revivalproject | Interstice

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Interstice

WHO: Tony, Tommy, Reeve, Shaw, Cayde
WHERE: Agrii Ship Ground Zero
WHAT: Fixing some stuff!
WHEN: Shortly after the explosion.
WARNINGS: We'll see what comes up.
NOTES: Hit me up here if you want to plot some event stuff, or just tag in and surprise me.

a. the precipice [for tommy]
An explosion out the side of a ship in the vacuum of space should have been worse. It was as though everything necessary was in place to manage this crisis, both the execution and the recovery, leaving Tony very focused and calm in the chaos of the crime scene. He didn't hesitate when Ga Re's message came, and had been rapidly ushered through the halls to the engineering room, where he simultaneously assessed the space and who was in it, and quickly scanned the panicking Agrii still present as he passed to act as triage, getting them moving if they seemed capable and shouting for help if they were not. He was already set on a path that he wasn't going to be diverted from, heading straight for that smouldering hole and the ten thousand possible worse outcomes that had to be managed quickly if they were going to be avoided. He only slowed long enough to assess how far down he was about to fall as he knelt over the melted metal, not even waiting to test for residual heat as he gripped that sharp ledge to drop down.

He landed heavily, and from the rapid transition from the noisy cabin above into the eerily empty space below, the echoing rattle of his toolbelt suddenly felt dangerously loud. This wasn't a cloistered cooling system; this was an open space, navigable. It was lit by the forcefield to his side, open, dark space just beyond the cold light, throwing shadows across the barren cabin. The air didn't feel close and closed off, nor was there bitter smoke from the explosion, all gone with the strange, brief flash of the burst itself. The result was what felt like a rapid evacuation instead of a longstanding abandonment, like he was the last one left waiting for the disaster to strike, like the explosion had just been the warning siren.

"Something wanted out," he muttered to himself, producing a flashlight from his belt to scan the floor for evidence of approach to explain the upward twist of the metal above him. The explosion had started down here, where he stood, so it had to have come from somewhere. Taking a few cautious steps further to try to find that source, he continued, "Reinforce the shell, find the source of that shield, confirm timeframe, can't be long, maybe divert power to buy more time..." There was never going to be enough time. He scanned the light up, across the walls, worrying his lip anxiously at the dark yawn of open hallways; too much to search, too much that they didn't know.

b. the fall [for reeve]
It had been quiet for some time now. The regular cycles aboard the ship were already imprecise, mercurial, and in the wake of the explosion they shifted in reaction, until there simply couldn't be any further reaction, and the batteries were drained. Tension gave way to exhaustion. Only a few bodies remained in the strange engineering room, still thrumming with anxiety, where it was redirected into focus rather than dispersed in rest. Tony hadn't realized he had even stopped talking himself through his process, and had been leaned back on one hand and staring into an open panel, focus distant and mostly empty cup held against his chest gone cold long ago. The whole place was cold, it was hard to keep warm at all. Despite this, his shoes had been abandoned early in the process, scattered among the tools that he had spilled across the floor throughout his work with just as little care, though that never seemed to slow him down when he was in need of one and he easily could pinpoint the exact screwdriver he needed, or had to hand to Reeve when his brow furrowed and he started to glance around. It had been a while since Reeve had said anything either, Tony realized abruptly, making him blink out of his trance to take a breath and wet his lips, glancing around for his engineer. "I'm going back to the computer," he announced, though it took him some effort to untangle from his seat on the floor, muscles gone stiff from his crossed legs and the cold seeping up through the metal. He took the time with a hiss, rubbing some life back into his thigh and leaving him continuing through grit teeth, "Maybe it's not even structural, it's a programming problem, partitioned off in that mess of security measures." He hadn't gained full control of the AI that seemed to be managing the ship's systems yet, and this engine was not getting fixed by staring at it.

c. the probe [for shaw]
Someone on this ship must have seen something. There had been so many bodies so close to the explosion when Tony had first arrived. The problem was, if any of them were willing to talk to him, managing the language barrier on top of their anxiety and pain was enough of a challenge that Tony was being thrown out of the medical bay before he had made much progress. A ship didn't just explode, especially not from an area where everyone he did manage to speak to had claimed there was no way to access. If he didn't figure out why it had happened, that why was going to find him first. One thing he was sure about was that a little lightshow and some scared Agrii wasn't a finished project.

Head down in focused frustration, he went stalking back toward Engineering and the damage done to properly assess what exactly had been accomplished. He had been looking for crises at first, likely points of catastrophic failure in need of immediate correction, and hadn't been categorizing any of it as intentional targets in the blast. He moved easily through a high tension scene even as he got closer and more people were filling the hall, taller than most of the non-Agrii and easy to spot, and accompanied by the percussive clatter of his toolbelt as he walked. It was rare that he had to lay a hand on someone's back, a light brush of his fingertips to get her attention, and mutter, "Excuse me," to try to squeeze through where several Agrii crowded around a broken computer and bottlenecked the flow. He glanced around at them irritably, sure they had better places to be than collectively failing to fix this one machine.

d. the breach [for cayde]
Most of the bodies who cared to remain on this ruptured ship were either focused, committed to the crisis area or medical bay, or sequestered, gathered in communal areas to minimize the distribution of power and keep them all breathing. Most of the rest of the ship was not cut off, necessarily, just dark and cold and empty. Ideal for the bodies remaining whose any sensory input was a stab of pain.

Tony found out rapidly that the doors to any of the private quarters were locked as he went mincing gingerly by, trying several as he passed and not slowing to test just how securely locked they were, or how easy they might have been to force. Even thinking about trying to wire into one of them made his vision fog into dark clouds, leaving him walking blind with a hand on the wall and eyes closed against the ring of pain until he could feel the next door. It wasn't like he really needed to get into any of them anyway. He just needed somewhere quiet and dark to lay down for just a second, to let the nausea subside and vision clear enough to go back to work trying to get through that forcefield. He would have stayed if everyone's voices weren't so loud and the tools would stop falling from his hands to ring and spark violently. He slid down the wall, then over onto his side, where he could press his cheek into the mercifully cool floor, unable to squeeze his eyes closed tight enough to block out the strange black explosions, ruptures and oil spills behind his eyelids that felt like fire in his skull.

He didn't realize he had fallen asleep, it hardly felt like it, until he felt something awfully wet and spongy on his face. It came with a sound, moist and sucking, right against his cheek. It wouldn't be there, it could go away with the pain still drilling into his temples, if he could just slip back into the cool darkness, except that he was already shivering in the damp residue of his own sweat, and that squelching was suddenly inside his ear. He flinched and flailed a hand up to swat it away, nowhere to recoil with the wall behind him, so keeping his eyes securely closed like this might be a safe retreat. His knuckles connected with something soft, silky on his skin and yielding up until they found a sharp edge, then the snuffling was suddenly a yelp and he could hear a heavy body scrabbling away, nails clattering on the floor.

He was up, but not nearly fast enough, eyes wide in guilty panic before they were squinting closed again against the flare of pain. He got as far as pushing himself up on one hand to try to see what had just happened and what he had just struck. By then, the animal had bolted, and he only caught a glimpse of motion darting around a corner, listening to the click of its nails echo down the empty hall.

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"I'm picking something up," Sundance reported, drifting forward as Cayde began to do the same. He glanced back at Tony to check on him.

"The list ranking was going crazy," he noted as he turned his attention forward again. "I poked my head in to have a look a few times. Only grabbed some pictures but even if I can't read 'em, I can still tell some things stayed put and other names kept swapping up top. Biggest jump was early on, not long after people were running around to handle things in engineering."

That was interesting. It hadn't occurred to Tony that the list was worth checking again when he didn't know what parameters to even start testing, and mostly he was avoiding retreading any ground his humiliating short self might have covered, like if he stayed far enough away everyone would pretend it hadn't happened. So far, it was working pretty well for him. "Then it can't be the Agrii," he offered. "They were all a little busy." That one had nothing to do with the other was too coincidental; the ranking was live, and something about the disaster had some impact on it. "Did you take a picture when it made that big change?"

A shame. Cayde had gotten kind of fond of little-Tony. Sharp kid, but then not at all surprising given how clever his adult adjacent self was. The Exo pulled out his tablet, Tony's own device receiving notifications for the incoming attachment as he drops several images over. "Yep. A couple, and then a few from various times thereafter." Pictures were the quickest, there was an emergency after all, and as curious as the Exo was about what was going on there, there were some things to do, Agrii to corral.

At least Tony didn't have to stare into the bright screen of his own device to analyze the images, only feel his brain reforming itself around them like splintering wood. It was fine, he could walk with his eyes closed, as long as he could sense Cayde ahead of him. He wasn't sure what he thought he would glean from this list now--it was their names, in some kind of order, that someone was managing in real time.

"Why were you there, instead of Engineering?" he has to ask, because the site of the explosion seemed like a more natural impulse. Cayde's name was low on the list in that photo, when it had been near the top otherwise. "Something happen on the planet?"

All the names that did make an appearance up top did seem to include a lot of people Tony had interacted with if not seen while fluttering around Engineering and its newly revealed hold.

Cayde shook his head. "Not that I saw, but I figured I'd check. With everyone being ushered to the explosion site it seemed like plenty opportunity for other stuff to be happening. Didn't feel right jamming us all there, but maybe I'm just paranoid."

"Not paranoid if you're right," Tony offered, because that did seem like a very strong motive among the relatively weak ones that he had been exploring thus far. On the other hand, if Cayde had found anything suspicious, Tony doubted he would be holding it back for a dramatic reveal. Unless he didn't think Tony should know. "The bikinis aren't sleeper agents, are they?" he mumbled, risking a glance around Cayde's shoulder to try to see where they were going despite Sundance's flare.

Nothing else had come off as amiss when Cayde had done his rounds, not that he was fully convinced, but it only lent to the idea that this was all still an exaggerated production. What will the He Rows do next to tackle this latest predicament?!

"Be a very effective choice if they were," the Exo smirked over his shoulder, and then he raised a hand as Sundance paused and drifted back towards them.

"Okay, no punching," Cayde suggested before he started ahead of his Ghost. The doors around here were all locked, but he could make something hunkered tight against the nearest doorway.

At first, Tony was distracted enough by the possibility of this misdirection and what the list meant, and the fog of the pain, that Cayde's direction had him looking at Sundance suspiciously, like it was them that they Exo was trying to keep from coming to blows. He almost stuck his tongue out at Sundance so she would be the one at fault, before he remembered that he had started the punching thing and then immediately accused, "He started it." Was that the animal, crouched in the shadows? If it wasn't, Tony shouldn't have been letting Cayde go on to investigate alone, so he forced himself to hurry as best as his body would allow to catch up again, hand out to yank Cayde back by the cloak if the furry mass turned out to be a giant tribble.

Sundance returned that look with her usual steady observation, somehow effecting a dryness despite the fact that she had no facial features to show for. In front of them, Cayde snickered.

"If this turns out to be a sack of laundry I am going to be very upset," he did have to announce to the two before he stooped down some several steps from the lump.

"Bikini buddy, that you?"

If it was laundry, it was a few eons past a reasonable wash cycle because it was trembling. Or maybe that was just Tony's vision, as he took the chance to lean against the wall again after creeping just a few steps closer, squinting blearily at the lump in the dark. It made a sound not unlike the snorting that Tony had heard right up against his ear.

"If I apologize, will you stop looking so miserable?" Tony proposed. He couldn't be sure that was what the animal was doing, but it did present a strikingly similar pose to his pathetic, aching slouch, inspiring him to draw himself upright again despite none of his muscles much wanting to do that.

That was the saddest pile of laundry ever. Now that he had the chance, he could make out the shape a little better.

"Aw, it's okay buddy, no one's going to hurt you," Cayde assured, holding a gloved hand out. He chuckled, glancing at Tony. "Maybe it thought you looked lonely at the time."

"I'm not lonely," Tony said, and it wasn't clear then if he was arguing with Cayde or the animal that had lurched forward eagerly to stick his searching, snorting nose into that presented hand. "I was resting my eyes." The argument got less emphatic as it trailed off in confusion when the creature drew back almost as quickly with a huff, spinning in an anxious circle and pressing itself up against the door again, snuffling and scratching at the base of it. "He's looking for something," Tony pointed out.

Cayde was still grinning at Tony's insistence, but as he watched the sad sack of a creature return to its post, he sighed.

"Or someone," he suggested. "Which would be back where everyone else is. Unless there's something inside?" He got to his feet, stepping closer to the bokini before reaching over to knock at the closed door.

"Hellooo, anyone home?"

"There better not be," Tony said, mostly because he didn't want to have to start rounding people up, and one breach in the recommended reorganizing meant that it was going to entirely collapse within hours. The animal didn't seem so convinced, though, letting out a whine after listening attentively for some answer to the knock, and resuming his scratching. With a sigh, Tony offered, "Let me," and slid his way closer to run a thumbnail along the wall in a decidedly practiced move that opened a panel alongside the door. He may or may not have been opening a few doors on the ship. He wasn't going to take his time minimizing the destruction in this case, just yanked a few wires free that were governing the door's seal.

Well, who was Cayde to question Tony's questionable expertise of opening locked electronic doors? He watched as his friend went to work, Sundance drifting over to offer a light, not that it seemed the man needed it.

"Open sesame!" the Exo piped, hands out once he heard that tell-tale sound of some sort of release for the inner mechanisms. The door had only wobbled a bit at that, and Cayde supposed he should have figured that with things shut down here, it certainly wasn't going to slide itself open so easily. He threw his hands up in a shrug before stepping over to put some pressure on the thing so he could start shoving it to the side.

The moment there was a crack big enough to fit his nose, the animal was pushing his face into it and shoving his way through the door to barrel recklessly into the room. A riot of thumping and crashing followed, making Tony wince back, eyes squeezed shut, and slowly tip over with his arms wrapped tightly around himself, and might have continued until he was horizontal if the sound didn't eventually die down. He risked peeking one eye open, then checking to see what kind of damage had been done that wasn't the bruising of his skull.

Cayde stood by the doorway, the only thing keeping him from dashing in after being that Tony was slowly melting onto the floor. "...sure you're okay, chief?" he asked, anticipating the answer would be the same as usual.

He took a step inside so he could still hear Tony, Sundance following and beaming her light around.

"Hey, where'd you go you fuzzball?"

Of course Tony answered, "Always," without any consideration, and went sliding along the wall to follow and consider the room after Cayde. Either these Agrii were really behind on their chores, or a lot of damage had been done very quickly; rugs bunched up, cupboards standing open, and chairs tipped over, like there had been a police raid. Sitting on the middle was the animal, still snorting but flattened happily on the floor with a faintly glowing ball held between his paws.

"You should check him in to rehab," Tony recommended as he dragged himself further into the room, flicking a hand around at all of this drama for one little ball. He knew a problem when he saw one. Now that the damage had been done, though, and he had a fall guy who couldn't talk, he took his chance to kick the rumpled blankets the rest of the way off of the bed and collapse into it.

One mystery solved. Cayde had to laugh, shaking his head. "Well, can't really blame a guy for being attached to shinies, now can you?" he chuckled, stepping over to the bokini. He watched as Tony took the opportunity to make use of the bed. Well, so long as he was getting some rest. "Good idea chief- you make sure no looters come. I'll check back in later." Tony's earlier reassurances were all hollow at best, so Cayde was glad he was at least in a better suited place to nap than in the middle of a hall.

"All right, come on. Let's go get you back to your people," he said, stooping down to try and get the ball, something the critter'd surely follow, but it was being super clingy, Cayde was prepared to scoop the dog-thing up, toy and all.

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Interstice

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