It's All the Same, Only the Names Will Change

[deal_me_in]

WHO: Cayde-6 and you
WHERE: Temba and its outskirts
WHAT: Just an Exo doin' his thing
WHEN: Nnnow. -ish.
WARNINGS: N/A
NOTES: Will match tagging format preference.


I. The Deep End (OTA)
He wouldn't call it routine, but by now he knew to appreciate what freedom they had in a scenery change and a mission. It's something Cayde had come to appreciate long before even being brought to this strange little prison of a planet. And it's because of that that he knows there's something bittersweet about coming back to what's become familiar territory, every time.

There's things you grow fond of, and maybe it's just him, but he's been used to ruins and wilderness just champing at the bit to claim it whenever someone so much as blinks. He's glad his bar's in one piece, something he's made with his hands, thankful the glass has held and nothing's sprung a leak. Just a bit of dust but that's an easy fix, although the most he gets around to is the main counter and the stools and his domain behind it. Maybe he can rope someone into helping out with the rest. That Eddie kid probably, or maybe Richie.

Cayde's poking at the fish tank opposite the huge wall that looked out into its own tank of water, counting whatever critters still remained within. He doesn't look up even when he hears the sound of someone entering.

"Hey, you any good at catching fish?"


II. The Great Beyond (Para Antonio)
If it was a game of actual tactical advantage then between the Exos, Felwinter had him beat. The security tower had been built with the intention of a clear view of the city's entirety. Now, if Cayde were paranoid and wanted to be able to see as much of anything at any given time, he would've staked a claim to the place long before the Warlock had arrived. But it just wasn't his style.

The clock tower had definitely seen better days, and while it certainly didn't look like any clock tower he was familiar with, it still had the important bits to suggest what it had been, even if the inner workings had long corroded beyond any hope for restoration. That was fine with the Hunter. It'd be really annoying otherwise, if the place were ticking and cranking all the day long, and who knew what sort of chiming it ever did. Those parts must have broken off or never existed to begin with, so far as he'd been able to tell.

As for views, it afforded him a decent enough one. He could see enough, especially when he was up on the top where the broken remains were barely holding anything together. Currently he soaked in the imagery as though to refresh his memory from the last time he'd seen it, coated in snow. The lack of snow made it much easier to see things too, such as familiar people doing curious things somewhere below.


III. Exploratory
The woods just beyond Temba aren't unfamiliar territory. They are however by Cayde's standards, pretty unspectacular. It had been disappointing a venture in more than a few directions, and only because for several days straight, the Hunter had only come across more and more forest.

That doesn't mean they aren't full of surprises, and after having more than a few brushes with antagonistic wildlife in the past, the Exo feels better doing a bit of patrolling along the perimeter of the city and just beyond. It's something to do. And if it gives him an excuse to shoot something, who's he to complain?


IV. Wildcarde
((OOC: Got any other ideas you wanna run with? Throw it down here!))

Comments

[deal_me_in]

"Well..." The Exo folded his arms. "Okay, let's walk it back. Pick a focus. Operation 'draw them out.' Can we take down the camera network? Would that cut off all our communications?"

[in_extremis]

"Possibly," Tony admitted. "Maybe. But, here's the thing, I think I know how to interfere with the cameras on the ships. The Agrii made those, custom, so there's a possibility that all of the surveillance on them is entirely dependent on that Agrii design, not the external influence. A possibility. So, we shut those down for a tight five minutes, just a little blip, basically a distraction, maybe nobody notices when you take that time to use that thing I gave you and disappear." Being effectively invisible to the naked eye did not mean that Cayde could avoid whatever other detection that he aliens had on them, but it might at least make him harder to find again when he did slip away under the circumstances.

[deal_me_in]

Cayde nodded along, drumming his fingers against his arm. "Disappearing sounds fun. But that'd only cover the ship surveillance, right? Soon as I step off, there's still the main network around, unless we're talking about another off-world opportunity."

[in_extremis]

Alright, maybe it wasn't that likely. Tony gave up on his defence as soon as he took a breath, hands dropping before they could form his point. "Hypothetically," he was willing to offer, "if we induce a city-wide blackout, full electromagnetic disruption, that would take care of their surveillance as well." That was a hefty sacrifice if they didn't even know what their goal was, though, and Tony looked reluctant, raising an eyebrow expectantly.

[deal_me_in]

Unfortunately Cayde didn't have any immediate suggestions for follow-up. He drummed his fingers again, metal brow furrowing.

"If we pull something like that too early, we probably won't get another chance to do it again. We're going to need something more solid," he admitted with a frown. "Getting someone's attention is one thing. Not sure what to expect after that. Will they come face us? Do we end up fighting them? The Fleet veterans said they weren't invincible. Wanda told me they looked half-human, half-machine but hurt to look at.

"If it were a matter of just getting away from where we weren't being monitored every single moment, then the Agrii ships would be the weakpoint. If you can work out the cameras, the rest of the systems shouldn't be a problem, right? We figure out how to get control of the thing, disable any override capabilities, then we just have to kill or loop planet-side surveillance long enough to launch." He hesitated.

"I don't think we're going to be able to pull off these sorts of things without letting everyone else know. No matter what happens, people are going to get caught up in it."

[in_extremis]

Tony bared his teeth with a hiss at that, like suggesting he invite everyone into their plans was physically painful, and quickly committed to ignoring this problem instead. With a jab of a finger up at the sky, he said, "What do you think I was doing that for? We have ships, we know they work, we also know something up there..." He didn't know that much, because he had expected to meet some kind of disruption, not be left gesturing helplessly at a blue circle perfectly placed on the ground. That wasn't how he wanted to be picking up the pieces of Cayde if crossing their fingers and launching in the dark didn't work.

[deal_me_in]

Sundance cast her Guardian just the briefest glance at that, a twitch of her core in his direction. Cayde kept his optics on Tony, unsurprised by the response. It wasn't like it was a big secret as to how often Tony took things upon himself, did things on his own in full expectation of some headway, ready and willing to pull any aggro he might call down upon them and bare it completely on his own shoulders. But it wasn't just his problem, and the bigger they dove into things, the more people were going to have to be on board with it.

Cayde looked back up at the sky. "When you went up, they were trying to keep you in if not just smack you back down. With this, they're flexing their muscle, trying to tell us things'll only work the way they want them to. That's only if they know what's coming and what we're doing. Humor me- if you managed to find a barrier up there and disrupt it, what would've been the next step?"

[in_extremis]

"Get everyone on the ships," Tony was ready to answer, because that was obvious to him, throwing his hands out toward the hangar, then up at their rapid escape from the atmosphere. "We take away the hand that smacks, we go straight through, gone, they can't control us."

[deal_me_in]

"Okay, we're on the same page there," Cayde nodded. "That still requires telling everyone at some point or another. And depending on the window of opportunity, I'm assuming they'd need to be ready to leave ASAP."

[in_extremis]

Talking it through with Cayde was already making Tony anxious, so trying to explain anything to a whole community sounded like torture. He didn't even try to explain himself to the Avengers if he could help it, let alone a bunch of people who had no reason to pull their punches. He squeezed his eyes shut in annoyance that Cayde thought not telling anyone what the plan was, and getting them to enact the plan were contradictory thoughts, mostly because, "But--" He was waving his hands, trying to capture the shape of the conversation, "We're talking about avoiding being surveilled. Every new person who knows the details, is another potential point of failure. If anyone tells York, he probably has an uplink directly to the Atroma ship."

[deal_me_in]

"How long did it take everyone to get herded down to where the little plant guys were supposed to take us to shelter from the volcano? I know the less moving parts to a plan the better, but there will definitely be complications if people are suddenly told to get their butts to the ships." When you added people into the mix, things always got complicated. It was just human-nature.

[in_extremis]

It was unclear how much this mattered when they hadn't solved the getting-through-the-atmosphere part of the equation, which seemed much more significant to Tony and had him letting out a slow breath as he squinted back up at the remorseless sky. "Okay," he eventually offered, "Hear me out, what's the functional difference between organizing a meeting to get everyone on board, and that meeting just being part of the plan anyway?" He spread his hands, see, totally open to this ceding control thing. Just after anyone could do anything about it. One they had everyone settled on the ships with their complimentary coffee and cheese platters, they would be conveniently in place to launch.

[deal_me_in]

"Time," Cayde noted. "And people being people. You know there will be a lot of questions either way. I just wanna be prepared for how many people I'm going to have to haul aboard before they figure they need to pack the kitchen sink."

[in_extremis]

"That's the thing--" Tony snapped, because Cayde seemed to be arguing in Tony's favour but still wasn't convinced. If everyone just thought they were gathering to talk, they wouldn't be hanging back trying to fit their favourite tree in a carryon, problem solved. Instead, Tony pivoted, a sharp edge to his voice, "Are you going to tell anyone about this?"

[deal_me_in]

"You seem very much adverse to that route." The Hunter held up his hands again. "Also, no sense in telling people about a thing we don't even have entirely laid out." He knew it'd be impossible to keep things a secret if they passed word along that there were plans to run. Questions, preparations, things that would definitely draw the attention they didn't want.

"This is sticking between you and me. And Sundance," he allowed, head tipping in his Ghost's direction.

[in_extremis]

While some of the tension eased out of Tony's shoulders, he still glanced between Cayde and Sundance distrustfully, feeling like the only thing stopping Cayde was not having all of the details yet. No one had any of the details, was the problem. "I have to figure this out," he grumbled, and turned away, glancing toward the forge where the door had opened for DATA to peek out, assessing the scale of the problem and pulling a bucket along behind him. It was going to take him a while to collect all of that blue into his bucket, and maybe by the time he was done Tony would be prepared with another plan. He went stalking back the way they had come to collect what had been shed in the sprint, very aware now of how his shirt stuck to his sweat and his lungs still burned, and how much worse they might have been if Cayde hadn't helped him.

[deal_me_in]

Cayde didn't correct him, if only because he didn't want to spark off another debate. Instead he clapped a hand on Tony's shoulder, long enough to hope at least his message got across while he sought the other's eye- 'I'm here too, you know.'

He let Tony go then, watching him head back the way they'd come. Then he turned towards the forge, waving a hand at DATA. "Got a broom or a shovel?" Clean-up wasn't his thing, but he wasn't leaving this place marked any longer than it had to be.