revivalproject | March Catch-All

Entry tags:

March Catch-All | Network/Action

WHO: Dustin, Barrys, various people
WHERE: Network, Sh'Ka, Temba, all over the place
WHAT: Dustin discovers some stuff and complains about it. Also, he's building things again.
WHEN: Through the first half of March
WARNINGS: Dustin. Will add as needed.

1. Network | Video/Text | OTA

[It's nearly impossible for Dustin to think of a situation where broadcasting his location, live, over an Agrii-monitored network, could possibly be a good idea. Nearly impossible. But this planet is always full of surprises.]

[This is one of them. The camera cuts on to show Sh'Ka's iconic palace - or where it should be, based on the unusually large patch of short grass growing here amidst the massive trees. What remains instead is a giant pile of rubble. The camera pans around it for about thirty seconds, in complete silence, to show the scale of the destruction before shutting off.]

[Captioning it, in Dustin's characteristic pithiness: ]

What the fuck happened here?

2. Sh'Ka | Closed for Barrys

The Palace had been an incidental observation on his way to a greater project - something that Dustin has had in the works since last fall, actually, and was forced to put on hold when the winter's snows kept him isolated to Temba. Barry intel.

The 'hive' of Barrys he's been focusing on seems to be an especially active one that lives in the walls of Sh'Ka's Agriculture Building, and Dustin is pleased to note that the colony's drones are still alive and stomping around after Agra-10's deep freeze. His offerings today are perhaps lackluster compared to the ones he's left in the past, but unfortunately he has to make due with the small winter and early spring berries he's scavenged on the way here, with a handful of dried summer fruits to supplement. The small pile is left next to a trail Dustin has observed the workers frequently using.

Then there's nothing else to do but sit back several feet away, crouched in the shade of a young fruit tree, and wait.

3a. Workshopping | Closed to Donatello

The lack of snow and warming temperatures mean that Dustin isn't nearly so restricted in where he goes and what he gets done, but that hardly means he's avoiding his typical haunts. If anything, his workshop requires special attention right now; his telescope motor needs to be finished and installed when the nights are still cool and clear, while still avoiding patches of ice or snowmelt mud that could hinder its transport. That window is rapidly approaching and won't stay open for long.

It's one of those days of harried work, when he's spent hours fiddling with the code on his tablet, napped, snacked, then coded a bit more, losing track of what time of day it is save the little streaks of daylight streaming in through the boarded-up windows of his shop, when Dustin gets a single knock on his door. He straightens abruptly from his shrimp-like hunch over his communicator and waits.

Three seconds later, there are two more knocks.

Ah. Dustin hops out of the chair behind his workbench - what used to be a checkout counter - and strides to the door. "I hear you," he announces, loud enough to carry through the thick masonry walls. "Gimmie a sec to unlock the door."

A few extra manual locks have been added since midwinter. There's a series of at least five clicks, scrapes, and pops, then the door cracks open and Dustin peeks around to make sure it's Donatello on the other side.

3b. Demolition | Closed to Link

Finally, finally, the motor is complete. That just leaves the part Dustin had been dreading the most: Getting this fucking massive thing installed back in the stadium light he took it from. Getting it out and into his shop last year had been a production in itself, which is a lot of the reason why he'd been anxious about repeating the process in reverse. At least then he didn't have to worry about breaking it in transport last time - the thing already didn't work. But now it's got all kinds of delicate bits on it for precision lens movement and rotation, and Dustin's spent a lot of time on the initial calibrations while pairing it to the tracking program he wrote on his tablet.

He could have moved it again on his own, yes. Though the more he thinks about that process now, the more he's thankful for Link's offer to help instead.

Link will get that call in the early morning, about an hour before dawn, in the form of a picture of Temba's map sent to his personal inbox. The intersection between buildings Orange 8 and 9 has been circled in bright red. This, rather than his workshop proper, is where Dustin waits for Link to meet him, leaned against the rubble of Orange 8's walls and shivering against the lingering evening chill.

3c. Construction | Amphitheater | OTA

Once he and Link have extricated the motor from his workshop, rolled it to the Amphitheater, and reset it in the modified spotlight housing he left behind last fall, that just leaves getting the newly-minted telescope working again. Dustin spends the next week more or less living here to get this done. A decent chunk of that time is spent just cleaning up the old observation room he stayed in last year, and scrubbing the rust and debris off of the spotlight after three months of neglect.

Then, testing. Hours upon hours of testing. Some of this Dustin can do during the day, where he calibrates the motor and lenses by sighting in distant objects at the edges of Temba, but a lot of it has to wait for nightfall. Then he can start combining his mental star maps with his makeshift tracking software to have the telescope follow stars across the sky. This is a more passive process, where he sits back, takes measurements of the telescope's current position, checks the sighting scope and compares it to the observation piece, sometimes makes adjustments to one or both, then breaks to scarf down some dried Baconroom and wait for another thirty minutes in silence. It might seem like tedious work, but the entire time Dustin is practically vibrating with excitement, even if someone unexpected shows up in his workspace. Eight Agra-10 months of planning and naked-eye observation are finally paying off.

5. Spores | Various Locations | OTA

Dustin's final task for spring is one that happens between all the rest, generally when he's going from one location to another. The shortest path is always the preferred one, of course, but this month he's been going out of his way to take odd routes, circling areas that people don't frequent often, where he spots new plant growth starting to sprout with the warming temperatures. And where he goes, Dustin carries a jar with a sieved lid, filled with a powdery, partially aerosolized red substance. He pauses periodically to tap the jar over these islands of greenery, makes sure that a fine mist coats wherever he stops, and then, apparently satisfied with his work, continues on his way.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Sure you got enough locks there?" Donatello greets. While there's a lot less snow, the weather's still chilly enough that he's glad he's invested in replicating a coat (purple, of course), pants and boots. He's also wearing the sweater Dustin had managed to scavenge for him early on, the end of it ragged from where the turtle teen had decided having two feet extra material was getting in the way and trimmed it, but despite the unravelling look, he kind of liked it. Fashion.

Hands stuffed into his coat pockets, he pushes away from the wall he'd been leaning against, casting a glance around before looking back at Dustin expectantly with a quirk of his brow.

"No," Dustin answers immediately, deadpan; given the returned quirk of an eyebrow and the slight tug at the corner of his mouth, it might be difficult to tell if he's being serious or not. "Plenty of space to add more."

Either way, he pulls the door open enough for Donatello to let himself inside, waving over his shoulder and wandering into the mess. And it is a mess. Organizational efforts have gone by the wayside in the face of an impending deadline, tools and partially decomposed scrap and electronics littering the floor, sometimes haphazardly stacked into piles to maximize floorspace, other times just abandoned if they aren't in the way. Two particularly notable work areas seem more tornado-like in their states of disarray: The very obvious giant telescope motor taking up the front wall, the rollers swapped for sturdier jacks that allow Dustin to test its movement before installation; and a weird, skeleton-looking machine against the opposite wall, human-sized, with obvious holds for hands and feet. Some kind of suit, perhaps? It's been opened up in places, wires and circuit boards strewn out for examination.

Winter's chill hasn't completely left Temba, so the space heater next to the motor is still on, radiating a pleasant warmth throughout the workshop floor.

"Come in I guess," Dustin calls without looking behind him. "Close the door behind you, it'll lock on its own."

"Guess adding a secondary vault door would require more resources," Donnie notes, eyeballing the area around the doorway once he steps inside, mostly out of curiosity to see how possible that would even be. He pushes the door closed, nodding once he hears it click shut before turning to properly take in everything.

...and it is a lot to take in.

Donatello prefers a more organized workspace himself, but who is he to question the obvious chaos left in the wake of progress? And progress stands very noticeable there in the form of that beautiful motor. The other machine? That's an unexpected bonus, a curiosity that hasn't been divulged to him. Yet.

The warmth is welcome and already comfortable enough once the chill is locked outside that the turtle starts shrugging out of his coat and pulls off his hat, looking for somewhere near the door to leave them where they won't get swallowed up in the mess before he carefully wades between piles to get closer to the motor.

"Is this it? Impressive..." And he does mean that, because he's already noticed how slim the pickings are in the city for something like this, as well as acknowledged the fact that one doesn't simply slap together telescopes or their motors without having some idea of the inner workings of them.

Observation would show that adding an interior vault door would be a tight, but not impossible squeeze, although it seems that Dustin has gotten just about as close as possible to having one without it. There are lines of physical locks at different points on the door and wall next to it, with at least one electronic lock that seems to activate the primary deadbolt. That's the one that clicks into place when Donatello closes the door behind him.

There is not a place to hang a coat. Dustin's own coat - the now somewhat tattered-looking gathering gear from Eorzea - is draped over the back of his chair at his workbench, and he doesn't seem to have considered where guests would put theirs. Why would he? Except for Omega and the occasional unexpected cat visit through the flap built into the workshop's back door, he doesn't have guests.

Dustin walks straight towards the giant motor; it's what the turtle had asked to come see, after all. "Real bastard to transport here," he grunts, as an acknowledgement of Donatello's awe. "Not looking forward to moving it back."

At least Donnie comes prepared, not that he'd ever anticipated having to provide his own coatrack at someone's place. He pulls out his familiar tech-bo, extending it with a switch and with another tap has the lower end split into a tripod and the upper separate into something of a hook-hangar, which he promptly stands by the door and takes care of his coat business.

"Oh, I'll bet. At least you're not trying to haul stuff into a sewer. Getting stuff to my lab back home could be a real pain sometimes."

He stands in front of the heater to warm up his hands. Gloves were one thing he hadn't been able to replicate in his initial round of replications, and fingerless gloves, while stylish and supportive where it counts do not really do much for keeping your four fingers and two thumbs warm. "Well, at least you know it can be moved back since you got it here in the first place. But looking at this baby I definitely can see your concerns re: mud. Any idea how long the seasonal shifts usually are? At least the main roadways are more or less paved. Hey, how lame is it that we're on an alien planet and they don't seem to have any sort of hover technology we can retrofit?"

The sounds of mechanical sliding and clicking at least gets Dustin to turn around, more out of paranoia than curiosity, but it morphs into that pretty quickly once he recognizes the source. Apparently it's more than just a weapon...interesting. Maybe he can negotiate a trade to study how it works.

Something to consider later. "Yeah - might be like moving it through a sewer if I transport it at the wrong time," Dustin sniffs. He could see himself maybe following a similar path as Donatello had, if he was still back on Earth and decided to make a home base somewhere; a sewer would be an excellent location to avoid unwanted visitors, while still having access to electricity and other resupplies, like food. He'd probably even get used to the smell, eventually.

"Seasonal shifts follow a temperate climate model, with exaggerated peaks," Dustin notes. He settles to hover at the edge of Donatello's periphery, leaning back against the edge of his workbench to watch the turtle's movements. "I'd fuckin' riot for a hovercraft. The Agrii probably used similar tech in their spaceships, but..."

He lets out a tch of annoyance.

"...Shit's locked down. Data points and perception bullshit. Haven't been able to figure it out."

Once his hands have been attended to, Donnie turns to look over the machinery again. "It hooked up to any power?"

He makes a face as once again the whole concept of data points is brought up. "Ugh," he says with great emphasis that makes it quite clear his feelings on that whole deal. "That is still so incredibly lame. I guess eventually I'll just bite the bullet and see how that all works, but that's a last resort as I haven't yet attempted to take any supposed Agrii-tech apart."

Dustin nods, twisting around to grab his communicator, but doesn't immediately launch into a demonstration; he's got to tie up a few loose ends on his script and be annoyed about data points first.

"It's basically required if you want to get anything productive done around here," the boy grumbles while his fingers dance over his tablet's screen. "At least I've been able to disassemble enough old tech for parts to skip over Engineering, but my hand was kinda forced with Communications. Fucking blows, man. One of these days the Agrii are gonna activate a sleeper program in my brain, I just know it."

Donatello doesn't bother to hide a shudder at the possibility of something more nefarious connected to those data points. Sure, it's fine boosting his brothers' intellects to be on par with his (and then find out that was a horrible mistake and make them dumb again) but his own brain is precious and everything he is practically hinges upon it.

"I suppose I don't mind too much but I accidentally snagged Agriculture. As much as I love botany, I doubt it's going to be very helpful for figuring out anything relevant to our problems."

At first Dustin winces in sympathy - Agriculture definitely wouldn't have been his first choice, either, and he's way too antsy about the potential side-effects of swapping data points to suggest simply changing to something else - but a second's consideration about his other projects makes him pause.

"...I wouldn't be so sure about that," Dustin hums, tilting his head. "There are parallels between how the non-indigenous flora and civilizations have been influenced by...huh."

He trails off, eyes flickering oddly as his brain works. Even his fingers, so far diligently tapping away at his communicator, slow to a halt.

You can't just trail off when you're starting to say something interesting. Donnie looks back at Dustin expectantly, confused at first, and then curious as the silence stretches on.

"Influenced by what?" he prompts after a moment or two. What's with the eye movement? Some version of REM but in an awake state? The softshell tilts his head.

And much like someone awoken from sleep, Donatello's prompting has Dustin snapping to attention, his eyes refocusing in an instant.

"--Oh. Getting ahead of myself," he answers with a dismissive shake of his head, before he tilts it back down to the communicator to pick up where he left off on his code. Dustin considers leaving it at that for a few, silent moments, but then thinks better of it. The chances of the turtle letting the topic drop seem slim.

"Just, ah," Dustin continues in a murmur. "Something Stark said. The storms cause rapid mutations in plants that aren't native to the planet - often negative - and he mentioned that they could be affecting us the same way. If we could isolate exactly how the flora is being affected, and how the spores are able to reverse that process...maybe it could be applied to ourselves, or the Agrii. An inoculation, of sorts."

"What doesn't this storm do..." Donnie mutters, frowning.

"Wait, what spores, where did spores come from- eyew don't tell me we've been inhaling foreign substances this whole time. My goggles aren't programmed to scan for that level of contamination, ugh, 'nother thing to add to the list."

Dustin sighs, then shoots Donatello a deadpan stare.

"You're on an alien planet, fuck knows where, and you think you've been inhaling foreign substances?" He rolls his eyes. "Whatever. As far as I can tell nothing has been changing our essential biology - might be a better question for someone with Medical. The spores seem to help the plants, though. Funfronds make them, I've synthesized and tested my own, haven't noticed any adverse effects. I'd be curious to see what information you expertise provides on their composition and what exactly they do to the plants, though."

For a moment Donnie looks like he's about to be sick at that point. "Hrggh..." He shakes his head, trying not to think about it. He shudders as he forcefully directs his attention to more pertinent things, if after a mental note to try slapping together an air purifier.

"Funfronds. Is that actually their name or yet another casualty of less than scientific naming practices? That aside, studying the effects of these...mmf spores on
plants shouldn't be difficult. I would just need the proper equipment to do so."

Dustin pointedly ignores Donatello's dramatics. It's hard for him to relate to a reaction like this; he did grow up in and around a medical clinic, learning about all of the different pathogens that could infect people and the horrible ways that they made them die, but he also has a set of chips in his body that speed his immunity gain by several orders of magnitude above the norm. Consequently, what would have been severe mysophobia has instead developed into a knowledgeable confidence of what is and is not safe.

So he continues, heedless. "Unfortunately the latter," Dustin answers with another eyeroll. Stupid Agrii 'Dictionary.' "What kind of equipment are you expecting? Chemical analyzer? DNA extractor?" He glances up, his eyebrows arcing with just the slightest hint of mischief. "Gardening shears?"

The kid grew up in the sewers and reads comic books with gloves on so his priorities are all over the place, really.

Donnie makes a face at the naming conventions, his expression flattening as he looks over to Dustin in regards to equipment. "Well I wouldn't object if those things were available but I highly doubt it, so I will default to standard items such as tubes, glasses, tanks, tweezers and the like will suffice if I can find them." He snorts, sticking his nose up just at touch. "Gardening shears might come in handy but they would have to be sterilized."

Dustin huffs a quiet laugh, but his eyes flicker away a second later and the moment passes, his thoughts returning to more serious endeavors.

"You're right," he sighs. "Most of that stuff isn't available. I've thrown together some shit that works well enough--"

Dustin gestures vaguely at his workshop floor, as if Donatello ought to be able to pick out the tools he's referring to within the clutter. There are clumps of it scattered around, and a lot of it is in the vein of what the turtle has asked for - racks of test tubes welded from scrap metal, what looks to be an improvised Bunsen burner, lots of precision tools on his workbench surrounding delicate-looking electronics. A keen eye could isolate them well enough.

"--But it's entirely analogue, and more geared towards replication and results rather than deeper analysis," he admits with a shrug. "Not that I don't want to, just. Haven't had the fucking time."

Straightening to look back towards the rest of the workshop, Donnie needs very little further invitation to redivert his attention to scanning over the mess again now that he has an idea of what he should be looking for. He gestures, an unspoken question of 'may I?' as he picks his way closer to some of the things.

"I know how that is. So many projects, so little time. The rest of the fam is slacking and you're typically left actually trying to work things out because no one cares or knows what they're supposed to be looking for," he sighs as he picks up the test tube rack, studying it with a critical eye. It's not pretty but it's functional.

"Since I have the particular data point expertise, I shall make the most of it until it seems necessary for me to acquire another. Ugh, I'll need a microscope, won't I. I need to make a list." He pats around his belt pouches and pulls out his communicator. "Don't suppose you've seen anything promising to use as a tactile interface for a wristbound computer, have you?" he murmurs as he types. He really misses his bracer.

That unspoken question is met with an equally unspoken answer, but not an approving one. Dustin's eyes flick up with a flash of alarm, at which point he watches Donatello like a hawk, a noticeable bristle of indignation and anxiety shuddering across his shoulders and the back of his neck when the turtle picks up his tools. Wariness outweighs aggression, at least, though Dustin doesn't look any less uncomfortable for it.

"Nothing salvageable, no," he murmurs, then continues in an even quieter tone, "Put that back - I was using it."

The pile of clutter the test tube rack came from looks...well, distinctly unused, at least not recently. But in Dustin's eyes, everything has its place, and all projects are equally important to him. Donatello is interrupting his Process in a major way right now.

Donnie glances back over at Dustin, brow arched, but he doesn't really push the issue despite the obvious appearance of the rest of the other teen's tools. Carefully he sets the rack back where he'd picked it up- exactly- he would add, because he's not a savage like his brothers who'd just pick up and toss things every which way.

He brings his hands up as though to further emphasize that he's not touching any of Dustin's prized possessions, retracing his steps through the clutter and back to somewhere he can stand without being solely balanced on his four toes.

Again he pulls out his tablet to add to the list. Guess he'll have to start from scratch. Not that that's anything new.

Dustin breathes a small, involuntary sigh of relief when Donatello returns everything to its rightful place. He's warming up to the idea of letting very specific people know about his workshop and letting them visit - even working together with them, in the instances where the benefits outweigh the drawbacks of having to deal with people in general - but having them rifle through his things is a step over Dustin's boundaries, at least at the moment. It's worse knowing that, if Donnie actually wanted to take something and bounce, there would be absolutely nothing he could do to stop him. The thought makes Dustin visibly uncomfortable, even after the turtle settles down and busies himself with that list instead.

At least this isn't enough to stop him from completing that code. Roughly a minute of silence later, broken only by the pattering of both teenagers' fingers on their communicator screens, and suddenly Dustin straightens upright from his heavy lean against his workbench with a triumphant finger-snap.

"--Done," he says. "Written and verified, wireless pinged...looks like we're in business. This is shirking a lot of the functionality and error-handling I have planned, but should perform well enough for a demonstration."

It's a strange thing. Donnie's never really had that problem simply because his siblings did not have the same interests as he did. Well, there was that one time he did experience the annoyance of having them go through his things without permission but that may or may not have been due to something he had done and the solution had been quite clear to fix.

The softshell looks up from his screen before recalling just what Dustin had been doing. He lowers his communicator, moving back towards the motor.

"Sweet, fire this baby up and let's see then!"

Given time to simmer and focus on something else does wonders for Dustin's mood, especially when that 'something else' involves showing off something he's built. A little bit of that enthusiasm he showed, back when the two of them had been talking about this project in the Agriculture building in winter, flickers across Dustin's face, glittering in his eyes and twisting the corners of his mouth into a small grin.

"Alright, give it some space," he warns, flicking his finger over his communicator to bring up the control GUI. It's not pretty, but that hardly matters - the only person Dustin expects to use it is himself, so he's the only one that needs to know how it works. "I've done a lot of fine-tuning to make sure nothing overcorrects, but I don't wanna take one of your arms off or something if it swings around too fast."

He doesn't wait for Donnie to actually move before he presses the button for 'startup.' Immediately there's an audible clicking noise as the motor cuts on and draws a surge of current from the wall plug Dustin has modified to accept it, quickly followed by a soft, persistent hum from the motor itself. A few mechanical bits outside of the motor proper spin up alongside it, but otherwise, the whole display is a little underwhelming. Too quiet for its size, almost.

Donnie knows that grin. It's a tiny reflection of his own whenever he's ready to see the results of something he's put some hard work into. Usually he's playing to an audience of himself, and while there's still always the satisfaction of a project coming to fruition, ultimately he still knows what should happen. Watching someone else's project come alive is a new dimension of eager anticipation.

He steps back, quickly estimating how much space will keep him well clear of the motor's range, a little more hastily with the added warning from Dustin. Talk about unpleasant!

A minor moment of disconcertment as the motor hums from the obvious activation and intake of power. True, it doesn't seem to display much, but nothing sounds like it's grating or threatening to overload, no telltale whine even from its small movements to suggest that something might overheat. The quiet is an acceptable quiet so far as Donnie can tell, and it's evident that he's listening from the slight tilt of his head, and the approval from the smile pulling across his face as his eyes rove across the motor in its entirety.

3a

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