revivalproject | Open Log

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Open Log - 001

WHO: Cipher Nine & You
WHERE: Around Risa
WHAT: Vacation!
WHEN: During the stay on Risa
WARNINGS: Mentions of drug-use & drug withdrawals.

[A - Markets]

Mysterious spending money and disliking possible puppet masters aside, Aden had already spent quite a lot of time wandering the markets. He'd bought trinkets, supplies, entertainment. Even a stringed instrument and instructions on how to learn to play it. After all, he didn't need the Force to foresee that there would be time to learn to play it in the future.

He'd also bought a collection of knives- just in case. If he had proper ones, he wouldn't need to spend his time scavenging for supplies back on Agra 10, after all, nor possibly having to resort to merely making himself shivs for self-defense.

Today, he was merely looking around- and avoiding certain things that he would eventually need to do.

[B - Nightclubs]

Not so much dancing, not so much joining in, but he did visit the bar of each nightclub he visited, going to a different one each evening and night- for something to drink, while they had access to it. Every night was spent drinking, watching people come and go- and looking for substances a bit stronger than alcohol. After all, he couldn't deny that the spice withdrawals he was going through wasn't affecting how he was relating to other people, his mood often fluctuating- especially with his brain damage, the headaches that wouldn't go away.

Still, either he wasn't looking hard enough, or there wasn't really a market for it on Risa.

So sitting by the bar most of the night it was- not quite inviting others to come chat, but not seeming as though that was something he'd turn down, either.

[C - Beaches]

Swimming wasn't really his thing, but the beaches were nice.

Much like the nightclubs he visited, he couldn't really be found in the thick of things. He didn't swim, or spend his time playing on the beach. Instead he'd found himself a nice spot to sit and watch, beneath a parasol, and with a drink in one hand, a fan in the other, using it to keep himself cool.

He also had a picnic basket with him, full of food that was made with local ingredients- though he'd obviously not bought it prepared the way it was. It seemed more like he'd made the food himself from scratch- it was as close to Chiss cuisine he could get, making things himself.

[D - Wildcard]

(Anything else you might think of! Aden's exploring most of the planet, after all. The glowing gardens, any shop, relaxing in the shade here and there!)

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And of course Jon doesn't fail to recognize the voice. He doesn't forget. Anything. Ever. It's part of being the Archivist, he assumes. Of existing to see and experience everything. Of being the avatar of the Ceaseless Watcher.

And despite all he is supposed to be, the Archivist cringes at the Chiss's words, eyes narrowing and glancing sideways.

Not that one.

His ordered drink is being set down in front of him while Jon considers his response and he shifts his shaking hand to rest against the cool glass, steadying it. He could certainly argue that knowledge isn't illegal. His means of obtaining it, however... Maybe questionable.

"Jesus Christ." Jon replies tightly in what may be considered an explanation by some, but to others might rather appear as an extension of the previous exclamation upon discovering the presence of a person he has already deemed bothersome. To Jon, at this very moment, it's both.

He shifts his glance away from Aden and sets it onto his drink, his mood soured "Of course I would run into you, would I."

"A name, then?"

It sounds like it. Not a name Aden was familiar with, but definitely a name. Name of a person, rather than a place. Of course, it didn't give him the explanation he really needed, which was, why the name was used in the way it was.

Still, it could wait.

Instead of prying further, he took a sip of his own drink, glancing over at the other man, "Of course. If you didn't, life might have gone as planned, right? That you always run into exactly the person you don't want to see, that might as well be some sort of universal rule."

Unlike the last time they spoke, Aden wasn't going out of his way to be rude, instead having a slight amused tone to his voice- not rude, nor mocking. Just slightly amused.

"At least I find it to be so, at any rate."

"A name." Jon confirms curtly, not really willing to go into lengthy explanations. Not at this moment, anyway.

Though he does notice and will appreciate the lack of any further rude commentary and, in fact, permits himself a brief snort in response to Adens observation and raise his own glass to take a long drink from it. As he sets the glass back down, a second tape recorder appears on Aden's other side. A different model as compared to the one Jon carries with him. Bigger and heavier. It clicks on softly and starts recording, instantly drawing Jon's attention to it.

"I'm not exactly used for anything to go as planned anymore. So I am hardly in a position to be surprised." He points past the Chiss at the recording device "Can you hand me that, please?"

Why, yes. He may not be happy to have met the rude Chiss again, but that doesn't mean he has lost his manners altogether.

"Guess we're similar there," Aden commented, picking the recording device up when the other man pointed at it, and handing it over without a fuss.

"There you go."

Aden supposed his mood was better at the moment than the first time they spoke. He downed the rest of his drink, and gestured to the bartender that he wanted another. A few empty glasses already stood on the bar, suggesting that he'd been at this for at least a little while.

"Thanks." comes the simple response as Jon takes the recorder, watches it record for a while before turning it off and opening up the tape compartment to retrieve the tape, muttering softly to it "Not sure what you're hoping to record here..."

He sets the device back down on the bar and the new tape on top of his more portable recorder. The spawned ones don't stay around long, that much he has figured out by now at least. Though they are rarely as easily caught as this one.

"This planet is supposedly a pleasure planet." Jon finally remarks while looking back over to Aden and reaching for his own drink once more "You hardly seem to be enjoying yourself." Just a plain observation. Or an assumption. Though he may really be the last person to judge anyone about how they have fun.

"I rarely do," Aden replied, picking up his drink as it was put down in front of him and knocking it back, draining the glass, and then motioned for another.

"Maybe I should be enjoying this while it lasts, but I know what we're going back to, and wallowing in bitterness is better at setting the mood, wouldn't you agree?"

He was halfway joking about that, offering a slight smile, "Maybe I'm just thinking about the pleasure planets I'm familiar with already. The populace here seems happy but... What guarantee do we have that there's nothing sinister behind it."

The Hutts and their palaces where everything was fine on the surface until you began digging, shady puppet masters pulling strings... Not that Aden wasn't taking advantage of being here, he just had a healthy amount of suspicion. The bitterness though, that he'd brought with him from home.

Jon lets the Chiss talk, draining his own glass, but in a more aware manner. He doesn't wish to get hopelessly drunk. Though he partially wonders if that even is still possible for him or whether his body simply instantly detoxes. At least the buzz and the burning sensation are present, and that's what matters, isn't it?

He requests a second drink himself, though Jon's expression has become more thoughtful.

"There's never a guarantee. Though..." He trails off for a moment, casting a slow look around. No. Hardly any fear around. So he shrugs "These people seem genuinely happy."

Maybe aside from the poor soul he has left behind. But that one won't know that right away.

"And I don't wish to know about your pleasure planets, but chances are those and this one aren't too different from one another after all." At those words, Jon points a single finger towards a large wall decoration at the back of the bar with a very prominent Horga'hn as its center piece. They aren't exactly hiding these and Jon takes the chance to try and wash away his mental count of them by draining his glass.

"They usually do. On the surface. Behind the scenes though..."

He shrugged a shoulder, feeling some effect of the alcohol, but not entirely too much. He was more than adept at holding his liquor, after all. One sort of had to be in his line of work. Drunk individuals seemed like no threat at all, after all. An environment became relaxed, tongues became loose. Such useful things for someone in his profession.

He glanced back at what Jon pointed at and gave a huff of laughter, "Depends entirely on the people ruling over the pleasure worlds at home, I'd think. Hutts, humans, Sith, non-Sith, others... Many cultures have different ideas about what constitutes pleasure."

And Jon will readily agree that those are some useful properties to call ones own. Though also some he has no need to any longer. Not with being able to quite literally pull any information he might need from a person directly from their mind. Or simply have them tell him what he needs to know. He won't deny that he liked that part of his- What has Elias called it? Becoming? But- But now that he has come to learn of some of the repercussions his actions in the past have had on perfectly innocent people... It sours the entire experience. Plus, few people appreciate these invasions on their mind.

Fortunately, no one here knows about this. Which is a nice change from back home, where everyone but him seems to know exactly who and what precisely the Archivist is and what their role in the entire game is supposed to be. At least for once he can worry less about attempts at being killed and can fully dissolve in fretting about understanding decidedly too little for his own liking.

Or permit his attention to be drawn elsewhere. Just as he does now, a single brow rising at the laugh of the man he doesn't even know the name of yet. He knows he is Chiss, presumably from the same universe as the new Sith Emperor. Maybe these two even know one another. He can only guess. But from what little he knows Jon can already safely say that that particular universe is a very complex one.

One that will take time to unravel and understand. Maybe he can even entertain Beholding with that sort of knowledge.

"So." He takes another drink "What am I supposed to call you?"

"I'm sure you can think of a few names to call me, if you put your mind to it."

It was said with another soft huff of laughter, and a shrug of one shoulder.

"Cipher Nine."

It was what he'd been mostly using, since arriving. Cipher Nine to most. Aden to only a few. Still, Cipher Nine was a challenge as much as it was anything else. He was an agent of Imperial Intelligence, after all, showing his face, using the name he'd been given. Should anyone unsavory from his world show they'd know to seek him out before anyone else. Of course, he left all of that unsaid.

"Just Cipher or just Nine will work too."

Jon huffs ever so slightly before concluding "Mister Nine, then." A brief pause follows before he adds flatly "What happened to the other eight?"

Not that he's terribly interested, but people using uninspiring aliases containing numbers feels like something he would expect to encounter in certain pieces of terrible fiction. It may be for the best that he doesn't touch fiction unless it's required for a case.

Though he won't be rude and withhold his own name.

"I'm Jonathan Sims. The Archivist will work too."

Well. Not entirely rude, at least.

"Who knows. Most likely, they've all went and died."

The dissolution of Intelligence, then the war. Maybe some of them had survived. But regardless, they weren't Ciphers any more. If they did survive, they were just people now. Aden couldn't help but wonder how that was going for them.

None of them really knew how to just be people, he imagined. Only disposable assets.

"You do know that that's an invitation to always call you that?" He asked, looking over at him and arching a brow, "As in- 'it's nice to meet you, The Archivist' or 'The Archivist, could you please explain who Jesus Christ is'?"

Even he wasn't that obnoxious, really. Still, one couldn't deny that it was an invitation to do just that.

"And you would be the first to actually require an invitation to do just that." Jon remarks before draining his current drink. And he means it about as blunt as he says it. His title, his... Role... He's gotten used to hear it directed at him wrapped in mockery and death threats.

His eyes drift over to the tape he has retrieved from the recorder and through its transparent plastic shell he can't help but notice that it appears to be half full already. Now that's... Curious. But glancing back to where he has put down the recorder itself only has him met with empty space. Right. These don't stick around long, do they.

Trying not to think about it too much, Jon exhales softly and pulls his attention back to the consumption of alcohol - And Mister Nine. He idly musters the Chiss before pulling up a brow.

"So what are you. Some sort of spy?"

"I was."

Not something he should go admitting so readily perhaps, but he doesn't really care. This place isn't connected to his own world, after all. And he's not exactly sure there's any work left for him to go back to, the way Intelligence had looked. Maybe a better Imperial Intelligence would be built from the ashes, but somehow he doubted it.

It was something he wouldn't worry about until he went home, at any rate.

"... I suppose I'll be calling you Mr. Sims," He said then, shrugging a shoulder, "It's not right to reduce a man down to a title, anyway."

Never mind that that was what had happened to him. No true identity left.

Jon pulls up a brow "How surprisingly observant of you." And yet here he went and reduced himself to basically a number. Curious.

"But you don't happen to be a Sith as well, do you?" He's been wondering that for some time now. If all Chiss are Sith. It could well be possible. It could be a cultural thing - Or genetics. He doesn't fully understand that yet. He has a lot of loose information about the Force, Jedi and the Sith so far, but no clear idea on how to arrange them into a way that makes sense.

At the very least he is sure enough that Mister Nine here and the Emperor are of the same species.

"I take it you know the resident Sith Lord," Aden commented, arching a brow. He'd heard of his presence- though with the question, things that hadn't been narrowed down before very much were- the Sith was a Chiss then. Aden couldn't help that a slight look of pity slipped through, just for a second, then it was gone again.

"I'm no Sith, no. I've worked for the Sith Empire, but... Well, Force-sensitivity is unusual, in my species."

He shrugged a shoulder, "Your Sith friend can't have had an easy life. Chiss consider Force-sensitivity to be impurity. I'm sure you can imagine what happens, when someone is considered impure."

Not that Aden shared in that belief.

The Archivist's eyes narrow at those words. Impure. He doesn't even have to be very imaginative to puzzle the rest together. He's well familiar with the history of Earth and the atrocities humans were capable to inflict on one another. Though maybe a part of him had hoped that an actual alien species would prove to be better than them.

He closes his hand around his newly arrived drink, making a face.

"That's remarkably primitive. Haven't your people already mastered intergalactic travel and interacted with enough other species to have moved past some ill-placed superiority complex?"

There's an edge to Jon's voice then. And for once he doesn't bother to keep his compelling powers checked, causing his words to try and saw their way into Aden's mind.

Thing about Aden's mind was- it was sealed up. Completely immune to such things. His species were already good at keeping people out, and he's even more so, given his rather unique past. Anyone trying to get into his head, anyone trying to get him to do anything, would meet a door they couldn't get past.

It was not as though he wouldn't share it of his own free will, though.

"People are going to be people regardless of where you go. I was born in the Chiss Ascendancy, I grew up there, and I still have some semblance of loyalty toward my species- doesn't mean I don't think they're dumbasses."

Seriously dumbasses, sometimes.

"No one would choose to be a victim. And your Sith buddy very much would have been. The Chiss aren't friendly to Force-sensitives. The Empire isn't friendly to aliens. Double-screwed, in other words. There a reason you haven't asked him these things? You seem curious."

While Jon notices the resistance, he doesn't try to press against it. This hasn't been intended after all, but that is some useful knowledge to gain. Were he trying to force it, he might just end up hurting himself again.

Still, this small piece of additional knowledge is picked up, mentally catalogued and filed away. Then he snarls. It's a little snarl, but a snarl nonetheless.

"It's simply not something anyone with a semblance of common decency would even consider asking someone else where I am from. The mere idea of a person being born worth less is- That's despicable. This entire Empire of yours is a mess!"

Somewhere within that little tirade Jon has managed to empty his drink again and sets the empty glass down before pushing himself back onto hit feet, entirely steady and with no sign of all the alcohol he has just consumed to have any effect at all.

"I'm leaving."

"Ascendancy's a mess. Empire's a mess. Republic's a mess. Your world probably is, too."

Aden couldn't imagine any civilization being perfect. People were people no matter where one went, and people were flawed. Given his own history, believing in the best of anyone was difficult, and there were very few people he actually had any faith in. His faith in the Ascendancy was low, his faith in the Empire didn't exist any more.

"See you around then, Mr. Sims."

He raised a hand in a casual wave, certainly understanding the man's anger, though he was merely too old and jaded now to really feel any of it himself.

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Open Log - 001

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