickly forgotten once they'd finally pulled into another station.

There was no looking back as he bounded out of the train, looking around without much idea of what to expect, but that was half of the excitement, wasn't it? He rubbed his hands together, looking this close to just running off again, but he at least had the mind to check in with the others that had come along.

[in_extremis]

They passed each other like a pair of animals pacing their cage, equally restless and stalking the length of the train like opposing currents. While Cayde's energy crackled with frustrated boredom and he threw himself against the window, though, Tony fizzed with a dark-eyed hunger, like very surface of the train was a window between his teeth and an innocently chirping bird. It wasn't sustainable, of course. It was inevitable that, at some point, Tony would drop to his knees where he thought he could feel the tone of the rumbling wheels change, an extra weight of gears of breaks to more closely examine, and call a sharp-edged facet of his armor from the brick it had been compressed into in the bag tucked under his seat with a beckoning flick of his finger. It wasn't like the carpet was in particularly good repair. Tony could probably tear it up with his fingernails if he was particularly intent on it.

[deal_me_in]

"They could've told us our ETA," Cayde muttered. "If I knew it was going to be this long I would've brought my cards." It was bad enough that they didn't even have the scenery to enjoy for a good chunk of the trip.

By the time Tony was inspecting the floor, the Exo Hunter was sprawled across the adjacent chairs, boots propped up against the seat-backs in front of him as he watched the man curiously.

"We lookin' for loose change?"

[in_extremis]

"You could put on a song and dance, you know, give us a show," Tony suggested, then bit his lip as he wrenched the ragged carpet up away from the floor. What he didn't expect was the slightly springy rubber that didn't quite give under the curious prodding of Tony's fingers, but accordioned ruthlessly together in tiny, tight furrows that pinched at Tony's skin as the train rocked and adjusted its balance. Tony's hand snapped back from its curious inquiry, and he continued to hold the armor plate aloft, like he might strike at the surface if he knew where the weak point was. So distracted, it took him a moment before he answered, "Couple quarters would be welcome. Listen, this thing pulls into a station and there's a row of classic coke machines lined up there, I'd gladly take a couple hours round trip. You have Dr. Pepper? I would sell you to science for a Dr. Pepper right now."

[deal_me_in]

"Hah, you wish," Cayde replied lazily, folding his arms behind his head as he continued to watch. The position he'd chosen to lounge in made it a little difficult, not to mention awkward given how high his feet were. Eventually he swung his feet around and turned himself about, draping his arms over the outermost armrest. There, much better. Sort of. These seats were not very comfortable.

"Sorry, all tapped out. I don't even have a handful of glimmer," he sighed before frowning a bit. "-really? Dr. Pepper? I remember trying that stuff." It was weird still having fake-city memories knocking around your head. Half of the time he didn't realize he was remembering things he had no real reason knowing otherwise. "Is the doctor part in it because it tastes like medicine?"

The Train - OTA

[cannot_flinch]

Ikora handled the train much better than her fellow Guardian. She kept her balance as the train started and settled into the back and forth rocking movement of the car. It was a fairly smooth ride once she got used to the movement.

Trains weren't common transportation in her time. They were at one point. Her Hidden agents reported many ruined transportation complexes around the world with webs of tracks that snaked through the old cities.

Ophiuchus was busy scanning various bits of the car trying to figure out the mysteries of Agrii technology so that perhaps they could fix up more back in Temba without the Engineering data point. The ghost was very frustrated by his inability to connect to Agrii technology.

She started walking through the cars, curious to see who else had come along on this trip.

[beholding_archivist]

While Jon wouldn't go as far as to call the ride on the train meditative, it still has something oddly familiar to it. Not quite the same as taking the tube to work with the collected anxiety about where exactly they are headed filling most of the car, but the tense silent sure is comparable. Jon certainly wouldn't mind having a coffee in his hands just about now.

Tony may have urged him to hurry to the station and he may have been at Jon's side for the start of the ride, but the man has since wandered off, leaving Jon by himself to await the return of the light, indecisive as of which direction to take his own explorations. Catching sight of Ophiuchus' light is a welcome distraction and he offers a small smile up at the Ghost and the guardian that follows shortly behind. "Hello, Ikora."

[cannot_flinch]

"Hello, Jon." Ikora stopped near by with Ophiuchus still at her shoulder. The light from his eye made for an excellent flashlight. It was a bit dark in the tunnel. "It has been awhile since we last spoke."

Though they were often in the same area. Ikora still worked on setting up a problem control center for them in the library.

"You seem... nervous about this." Which was probably the correct response to going to a new city that hadn't been touched in years. Ikora, however, was excited. They needed a chance to explore and get a better idea of the planet they were on.

[beholding_archivist]

"Nervous?" Jon returns with a little tip of his head to the left as if to consider the option. "Hm. Maybe. Though I would say not as nervous than when I was on a train to Great Yarmouth." The last part is offered with a little smile. "What do you think we will find? Aside from more ruins, that is."

Of course he has seen her around the library. And Jon doesn't quite mind the company. Ikora has been good about not intruding into the areas of the building he has claimed as his private parts of the building and the mothcats- Well. Jon can only assume they still consider Ophiuchus their playmate.

The Doctor, Tony, the Train

[doctor_victorious]

"Yeah, well, could have been worse. What do we need technology for anyway? Train's still going, it hasn't stopped, we're not being attacked by anything and at least we're all headed in the same direction."

At some point Tony might find the owner of the voice hidden from immediate view given that he's lying across two seats, intent on a cluster of string between his fingers. "The more important question is how are you at cat's cradle."

[in_extremis]

That sounded incredibly, irritatingly logical while Tony's skin itched and for a moment the only reason he could think to justify the network was that he wanted it. There were perfectly rational reasons to be concerned, though, so Tony couldn't have been concerningly dependent on it; he was just worried about keeping everyone safe, obviously. By the time Tony located the voice, he had quieted the anxious gnawing enough to point out, "People back in the city might want to know what's happened to us." He dropped onto the bench backed up against the one the other man was draped over, where Tony could sit with a knee up on the seat and elbow braced on the headrests between them with his chin in his hand to peer down at the guy. "And we'll have to watch out for each other more closely," he continued. He couldn't keep a hand on Jon the whole time, but hopefully he had figured out from Tony's reaching for him that he should stay close. That was going to slow them down.

The string didn't immediately make much sense to Tony, and he stared at it blankly, not making the connection between it and the man's question. "I wouldn't call myself a nihilist," he guessed after a beat. "But I won't throw you out of the train for it, either." The description of the game itself was fleeting in Cat's Cradle, and Tony hadn't pictured it much like this string. Maybe he would have made a friend to teach him about it if he wasn't busy studying.

[doctor_victorious]

"Yeah that's a point, but we've only been gone...an hour? More or less. We'll get it sorted soon enough. Right now, though, there's the mystery, the adrenaline, cast out into the wild." He sticks his tongue through his teeth in concentration and shifts another thread.

"No one needs to be connected to everyone everywhere all at once all the time. Think of it as an adventure." He grinned at the man at the comment about throwing him off the train. "Wouldn't be the first time. Of course the last time was over the French Alps so this would be a step up. I'm the Doctor, by the way. Hallo."

[in_extremis]

There wasn't really any argument to be had; the appeal of the first train out of the city was supposed to be the adventure, at least until it had them all sitting around for what felt like eight hundred years in a tunnel. It was just starting to get very easy to picture another eight hundred years, and no immediate way to relay back to Temba that the train had been a bad idea.

"Hallo," Tony echoed back with a teasing shadow of a smirk. At least this guy had given him a few questions to fill some of the long minutes. "Pleasure. You can call me Tony, if that's not too intimate. I'm willing to explore the options. Are you here to fix me?"

Transport Station

[thestaremaster]

Stepping out of the train, Bucky begrudgingly realized that maybe sprinting head first into the uncharted territory hadn't been the best idea. The trip had been long enough that he couldn't quite tell what direction they'd come from, the train had no obvious method to activate it, and there was no way to contact anyone back in Temba. Not a great start.

He squinted back in the direction he thought they might have come from, an uncertain frown on his face. "...How far back do you think the signal dropped?" he asked, looking to Stark with a thoughtful frown.

[in_extremis]

"Thirty-seven miles," Tony replied with confidence, and only a beat after allowed for some discrepancy given the inscrutable time and space bending that they had been subjected to thus far with a hand raised to balance, "Give or take." Giving his own pout of consideration, Tony tipped forward to look passed Bucky and down the tracks, rapidly obscured by the foliage, and the mouth of the cave he knew was there. As it was, Tony's first plan wouldn't be to walk the length of the tracks all the way back to Temba, nor his second or eighteenth plan, if he was being honest. Most of them depended on there not being some kind of wormhole in that tunnel that was their only way back.

Tony's first plan was definitely getting control of this train. "Something controls this thing," he insisted, turning the indication of his chin toward the vehicle. "Even if that is somehow not true, it's on tracks. All it really needs is a push."

[thestaremaster]

"Give or take?"

That...was a more exact number than Bucky was expecting to hear with that level of confidence, and he briefly fixed Tony with that curious frown instead of the train. He hadn't got to spend too much time with Stark apart from them trying to kill each other or not be killed by someone else, he'd never quite gotten to see that brain at work.

It reminded him of Howard and his cheek flexed, very deliberately not letting his mind go there.

He turned his attention back to the train and nodded, crossing his arms. "If there's not a driver pushing the buttons where would you put the controls to make something like that go?" This was Stark's area, wasn't it? Innovation. Not that ancient aliens were bound to follow the same logic they might...

[in_extremis]

That look was difficult to read, but Tony still responded to Bucky's skeptical echo with a rapid, "With pleasure," his smirk slower to tick up one side of his mouth and gone with a wave of his hand. The time Tony had gotten to spend with Bucky was far more abstract, various versions and layers of unrealities without one in his own universe to use as a baseline. For all Tony knew, this Bucky was as impressed with Tony's flirting as the one that designated himself Soldier, so the dismissive gesture of Tony's hand ended with a slightly apologetic rest against his heart.

"Ideally, it's nearby," he answered more seriously, but didn't seem entirely convinced. "If I were a manipulative, controlling set designer playing with my toys, it would be entirely remote," he did point out, miming the controller of an RC car and throwing a glance up at the sky and the ship orbiting well outside of reach. "So, let's work back from ideals," he suggested, and started back toward the station to start searching the structure itself. Maybe it was just a cable car, with a control station at either end.

OTA

[usedtobesmoller]

Steve had slipped into the train at the back of a group. Being small and quiet, he was able to go grab a seat and to start his favorite train/subway activity: drawing. He stuck with the train itself instead of drawing any of the other people around. Sometimes people took offense to that and he didn't need to start off on the wrong foot so fast.

He'd just about finished a study of the ceiling when they hit the tunnel and it was too dark to continue. It was then that he heard someone talk about being bricked and Steve blinked, quietly confused.

When the lights came back on and they came to a stop, Steve looked around for any stones before raising his hand and looking around the group.

"Um. I'm sorry, but who's...been...bricked? Do they need medical attention?" If he knows anything it's how to fix up an injury.

[thestaremaster]

Steve was small enough to escape Bucky's notice when he slipped on, and the trip passed without the former friends knowing how close they were to being reunited.

Which made hearing that voice all the more shocking, Bucky's brow creasing before he turned round in his seat to confirm what his mind all ready knew. He was about half the size of the last time he'd seen him, but that was Steve, and his face split into a bewildered grin. Anger could come later, for now it was pure elation, standing and starting back towards him. He seemed to realize a few steps in that he wasn't exactly the Bucky Steve would remember, and he slowed with a bit of an apologetic grimace.

"...Hey Pal."

[usedtobesmoller]

Steve heard the voice and for a second didn't quite believe it was real. For the small amount of time he'd been here he hadn't seen anyone familiar to him. He'd pretty much assumed he would be the only person from his universe here. But that voice he would know in the depths of a coma. That voice was one he knew better than he knew his own.

Steve's head snapped up, eyes wide as they took in a Bucky that was clearly not the one he'd seen off a few months before. But it was still Bucky. And that was enough of a win for now.

"Buck!" He jumped out of his seat and wrapped his arms around his friend's shoulders, tight. It was clear immediately some of the ways those shoulders were different from before but Steve decided to let it go for the moment.

"Oh my God. You're here, too? What are the odds?"

[thestaremaster]

For a moment Bucky was transported back in time, a brief delay before he clapped an arm around him tight and pulled him into his side (very pointedly his right side).

"Odds don't love either us, Steve." He tried to keep it playful, though there was definitely some kind of melancholy to that answer. "I can't believe you're-" He gestured to...well, ALL of him. "When did you-? Why are you on the train?" He can't have been here long and he immediately runs off to get himself into trouble?? It was such a Steve thing to do.

A - Talking Comms?

[doubled_speed]

Well that had been a shitty experience. Tommy hadn't really been able to focus on other people much while he was on the rain, mostly because he'd been wearing down over the relatively small space the train had provided. Yeah, this whole mission for the Agrii really was starting to wear on Tommy's ability to handle stress. So really, it wasn't surprising that he hadn't said very much on the walk over, just finding a space for himself at the end of the train car to get himself a chance to pace. At high speed. Listen, some people don't deal with phobias well.

That said, Tony's declaration actually got Tommy to stop his pacing and pull out his phone. Well fuck.

"You're kidding," Tommy said, his voice a bit broken. No, that doesn't work for him. "No, I... What about if they need us?"

What if they need to get help from Temba?

"I swear to god we need a fucking telepath on this fucking planet."

[in_extremis]

That tone from Tommy was something of a surprise, making Tony raise his eyebrows then frown expectantly, waiting for the course correction to more familiar flippant snark. He hadn't been in everyone's face so far, either, and Tony hardly saw him around since he started to dominate Tony's peripherals with his conversations with Kyle. Maybe getting involved had left him off balance. Tony drew out his own device as he wandered closer to have something to focus on so he didn't look too intent on this emotional response, offering very lightly, "Maybe we went too far underground." After all, it wasn't like the communicators didn't work. Tony could still raise his to find the perfect light as he drew up close to Tommy's shoulder, and snap a selfie with a smile that would have been convincing if it wasn't gone so quickly.

[doubled_speed]

Tony hadn't been there the first time the Agrii had forced them onto the ships. He hadn't heard the truly panicked reaction Tommy had gone through to be trapped in a space he couldn't get out of, even if he wanted to. During his birthday even. Peak nightmare season that, and he'd been unlucky. Wanda had... Well, she had just happened to catch one of his nightmares of course. Which had made it worse. A lot worse.

The moment of seeming normality, though, that had been nice. Very nice. The camera out in the clear universal sign of a selfie? Tommy was ducking into the frame, fingers out in piece signs, tongue sticking out, and then gone again after the snap. Photobombs were nothing unless they were speedster photobombs.

"Could be," he agreed when that was done, though there was still an edge of unease to his voice. "Fucking hate underground. If I'd known the train was going to go down, I'd have run or something. But this seemed more efficient when I didn't know where I was going. But now you know Billy is abosolutely going to get into trouble while I can't call him. Some giant killer man-eating cabbages or something."

The words come out in a tumble, one word almost rushing to get past the other even. Clearly his unease was amping up his anxious rambling in a way that he'd mostly kept in control the last several months.

And worse, he was acting like this in front of Stark. Tommy hated looking bad in front of people he looked up to. You know, mentally, and not the ones that were just taller than him because fucking genetics and being only five-eight and all of that.

[in_extremis]

The expression had been difficult to catch while the picture was taken, but Tony breathed a laugh as he considered the image afterward. The change in Tommy's energy after he had briefly disappeared had been abrupt and regularly unexpected, but he was clearly still as mature as ever. It was a welcome distraction from the itching discomfort that dug a little deeper into Tony's chest at the inability to catalogue the photo in his database.

Tommy had plenty to say, but said it fast enough that Tony had just barely tucked the device away again in his pocket, where his hand remained like the other and he drew his shoulders back, head tilted to parse how much of that was just noise. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "I never once saw any of you on your own back home. Travelled in a pack, inseparable. After, you know..." Tony's hand escape to make a vague, twirling gesture that was supposed to indicate the mask, because he had obviously had a very different relationship with Cassie before the rest of her friends went into action. He wouldn't have been able to say what Tommy and Billy's relationship was like in particular, but the group of the Young Avengers always had each other's backs.