revivalproject | Interstice

Entry tags:

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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"Gah, no-" A voice down the hall warded off the potential overeager hands, at least long enough for Donnie to skirt by the overly helpful Agrii and get into the Engineering room. He was somewhat glad that he hadn't come here first after all, even if it didn't seem as busy as it might have initially been.

The smell of burning was still pretty heavy, familiar scents of when things go horribly wrong, not that he'd ever admit to such mishaps in his own lab but smoldering electronics and the like certainly had a particular odor to it. The turtle wrinkled his nose, looking around the room more carefully to put together a general assessment of the damage before he'd look at anything closer. He had Tony's toolbelt slung over his shoulder, and while he heard the two speaking in the room, he was trying not to get too ahead of himself.

Oh good, Donnie's here; he may be a kid, but by Shaw's estimation, he's a lot less aggravating and has a much better head on his shoulders than Tony.

"Over here," she says in response to Tony's question, turning to lead him to the other spot she'd been poking around. For Donnie's benefit, she adds, "We're checking out explosion points. What more do you - either of you - know about this attack that happened last time we were here? Because that sure sounds like a solid lead to me."

Tony barely glanced up at Donnie's arrival, focus already on the next machine and only waving a hand for Donnie to hurry up and give his professional opinion while Tony sorted through the damage without any apparent concern for the smouldering, sharp edges or sparking wires. It wasn't looking like this one was a good candidate for duct tape repairs, either. Still crouches and with his arms in the debris, he answered, "It was all pageantry. Another group of people were brainwashed to make us think they were the aggressors, like they were pirates coming after the Agrii. They had a whole other ship, same technology as this one, that self-destructed. Very different performances, I can tell you that." Were they that different? Tony's head slowly tilted as he sorted through char, considering how none of the Agrii had been permanently hurt in either instance, and the business with the Graq had once again only brought them closer to answers rather than concealing any.

Donnie drifted over once he was more or less addressed by Shaw. He shook his head at her question, glancing at Tony, the ball in his court since he was the only one who had been here previously. "Someone staged it?" he asked, frowning. The 'someone' was probably obvious, which really made it even more concerning.

He lowered his goggles to give things a quick look, just in case there were any supernatural traces anywhere, inwardly glad there didn't seem to be any, but he still kept them on to inspect the damage. It was bad all right, and he didn't need goggles to see that. "Hmm." He looked from where Shaw had brought them before stepping back towards the ruined computers, grimacing at what remained. What a waste. Part of him wished he'd spent a little more time in Engineering studying the technology itself but it was already time-consuming just trying to work out controls. All for what?

Things were still warm, components melted if not simply obliterated. He dug out a flashlight from his belt-pouch as he looked into the gaping remains.

"Could be a link. I wouldn't've called this staged, but it's definitely dramatic."

Shaw frowns in thought, stepping back to let them do their nerdy engineering thing. This, at least, is an area that she knows she has no place interfering in.

"And a different kind of showy is still showy. How long ago was the incident you're talking about? What was the end result?"

If Donnie wasn't around for it, it must have been a long time ago indeed.

With a deep breath, Tony stretched up onto his feet again to back away and let Donnie take some of that weight for him, brow furrowed and shoulders set like he still expected to catch it anyway before he could convince himself to retreat to the console that had been working, the last time he was down in this pit. It hadn't been working well, but it had a lot to say about what was broken, so maybe Tony was better prepared with more pointed questions this time. As he pushed up a sleeve to reveal the ports dotted up the inside of his arm, letting him keep his head down and look very focused on the process, he admitted, "Couple years." It might have been relevant information, but it didn't feel like a great time to be talking about it when Tony already didn't have any satisfying answers for them. While he wired into the computer to wake up the AI system again, pushing the connections under his skin, he answered instead, "Did you talk to Barnes yet?"

"Not yet," she says, the frown deepening. "Is that relevant to this conversation, or just our last one?"

"Yeah, this whole thing got me thinking about your love life," Tony mumbled and pursed his lips before he was properly answering, "He was there, and he'll have better answers for you about weird voices and cryptic messages from unseen forces, or whatever. Stuff he saw when he was with the Atroma." Before either of them could question him any further about that, Tony was pointing to one of the ruined consoles to report, "Life support. Intention could still be wiping out the Agrii here." Then the other to continue, "Engines. Power management. For the wormholes. Trap them here, maybe, could be anticipating a bigger assault."

Inwardly Donnie flinched at the thought of being here a year longer with no change in how much closer they were to getting home. Selfish as it was, he was glad that at least Leo was here now, for better or for worse.

"...the explosion was caused by the computers..." he said as his eyes continued to rove over the ruined hardware. He hissed as his fingers came too close to some of the still hot components, drawing it back and giving it a brief wave, a practiced gesture. His attention was still very much focused on his assessment.

"I'm not arguing it wasn't intentional but... if someone wanted the Agrii dead, they had plenty of opportunity to do it while we weren't all conveniently nearby to help."

Tony's muttered comment gets a Look^TM from Shaw, and she jerks her head in Donnie's direction in a way that can only be interpreted as Shut up about that around the kid. Donnie's next words, though, distract her from both subjects completely: she may very well go seek out intel from Bucky Barnes later, but for now, this has her full attention.

"You know that for sure?" she asks, leaning over Donnie's shoulder to get a better look - not that she really knows what she's looking for. "I was thinking the perp could've been trying to destroy something on the computers. Or maybe they were trying to send a message or a warning. You're right; if someone wanted the Agrii dead, they had plenty of opportunity to do it while we weren't here, and they clearly have resources. Maybe they were trying to tell us that."

Maybe if Tony let Donnie do all of the talking, Sameen would eventually come around and agree with everything else he had been saying, too. He leaned his free hand on his console so he could lounge in a way that only managed to enhance his impatience, head tilted and eyes a little unfocused even as he stared at the pair of them. Not that he could really stop himself from talking. "Or it was one of us," he pointed out. No one else had a more obvious motive, and the sending them off of the ship might have forced them to action.

"Can't be one of us, you need to be understanding both how the machinery's set up and work with the computers," Donnie pointed out, sounding annoyed, but then that was because he thought it was dumb not being able to do normal things a person would otherwise not have problems doing on their own without some digital upload into their heads and only one focus at a given time.

"The computers were the trigger, it's a mess but there wouldn't have been room for any supplemental explosives- but if you have the right components and the know-how, you could virtually make anything into a bomb. This was a chain reaction."

"So there could be more. There's this one, and the other one we were looking at--"

She gestures to the one she and Tony had been walking over from just as Donnie arrived.

"-- so that's two. You guys thinking we should look around for more links in the chain?"

The combination of skills that Donnie suggested didn't seem so outlandish to Tony, who squinted at the kid and mumbled, "Can't you?" There weren't many other people that Tony could list that he was so sure were capable, but one being right there in the room with them made the odds seem pretty good. That he couldn't figure it out himself despite having an uncanny ability to make anything blow up back on Earth didn't seem so odd anymore. He wasn't smart enough to have seen this coming, either, after all.

His focus flickered and dropped down to his console, where he scratched at his beard and eventually offered, "There's plenty of damage done, you know, big explosion and everything. Whole temporal traversal system might be offline. This thing says it has no access to something called an 'asset management system'. Separate from life support systems. An accountant could blow up, under the right pressure."

Donnie grimaced as he shoved uo his goggles, frustrated to even admit the contrary, feeling like he was disappointing Tony. "No, I can't. I can look at the physical systems and understand what all the parts are and how they're all working together with the engineering point but for codework I need to switch the stupid data points because it makes. No. Sense!"

He sighed, glaring back at the yawning hole that shouldn't have been there. He could remember where things were supposed to be and the fact that so much was visibly missing, destroyed by the blast, had to mean that the biggest concentration had been the parts themselves.

"I'd take screenshots and record the coding so I could get a headstart when I went back to our ship to change over to the comms-point, try to work out bugs and refine things before going back, and I'd still need it to actually install anything and navigate through the subroutines."

Donnie pushed himself back from the destroyed console, holding Tony's toolbelt back to him. "You guys didn't need me to figure this was deliberate but that's not going to really do much for us now. What's going on downstairs?"

"Wait-- wait."

Shaw doesn't mean to ignore that last question, but before they move forward, she does see a pretty obvious solution to Donnie's frustration. Spinning to face Tony, she says, "You're comms, right? So, he doesn't have to go all the way back to the ship and switch data points-- which is still weird."

This last bit is muttered under her breath, a brief aside before she barrels on.

"You can just help him figure it out right here, right now."

Teamwork, boys.

That frustration was very familiar, only Tony had internalized it and decided it was a personal failure for not being able to understand some basic engineering concepts when trying to manage this alien technology. He didn't have any good reassurance for Donnie, just another guilty drop of his gaze for not being able to crack the code for him, either. He only glanced up again at Sameen inquisitively, not sure how much that was going to change what they knew. "If we can reverse engineer the bomb..." he ventured, "Then we know it could be done with at least two people. And then, what? Based on the design, we can narrow down who we think that is?"

Teamwork wasn't an unheard of proposition. He and Robotnik had figured everything had been more or less designed as some elaborately ridiculous team-building exercise where people would be forced to rely on other people to get anything done. Super ridiculous, right? But Donnie was always used to handling technical problems on his own, and being handicapped so cruelly at the one thing he prided himself at.

As Sameen threw out that proposition, Donnie tried not to look like a kicked puppy for not being able to do much more than stare at singed and slagged sytems. There were worse people to have to work with, and he rather liked the two he was stuck with right then.

"Insufficient evidence," he suggested, frowning. "The Agrii don't need stupid data points to handle multiple jobs, it's only us. But given how things are set up at the bridge and down here, I don't know that any of them are aware as to the depths of any of the systems they don't have access to, and if they did, it seems pretty pointless to be blowing a hole in their own ship. Have we figured a motive? If it's just sabotage, there's a pretty blatant culprit, judging from your past experiences," he noted, glancing at Tony then.

"No clue about a motive, no proof that it wasn't just an accident. He--"

She jerks her chin at Tony here.

"-- wanted me to present him with a fully-formed theory too, but seriously, guys, I'm still at the poke-around stage. I want to keep poking around to see if there's a larger issue we need to look into. So if Donnie's saying he needs someone with comms to look at the coding and navigate the subroutines or whatever, let's start there. Get ourselves some sufficient evidence before we start theorizing about motives and culprits."

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Interstice

/ninjas in

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