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The Witness "...And that's been your weather report and the three-day for the area near as these eyes can make out. And now, traffic. There ain't a roostertail to be seen out here, children, not since Sandy Flats blew the hell out of that biker gang a few days back. We got a pair of dust devils spinnin' like dance partners, and precious little else. Fine day to go scrounging, but now you gotta play the guessing game and wonder who else is having the same idea. Sorry about that, brothers and sisters." Then Clio starts chirping and a moment later the lights on Melpomene start blinking, which gets passed up to the signal indicator (A bunch of LEDs and a microcontroller) sewn into Witness' sleeve. The radio operator blinks at the signal they're getting, then looks around from their perch atop a bus stop by the car lot. "Sorry to leave you, gentleminds, but the Witness has seen something. Stay tuned, and I may even tell you about it." Sliding down off the shattered pillar they were broadcasting from, they hit the sleeve-mounted switch for Polyhymnia, the main broadcast antenna, and grab a gas can half-full of what may nearly be shellac by now, siphoned out of half a dozen fuel tanks. "Mental note, filter the gas. Some of that tasted... off. Is my programming rusty, or are we really getting a wi-fi signal?" Once in the van, visual inspection of the receivers confirms a faint wi-fi signal. Too attenuated and heavily-encoded to piggyback off of, it's still good enough to get directionality. Making a pencil swipe in the appropriate direction on a heavily-annotated road map, The Witness starts up the engine and heads for the signal, weaving through wrecks and rubble as they go.
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May 27, 2014 06:47
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Witness "Autonomous crosstalk in this day and age, something's still active out there. Ain't a sectopod, that's for drat sure. Those make some big spikes in the microwave band." Witness falls silent and keeps driving, turning the corner into Sandy Flats in time to see President Dave come out loaded for Muton. They pull up, and Dave's radio crackles as Witness finds the frequency. They could just yell out the window, but those who've worked with Witness before know the radio operator is kinda shy in person. "Outrider Actual, you need a lift? I've got a signal reaching my ears from off in the direction of your prodigal daughter." --- Mostly out of curiosity as I don't think we have the time immediately, what would I need to get to the bottom of (re: the Savvyhead's workspace) that signal's encryption and protocol? Dareon fucked around with this message at 05:31 on May 30, 2014 |
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May 30, 2014 05:28
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Witness Witness mumbles something that could be "welcome aboard" or "don't step on the circuit board", throws the van into gear, and starts heading for the signal again. e: Also, I forgot to roll for Bonefeel earlier. Bonefeel, +Weird: 2d6+2 10. I hold 1+1. And since Weird is highlighted, I mark experience. I'm still in the stage where I need to review every mechanic before I use it, so my explanations are mostly for my own benefit. XP: (X)()()()(>) Dareon fucked around with this message at 14:24 on May 30, 2014 |
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May 30, 2014 10:42
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Witness Witness has Dave calling for reverse in one ear, but Melpomene and Thalia are whispering a different story in the other. Thalia's microphone picks up the whine and grind of the neglected servos, and a stutter in the traverse corresponds with a crackle of encrypted crosstalk, and Witness whacks the clutch with one foot, popping the car into higher gear and flooring it. Act under fire, +Cool: 2d6+1 12 The van jounces off the roadway, veering behind the collapsed remnants of a garden shed and through the last pickets of a stretch of fence, one wheel crushing the last fragments of resistance out of some long-dead housewife's daffodils. "Speed!" Witness yells over the roar of the engine. "Firing angles! Old tech, no maintenance!" As the autocannons come back into view from behind a crumbled McMansion, Witness' theory is borne out as the van seems to be outside the firing cone for a moment. At the very least, the move has bought a little time. "Um, grenades?" --- Cool is highlighted, marking experience. XP: (X)(X)()()(>)
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May 31, 2014 03:55
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Witness "Who wired that one- *uff* -place on the swampy ground? Nearly burnt down when I, um, hooked it up? Give me a day to work out IFF codes and send them in in mechanic's gear." A laser blast slags a swingset. "More immediately, no clue." Dareon fucked around with this message at 04:44 on May 31, 2014 |
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May 31, 2014 04:39
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Witness "Brothers, sisters, and all those within the sound of my voice, I am here to tell you that should government stop revolving around who has the most guns within my lifetime, President Dave has my vote. Here is a man unafraid to step in and take action to defend what's precious to him. More specifically, here is a man who charged a laser cannon emplacement with a shotgun to rescue his daughter. If we'd had a few more of him in government, perhaps we could have won the war." Witness pulls forward, parking by one of the sparking autocannon wrecks, then hops out the back door and tugs a toolchest out from beneath their radio bench. As they round the front of the van, they toss an entrenching tool to Dave before starting to hook tow chains to rebar protruding from the larger chunks of rubble. --- If that's not the sort of equipment that would make sense to just have on hand, I'll go ahead and spend my Bonefeel hold for it.
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Jun 3, 2014 00:29
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Witness "Um, I don't- HNNNG!" Witness' back arches as part of their brain they don't quite know how to use turns on without a ground wire. They grit their teeth and their hands twitch at their sides. But they can see, and the twitching calms, becomes more methodical, like fine-tuning a radio receiver. They stand, head thrown back, eyes clamped shut, not against the visions, but against the rest of the world. Pull back. Show me. Give me the layout. Where. Where. Show me. Let me see. --- Opening my brain about paths, and secrets, laying it all bare for the world to see. Using Bonefeel's +1 forward. Opening brain, +weird+1: 2d6+3 13 XP: (X)(X)(X)()(>)
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Jun 3, 2014 06:52
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Witness "Safe," Witness mumbles. It's loud enough for Dave to hear, but maybe he's off in his own little problem at the moment. "She's safe. She will be safe, she was safe, she's trying to be safe. The boy. The boy, he's... Sins," Where did that come from? "Sins handed down like old clothes. Wash the clothes." This isn't making any more sense than before. "Washed in the blood of the lamb. No lambs here, just wolves in sheep's clothing." What's that sound? Coming from inside the van? "You can still shave a wolf, though that doesn't make it a poodle."
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Jun 4, 2014 07:58
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Witness <You get on after your daughter, Mr. President. And remember: The boy's a good kid, he's just had a lot of poo poo shoved on him.> Witness flips their headset mic up and hauls open the van doors. You wouldn't think it to look at things, but a lot survived the apocalypse. There was word of nuclear exchange with alien craft in China, but for most of the world, the alien invasion didn't harm the environment all that much. Plasma, just by its very nature, is sterile, as trillions of bacteria and a few X-COM operatives discovered first-hand (or occasionally no-hand). Thin Man venom aerosolized quickly, dispersing into negligible concentrations minutes after deployment, although for obvious reasons no studies were performed on its biomagnification potential. Elerium was radioactive, but didn't spread far beyond UFO crash sites and had a half-life of 15 days. The biggest contaminant was Meld. Stray plasma fire, overzealous use of explosives, even a few really dedicated Avalanche salvos would blow open a containment pod and scatter the nanotech willy-nilly. This had some unpredictable effects on terrestrial life. Dr. Vahlen had maintained a terrarium of rats who had melded with detritus in their vicinity (The sporkrat was her favorite, although the soldiers were generally more amused by the one that had managed to get a pair of shell casings melded to its hind feet like tap shoes). A farmer's chickens, their coop miraculously untouched by plasma and laser fire during a skirmish, developed a communal intelligence, although they never got smarter than a particularly stupid dog while study was underway. A number of small animals were affected by the gene modification properties, adjusting their own genes or taking on aspects of the surrounding population. Naturally, natural selection applied. The stray Megaphone Chihuahua with its strengthened vocal cords was no match, as far as living to pass on its genes was concerned, for the alley cat with adjustable fur pigmentation allowing for rudimentary camouflage. The upshot being that when Witness opens the van back up, they bear witness to a raccoon that would have had an Animal Control officer of 20-some years ago radioing for backup. Larger and generally more muscular, with an enlarged braincase and a thumb that has bred true and evolved to become semi-opposable. A nuisance when it's digging around a settlement's trash heap. An actual menace when it realizes where the good food is and goes after it. Case in point, this one happens to be elbow-deep in a battered plastic cooler that Witness tends to carry fish in, and looks unimpressed at being interrupted. --- And now that I've established that, I have no idea what to actually do with it.
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Jun 5, 2014 09:31
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Witness "Well, hell." Witness takes a step back and considers their options. The X-COM pistol is low-powered, but still designed to punch through body armor, and that little guy is quick and knows what guns are for. Chances are good that by the time Witness can get the gun clear and squeeze a shot off, he'll be up in the front seat... or in Witness' face. Either way, a miss could take out some expensive radio equipment. As could the arc thrower, since they had dispensed with the typical charge-carrying darts of the taser early in development (And with good reason, one of the video reports Witness had reviewed had shown a Brazilian police officer trying to taze a Muton. The darts had simply bounced off.) in favor of focused pulse-wave technology. Which had the side effect of putting about as much energy into the surrounding air as into the target. As a general rule, delicate electronics don't handle free charges very well. Charging in to grab the thing bodily would certainly wind up with a fish and/or claws to the face. With no good direct options, Witness drops back another couple paces and pulls both their pistol and the arc thrower. "All right, little guy, come on out of there. You can keep the fish, but I need you out and on your way." There's a lot of assumptions going on here: That the raccoon can count, that it thinks two guns are inherently better than one, that it can understand English or failing that, tone and intent, that it's willing to settle for one fish. That sounds like manipulate, +Hot: 2d6-1 4 --- Welp. 
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Jun 10, 2014 07:30
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Witness "Hey, don't e- put that-" Did it snicker? "GET YOUR PAWS OFF MY TABLET!" Witness takes two steps and hurls themselves into the van, bodily tackling the raccoon to the floor. The tablet, still in its X-COM protective case, gets jostled about, a stray finger or claw or elbow or nose tapping a play control as radio operator and procyonid scuffle about. "GET... OUT... OF MY... VAN!" Witness manages to whap the mutant upside the head with their pistol, more by accident than design. --- Seize by force, +Hard: 2d6+1 11 Take definite hold, suffer little harm, and impress, dismay, or frighten enemy.
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Jun 11, 2014 20:45
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Witness Grumbling and breathing heavily, Witness begins putting their van back in order. After plugging a couple of things back in, they start transmitting again, broadcasting a steady stream of patter as they re-stack toppled components and organize food stocks again. "Children, I tell you. Man and Martian may have massacred our Mother, but the meek of Matthew? You know, the ones supposed to inherit this pitiful mudball spinning in the black? Sometimes I don't think we're it, brothers and sisters." They step on the bent fish the raccoon had been waving about, stopping for a moment. "I mean, look at the world, my friends. People are scrabbling to eke out an existence, but nature? Nature just goes on." Snagging a banged-up hubcap, they dump the screws out of it into a handle-less coffee mug, then plop the fish in. "Thousands of species, still working mostly as they did 20, 30, one hundred, a thousand years ago. Just slap a mosquito, see what I mean." Hopping out of the van, Witness sets the fish-laden hubcap (Unfortunately Witness hadn't seen any parsley for a good fifteen years, so presentation was lacking) over near the rocks in the direction the raccoon headed, then hops back in and shuts the door. "At any rate, for those of you following the prodigal child news, President Dave has gone into the bunker we're all pretty drat sure Anne is in, with a few of the region's certifiable badasses for backup, and yours truly, the ear that hears, parked outside and keeping an eye on things." A quick twiddle of the controls turns Thalia's sensor package to focus on the hubcap. "So those of you saddling up with guns and shovels can probably turn around. And those of you saddling up to make a ride on Sandy Flats, You've got to ask yourself: Are you gonna be facing down Dave's shotgun when he's happy? Or angry? Do you feel lucky?" Some more twiddling as Witness tries to get a signal into- or out of- the bunker. Whoever designed the thing was paranoid as poo poo, there's probably tinfoil in the walls along with the other, more effective, dampening technologies. If Anne hadn't tripped the turrets, the place might have gone undiscovered for years, possibly decades more. Once that raccoon decides what to do with the fish (If it's even still hanging around), it might be worth scavenging those turrets, see if there's any encryption circuits left intact. Dareon fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 21:41
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Witness Witness jumps about a foot when Dave starts screaming. A quick dial twist- he's screaming there too? What about- god, how many bands is he- Even Euterpe's half-heard background song starts to roughen as the radio operator leaps out of the van (Kicking the door closed behind them, don't need an encore of the Wildlife Wrestling Federation) and dashes into the bunker. Left, right, a kicked-in door, a busted turret, a dusty footprint on a fallen wall panel... Read a sitch, +Sharp: 2d6 5 Wait, was that door kicked in, or did it just come off its hinges from neglect? That footprint looks more like a dress shoe than a combat boot. "...Crap."
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Jun 21, 2014 01:46
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Witness What is done is, in this case, less important than what is seen. For Witness' first impression is of steampunk. As the lights kick on in recessed niches of the ceiling, they gleam off the dusty brass, glass, and mahogany that makes up the Meld tubes. A video screen mounted in an ornamental fireplace kicks on, flickering for a moment before playing a loop of a gentle fire. Bookshelves line the room, with occasional armchairs and end tables positioned by the tanks. Red velvet banners, adorned with a symbol that tugs at Witness' memory, hang periodically from the ceiling. Jaw agape, Witness steps forward, wiping the dust from a tank to peer at the nigh-opaque Meld solution and enrobed form within. A soft chime draws their attention to the nearby table, where a book reveals itself to be a decorative cover for a monitor screen and controls. Closer investigation, however, is cut short as their radio crackles with President Dave's voice. Reluctantly, they head back out into the hallway, noting as they pass the doorway that the bookshelves only protrude an inch and a half from the wall. <Copy that, Mister President. I'll meet you there, I slipped in and found something interesting.> Dareon fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Jun 26, 2014 07:44
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Witness As tempting as it is, there's not a lot that Witness could have taken. The furniture is bulky and the tables are probably fixed in place, the bookshelves are fake, decanting someone seems like a bad idea at the moment, and they don't have a camera. There are a few ornaments on the mantelpiece (a skull, a dust-obscured picture, a taxidermied ferret, a pair of bookends, and a clock), but no. All Witness takes with them is incidentally-acquired dust. As Witness nears the entrance of the bunker, equipment in the van begins responding to the approach of its master. Or mistress. Whichever it is, there are a few more beeps and squees from the terrestrial equipment than there were, and Euterpe begins emitting a two-tone chime just at the edge of hearing. This may be the first time Dave's been around Witness' van without Witness, and almost certainly the first time he's witnessed its wake-up procedure.
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Jun 28, 2014 09:19
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Witness "Yeah, no problem..." Witness climbs into the driver's seat and starts the van up. Something clatters to the floor as they pull away from the bunker, which must be what prompted Dave's question. "Um, nothing big. Just a raccoon." In a slow moment, Witness eyes the arms of father and child. "Um... your arm..." They gesture vaguely at the Meld-induced changes, unsure quite how to broach the subject or mention that they heard Dave screaming from outside the bunker.
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Jun 30, 2014 06:03
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"And now, brothers, sisters, and those who choose differently, it's me, your eyes and ears, with the news. Since early this morning, the waves have been singing with search parties out looking for Anne, the daughter of Sandy Flats' President Dave. Well worry no longer, children, for Anne is back home, only a little the worse for wear. Turns out she stumbled into an old pre-war bunker, looks like it might have been set up for some old rich white man, one of those festering assholes that we can lay the blame for this entire hosed-up world DIRECTLY AT THEIR FEET! YOU INCOMPREHENSIBLE JACKASSES, YOU'RE THE REASON- Ah, pardon me, children. I've more things to do than yell at dead men. Little Anne had herself a bit of excitement, but the upshot is this, children: There are all sorts of arms out there, nuclear and otherwise, and it turns out that some of them? Some of them you can hug your children with. Now, the story of this bunker isn't ending here, people. Even as I speak I'm hearing reports of weapons fire out there, as your friends and mine, those you may know as the choosers of the slain, do what they do best. But to get serious for a moment, boys, girls, and stranger besides, there's someone caught in the middle of this. A sheep in wolf's clothing, with the sins of his father draped about him like the world's nastiest cloak, and children, these days I've seen some nasty cloaks. If he's listening, I got this to say to you, my man: You've had more poo poo dropped on you than maybe anyone else still living in this hosed-up world, but you ain't gone any crazier than most of us. And that's a grand old thing, means you're stronger than you give yourself credit for. And that's been the news as witnessed, brothers, sisters, and those who claim no affiliation to a gender-binary system. Now here's a song the younger among us may need some explanation for: Perry Como with Delaware." --- Dave knows Witness just a bit better, mostly just confirming that the dude- dudette? is fuckin' weird.
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Jul 8, 2014 14:39
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My Hx has not changed this session, so Valkyrie, you get to pick my highlight again. And I'm fine with pretty much any timeskip.
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Jul 10, 2014 05:12
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Dave, my man, you panicked a little there. Not saying it wasn't justified, but you need to be Cool.
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Jul 11, 2014 11:20
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Witness Witness' day does not consist entirely of tooling around in their van, broadcasting whatever comes to mind willy-nilly over the airwaves without a care in the world. As someone theoretically friendly with everyone and with a working vehicle, they are often called on to make deliveries between settlements: Mail, supplies, the occasional betrothed or apprentice. What with the bunker, and the McKinley's goat calving (Doc Walnut needed to be called in to stick a hand in), and the Ross wedding (Mostly gifts and RSVPs, not any participants), Witness hasn't had much of an opportunity to think on other things. Out of sight, out of mind, for the moment. However, recently, something in the back of their mind has been bothering them. Some urge that now has the van jouncing along a stretch of suburban road, Witness' map showing every house along it as "cleared". In the passenger seat, a small glass jar bounces lightly, the pay they'd been given for the vet run. The McKinleys had never opened it for being too precious: A small jar of instant coffee. Slowing as they near a house that looks like all the other houses, they pull up onto the dead lawn (The driveway being blocked by a rusted moving truck), bumping over a reaching root of a gnarled crabapple tree before parking with one wheel on the walkway and shutting off the engine. Popping open the back doors, Witness sets up a small gas camp stove and begins boiling water. --- Bonefeel, +Weird: 2d6+2 13, holding 1+1. Spending that hold immediately to show up at Ammar's place with coffee. XP: (X)(X)(X)(X)(>)
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Jul 17, 2014 03:59
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Witness "Twenty years ago, I said I owed you a drink." The words would be confident in the proper tone, but Witness sounds like they're only now remembering, as much rationalizing to themselves as explaining to Ammar. "Think we've, ah, seen each other around, um. Haven't talked." As Witness puts the coffee together, they keep glancing at the bushes and making certain their arc thrower is handy. "Might have a little company, um. A raccoon's been following me. Could be something else, though." They pass Ammar a "World's Greatest Lawyer  " mug brimming with piping-hot elixir.The radio operator takes a sip, yelps, and sticks their tongue out. "Too loving hot." An uncomfortable pause ensues. "I'm, um, terrible at small talk." Which seems weird since most of their broadcasts could be classed as small talk. "You got any problems I can help with?"
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Jul 19, 2014 03:28
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Witness Witness listens quietly to Ammar's troubles, nodding sympathetically. When he mentions X-ALT, they perk up, but wait for him to finish. "EXALT, I, ah, I know them. There was... Hang on..." They scoot backwards into the van, grabbing their tablet off a rack. Slow finger flips transition into rapid thumb flicks for a few moments, a second finger poised to toss files into a holding folder. They call up a heavily-pixellated video still of a hexagonal red-and-black emblem, what could be the moon rising with a UFO silhouetted against it, or an upturned eye above the earth. "We got this- the video this came in- in place of our- X-COM's- Meld research when Vahlen and Co. were about half done with it. Got hushed up, claimed it was an unforeseen research complication, most that knew were... "reassigned" to an "auxiliary base," but one of them hid this and a little story on the network. So that, uh, explains how they got it, but I don't- didn't- have the clearance to know more either. Did get this across my desk, though..." The second file is a video clip from a helmet cam, a night firefight with floaters around a gas station. Metadata in the stream identifies the viewpoint as Rk. BUNTLINE, N. and the man ahead of him has "TANGO" stenciled on his back. The two are taking cover behind a destroyed car. As Tango begins to rise to move to another piece of cover, Witness taps their ear just ahead of a gunshot on the audio. Tango's head practically explodes, his body slumping violently across the hood of the car. The video blurs as Buntline whips his head around to try and locate the shooter, then is thrown back by a second shot. The last frames of video show the moon clouded with smoke. "The bodies of Rookies Buntline and Tango were unrecoverable, and Command decided the shots audible on the recording were from the rifles of our own troops. Bullshit." Witness begins to take on their more customary radio announcer voice. "I took it upon myself to seek the truth, and do you know what I found?" They call up the next file, a series of stills from the helmetcam footage. "I tell you, Ammar, "zoom and enhance" is never as easy as they make it look on TV, and it's been twenty years since I had to mention that." The initial image is just a bright spot through smoke, but the series rapidly resolves itself into a human- not humanoid like a Sectoid or Thin Man, obviously entirely human- figure atop a rooftop, illuminated by the muzzle flash of their sniper rifle. About the only details that can be made out are the face, swathed in a red-and-orange bandana, and a red insignia on their arm, angular, but indistinct at this resolution. "I may be paranoid, I may have spun this man out of whole cloth, in fact I made my breakthrough on this in our final days, but I think this is some of the only footage X-COM ever had of EXALT forces. They are- were- at the least hostile to X-COM, my brother, if not in league with the aliens. And-" A thought strikes them. "Wait, did you hear about these guys down in the bunker? That means Jonathan- Holy loving balls, so that's the sins of the father!"
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Jul 20, 2014 07:00
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Witness "You haven't heard the story? I go over it on the anniversary. People say it grows in the telling, but I, well, don't have a script for it. Maybe I embellish, but I've got the video here." They flip through the storage on the tablet. "It's an hour of video each from the four who had helmetcams, but here's the relevant stills." A shot from the Skyranger of a massive structure of alien construction, buried deep in a mountain range. The base's hatch is in the process of opening, and orange light is reflecting off the window from something behind the viewer. A second shot of the interior of the Skyranger, one of the soldiers peering through the window as a second works with the interface on an orange crystalline device. "The Skeleton Key. When we captured one of those crystalline guys, it just collapsed into that. Shen called it an antenna, and he built the interface we used to locate the alien's main base and fool their IFF so we could land a squad." Shots from the inside of the base. Abductees in stasis tanks, abductees in surgery tables, a series of fluid-filled tanks arrayed along the center of one large room. Dozens of shots, most from very similar timestamps, Witness apparently has sort of a fixation on the subject. Shots of enemies as well. Sectoids, Mutons, Floaters, a single Chryssalid ripping a soldier's head off before the team can focus fire and take it down. "We were going in blind, but the team had enough explosives to level a small town. Whatever was down there was not going to survive. Worst-case scenario, there was a nuke on the Skyranger, pilot had orders to blow it if the team failed." Witness takes a gulp of coffee and moves to the next set of pictures. The main chamber, the Hyperwave Beacon, and the Sectoid Commander. "Did you get shown the First Contact mission recording? I'm pretty sure a picture of the Commander was on the barracks dartboard, at least. Anyway, we found it again. And whatever it was guarding, it was the important part. We don't know entirely what it was, but we blew it up." Several shots of the battle, including one soldier turning his weapon on the viewer, culminating in a series of stills of one soldier, massive demolitions pack in one hand, charging the Commander's dais and exploding. Then, a shot of the Commander, held up by one leg for the camera, showing one of the beams of the Beacon lodged through its enormous skull. "Whatever that was, it was the backbone of the aliens' communications and-slash-or transport network. They started to lose cohesion after that, no leadership, no high-level tactical thinkers among them, only local comms, but it was already the beginning of the end for X-COM. One last hurrah, too little, too late. Their retaliatory assault on our base was just the cherry on the poo poo sundae we'd been served. "Two soldiers made it back from the base, and they brought back souvenirs." Witness rises and moves back into their van, beckoning Ammar and Jaime in. On their radio bench, nestled in a cluster of wires, is Euterpe, roughly half of one of the rings off the Beacon, with wires clipped and soldered to it. "Snagged it on my way out, I'm... not entirely sure why, but she's been handy the past twenty years."
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Jul 25, 2014 07:29
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Witness It's an alien transmission. It has to be, nothing else comes through Euterpe. Then why is it beeping? Euterpe doesn't beep. She chimes and hums and sings like an angel. Witness slides onto their broadcast stool and begins working controls. "Hang on, I need to- it's so rare to get a transmission on Euterpe- just let me-" An alligator clip gets removed from one spot on Euterpe and fixed to another, faders and dials are adjusted, switches are flipped, then some are flipped back, and a coil of wire that doesn't even look like it's attached to anything is taken off the top of a receiver and hung on the wall. They take another sip of coffee as they listen. "Encrypted." They lean over to tap at a keyboard. "Thematic similarities to the encrypted crosstalk from the bunker, it's... Thematic similarities hell, that IS the same encryption, it's a loving EXALT signal, how are they on this band, who are they talking to? What are they saying!?" Witness scrabbles a bit, trying to get their recording apparatus to start from the beginning of the transmission and the encryption cracking at the same time. --- Read a sitch, +Sharp: 2d6 5 Along with that, what'll it take to get to the bottom of this?
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Jul 29, 2014 02:54
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Witness "It ain't the bunker, that was 20 years unmaintained, they've been massaging this crypto for years." Witness pops a can off one ear when they realize Ammar's talking to them. "Er, I wouldn't expect incoming fire anytime soon, we're not, um," They wave vaguely at the equipment surrounding them, "putting out enough noise to pinpoint us, but whoever's on the other end is in a, um, we-know-they-know-we-know situation." It's at this moment that Witness notices Jaime seems to have gone full-on Pythia. "...drat, girl, you okay?"
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Aug 9, 2014 16:37
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Witness "Um, no, I..." Witness starts to respond to Ammar, then Jaime reanimates. "Jonathan? Yeah. I... need to talk to him too, I think." They start packing up the camp stove and finishing their coffee. "Um, you want a ride into town, Ammar?"
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Aug 21, 2014 01:22
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Witness Recording is basically a default state for Witness' comm gear, after they had been woken up by a desperate distress signal a couple years after the fall of XCOM and been unable to catch all the relevant details before the transmission went dead. Received signals are kept for ten hours before being overwritten, and keeping a segment is just a matter of transferring it to more permanent media. In this case, a USB thumb drive emblazoned with a bank logo. Tucking the thumb drive into a breast pocket (With a couple of identical thumb drives), Witness climbs into the driver's seat, letting Ammar and Jaime choose between the passenger seat or a small bench seat against one wall. "Buckle up."
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Aug 23, 2014 21:29
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Witness OOC: ahhh I stopped minding this character when I thought the game died who is this how is they  Witness starts the van up, waving back over their shoulder at Jaime with the vague message to sit down before she falls down, then puts the car in gear and hits the main broadcast switch, starting a stream of patter as they pull off the suburban lawn. "Ladies, gentlemen, and those who accept no labels, this is The Witness with your local weather and traffic. Light traffic in and out of Sandy Flats all day, no issues to report. Still no vehicular traffic since previously except for yours truly, and a tip of the sun-faded pre-war cap to my buddy Sethro for keeping me shiny-side up in these troubled times." The suburb street is actually fairly clear, barring tree roots and stands of grass. Witness is nearly able to get up to the mandated 25 miles per hour, even though the speed limit sign and its mounting post had long since been scavenged to fix someone's domicile. "So, children, today I want to talk to you about leftovers. Remnants. Remainders. All the things you used, but didn't need all of. Food, which can become a nice stew tomorrow. Cloth, which can be sewn into a scrap bag or a hat. Wood, which at the very least can start a fire. Us. There used to be a lot more of us, gentleminds, every child old enough to make conversation can see that. And they ask me, those children do. They ask me who lived in that house on the hill or what that storefront sold." The streets with more wreckage cause Witness to slow a bit, then lean over to get their map out of the glovebox and trace a route with one finger. A wheel bumps over a large tree root from a decorative aspen and Witness grunts into the mike before continuing. "The storefront, I may say, sold diversions, things of plastic, metal, and glass that made adults happier. And that, I may say, is why the family that lives there has a boy named Rambone. The house, I may say, once held a wealthy man and his family, who decided their personal safety was not worth entrusting to the people trained to protect it, who would rather sit behind STOLEN PLASMA TURRETS and watch the rest of the world STARVE! ...I- I don't say that, brothers and sisters. I want to, but the children deserve better. We all do, all of us children on this Earth. I tell them the man living there is ashes and deservedly so, and his crumbling house merely a monument to More Than You Need. With the capitals and everything. Very important, those capitals." A more important thoroughfare had been hit by aliens, and Witness maneuvers around craters, burnt cars, and those abduction pods the aliens dropped from high flyovers. "But like the stew and the bag, we left behind have come together to form new things, things greater than we used to be. But the question is, boys, girls, and stranger besides, who else has? Is the US government still out there, hidden in a bunker, living on beans? Is someone else? We sort of stopped worrying about terrorists when the aliens happened. Or at least it got pushed onto the back burner. But children, you know as well as I that not everyone wanted to fight the aliens with us. Just think on them, and wonder if they're still out there too." The trip gets easier as the van gets into cleared space that Dave and his guards had cleared between Sandy Flats and the town proper, just a clear corridor designed to funnel anything larger than a bicycle into one place for easy identification and/or murdering. Sunlight glints off rifle scopes from the walls. "Now, children, word will soon be getting around that Witness is coming to town, but hold your jobs, I've got a man to see. We neither of us owe the other money, but he at least looks like he might lend it out. Looking for a young man in a crisp suit. Gotta find out where he does his dry cleaning, I've got a stain that just won't come out no matter how many rocks I pound it with. And now, weather. Clear for the next few days, but clouds moving in over the mountains mean rain in the forecast. It's nice to know weather hasn't changed much thanks to all the poo poo we did in the war, eh? That's it for now, I've been the Witness, your friendly eye on the ground."
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Sep 10, 2014 00:31
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Witness Witness rolls down the window and puts on what they hope is a friendly smile, but probably comes off more as a weird smirk. "Uh, y-yeah. Jonathan, right?" They pause long enough that it seems logical to respond, then start talking again. "We could use your, uh, help. Hop in." They gesture vaguely at the passenger side door. --- Jaime is probably also in the van, Ammar probably less so. Dareon fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Sep 14, 2014 |
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Sep 14, 2014 13:33
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Witness "Ah, no, I, um, ex-" Or was it X-? "er, long story, but the van's from like three TV studios. We, uh, what do you know about your bunker's comm protocols? It's just, well, we got a signal that matches what your turrets use- er, used."
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Sep 17, 2014 16:12
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Witness Witness startles at Jonathan's outburst, flinching back from the boy instinctively. "Whoa, she, uh, she's well enough to encrypt her signal and not just broadcast a general SOS, here, take a, uh, loo- listen..." They grab their tablet and plug one of the USB sticks in... resulting in footage of the Ross wedding. "Sorry, wrong one." The right stick is quickly found, letting Jonathan examine the encrypted signal in all its obtuse glory (With all manner of soundwave displays and techy business). "I-if you don't know crypto yourself, I can probably kludge something out of the comm gear at your bunker..."
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Sep 28, 2014 07:38
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Witness "It, uh, it came in through that," Witness indicates Euterpe humming contentedly to itself, occasionally resonating with the playback. "Which was actually, eh, a surprise. It's, uh, it's alien tech, weird for, um..." They trail off for a second. "But you've got the right codec at the bunker? Great, was, y'know, hoping it would be easier than digging through your turrets' guts for, uh, trasnponders. Let's, ah, let's hope Dave hasn't taken apart the important bits to make new roof tiles." Witness starts up the van and heads out of town towards the bunker. The trip will take a little while, long enough for some conversation. Witness seems deep in thought, chewing on their lip and frequency-hopping on the dashboard radio until they finally glance over at Jonathan. "So, uh, how do you feel? About- about the aliens, I mean." They grimace, shaking their head. "Sorry. Weird que- forget it."
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Sep 30, 2014 08:11
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Witness The radio operator sits on a chunk of rubble near Jonathan, watching the kid fret. "Dave's, ah, he's okay himself, um, for given values of okay, but some of his men are only a half-step removed from the bandits they shoot." Their voice firms a little as they fall into storytelling mode. "Up on the high ground there you've got Shepherd, who will only shoot you- generic you, not specific- in the leg, but he'll do it more than he needs to. The two with shotguns are Big Jim and Little Jim, two knife nuts brought together by having the same name. Piston is the one poking around in the turret wreck, I stopped teaching her electrical engineering when she thought electrocuting a captive would make for a nice first date. Violent assholes that would have been kicked out of eh-any armed force twenty years ago." A sigh. "But it's how the world is, and we've got to make what we can out of the wreckage. "Speaking of which, w-what's the plan?"
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Oct 14, 2014 02:30
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Witness And just like that, it clicks. Everything Witness knows about the bunker and Jonathan melds into a cohesive whole. They start the van back up and, with Jonathan's direction, park half a block from the back entrance, out of sight from Dave's men at the front door. Once inside the bunker, the silence becomes pregnant, and Witness eventually fills it. "Dave's got to have guys down here, um, I hope he didn't bring Rhubarb along. Um, cards on the table. I, uh, I hate those stories where the only dramatic tension is from something immensely simple not being said. I know about the tubes, I've been in the library, didn't touch anything. You came out of one, right? And... Tammy?" They don't even need to look at Jonathan for the answer. "I also know this facility was held by EXALT, which... I-I know them as a terrorist group, which is the other card I need to, uh, put on the table. "I used to be in X-COM. Ammar and Valkyrie too," they didn't know about Jaime, and rush ahead with the rest of their statement like they're afraid lead might start flying. "I hope that's not a dealbreaker, because I would really like to use your crypto gear and it'd do neither of us good to rehash another man's war." --- Gladly taking that XP, which puts me at 5 and an advance. I'm sure I mentioned it earlier, and this is mostly so I don't forget myself, but I'll be picking up Moonlighting.
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Oct 25, 2014 16:31
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Witness Plan B, you ask, though not in so many words? There's always a Plan B. For all their on-air bravado and surety, The Witness really worries about quite a lot. In this case, though, they're fairly confident they've got a read on Jonathan, and the kid doesn't seem the type to quick-draw and plug someone in the head for saying the wrong thing. He wears his gun like most of X-COM wore their dress uniforms: Reluctantly but out of necessity. It's possible the only casualties caused by that gun have been empty cans. So there's a better-than-even chance Witness can tag the kid with the arc thrower should things go south. After all, Witness isn't the type to quick-draw and plug someone in the head for saying the wrong thing, either. And besides, Witness is finding Jonathan kinda cute. Even if in one sense he's practically young enough to be their kid.
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Oct 31, 2014 22:54
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Witness "Just Witness is f-fine," the radio operator grunts as one of their pockets of electronics catches on the ductwork and they have to pause- again- to free it. It's odd what circumstances will call up a memory, as Witness suddenly finds themself recalling a conversation around the coffee machine back at base, on the relative merits and comforts of home. "Home is where you can find your way around in the dark," one of the comm techs had expounded, and watching Jonathan wriggle through the ducts without apparently benefitting from Witness' headlamp, it rings true over the twenty-year gulf. Although Witness wonders somewhat bitterly what that says about themselves, since they found it relatively easy to evacuate when the alien bombardment knocked out the power, rendering the base into pitch blackness illuminated only by superheated plasma. Dareon fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Nov 13, 2014 |
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Nov 13, 2014 09:27
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Ack! Um, I'll get something up later today, poo poo's been hectic.
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Nov 18, 2014 15:49
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Witness Truthfully? Last week Witness would have been content to plant a bug on Jonathan and send him off with a pat on the back. They had sort of disconnected from the world after X-COM broke up. Obvious, right? You don't abandon your name and the entire concept of gender just on a whim. But gradually over the years, a need here or a pleading look there had pulled them back into life until the name "Witness" was sort of a bad joke. "Accomplice" may be more valid now. "Accessory." "Perpetrator." Not that they'll be switching anytime soon. Surprisingly (Or perhaps not), brand loyalty still exists out there and if Witness were to change their name, a small but devoted set of followers would probably scrounge up cans of New Coke to pelt them with. At any rate, here and now, unencumbered by this sort of speculation, Witness gives Jonathan a pat on the back. "Are there, uh, any security measures that weren't computer-controlled? Short of, erm, short of barricading the doors, we may have a, uh, tough time keeping Dave's men from finding us. I-I can maybe bluff my way past them, but, uh, I'm n-not the best at talking. W-with people, I mean. To people, I'm great at."
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Nov 19, 2014 02:22
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:03 |
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Witness Jaime's what? Ohh, is that what that static is? That nagging hindbrain itch that implies Witness' brain was built compliant with Part 15 of the FCC rules? It's pumping out a constant backbeat of want that's making the radio operator twitchy.
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Nov 26, 2014 11:17
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