savetheearth | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

WHO; Elian & ~~Aaron~~ PEOPLE
WHERE; LET'S SAY a park. Because.
WHAT; Elian wants more information about the whole losing-remembering Echos thing. Some folks are willing to help. Together, THEY DO SCIENCE. ~~Sort of.~~

He'd contacted the others again, with a suggestion that they meet at a public place; as it was a clear day, the park seemed like a good place. To start, if nothing else, and discuss what Elian had in mind. And considering he'd needed something to occupy his mind as of late...

...well, drafting a proper procedure was easy enough. Even if it was along the lines of 'go that direction until you forget things'. Elian was rather glad he wasn't submitting this to a board of any sort, but he privately thought any such board he'd been before never had such an odd mystery on their hands.

He sat on one of the benches, watching the young people stroll by as he waited for his new friends. Partners. Subjects. Whatever their relationship was, or would be, at least if nothing else he was getting some fresh air.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Aria's not actually certain who else is coming -- Banagher, of course, and an LCU professor apparently? - but she shows up promptly when requested. She's been told to look out for a green spherical basketball (which sounds about as normal as anything else in her life these days) so she's doing so. Poking around in a park has never struck her as not laying low - she does this for fun, when she's geo-caching.

Beyond having made sure to wear a lot of red to be easily recognizable (well, a red sweater and blue jeans and red shoes, but that's "a lot", right?) Aria's not sticking out much beyond looking around for the people she's meant to come and help out.

Since this bright idea was partially gleaned from Aria anyway, he felt it was only right to get her in on it. Luckily Elian had been a huge help, since he wasn't the best at trying to gain a tactical advantage, being a little more on the impulsive side. Right now he's on his lonesome — well, mostly. He's parked on a bench just on the outside of the round, gaudy fountain that serves as the park's centerpiece. Next to him a road atlas sits open, already marked up with sharpie.

As promised, a green basketball sure is wheeling itself around and around on the lip of the fountain's reservoir, pausing only to harmlessly flap its arm... ear... things at any birds brave enough to muscle in on its turf.

It also seems to notice Aria first, if its high-pitched, "Guest! Guest!" is anything to go by. Banagher swivels to look, expression brightening.

"Oh, hey!"

The green basketball definitely gets a lot of her attention, although she spares Banagher a grin. But, well, come on - you really can't blame a girl for paying attention to a floating basketball, can you? Or if you can, you're just not going to have a leg to stand on, unless the world is filled with them, in which case you might have a case.

Outside of anime and cartoons, though, this is the first floating robot Aria's ever seen. And certainly the first one to ever speak to her. Or about her, rather, to Banagher.

After a moment of flat out staring, she manages to refocus, though. "Hey!! You're right, that's pretty hard to miss."

Banagher leans forward on the bench, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Believe it or not, he gets really awful cabin fever. I actually feel bad leaving him at home, sometimes. But he came from a pulse, so I figured it's not so bad, letting him come along."

So he gets to field the less obvious numbers club meetings, here and there. Or you know, chase all the birds trying to get a drink in edgewise away from the fountain while stating the obvious a lot. Which he continues to do once he's announced Aria's arrival. Banagher swipes the folded road atlas up from where it sits next to him without much more ado, turning to offer it out with a smile.

"But I'm glad you could come! Looks like we weren't the only ones with this idea after all."

"Does he have a name?" Aria goes to sit at the bench, glancing back at the robot, amused. She's turned half towards Banagher, since they're speaking, but isn't sitting overly close.

"And of course! Wouldn't miss it. And do you mean...?" She takes the offered atlas, unfolding it to look at what there is to see. It's easy enough to read, since she has plenty of practice.

"It's Haro." Which does more or less sound like 'hello' in the robot's tinny little speech patterns. "Or so he told me. All good cartoon mascots come with one like that, right?"

He's more or less resigned himself to that fate, even if the robot was only slightly less conspicuous than, say, Winter's sentient plush toy. Looking back at the fountain again while she spreads the atlas out, he hums an agreement.

"And yeah, trying to find where it is that whatever's around Locke is coming from. See," he raises one hand. "If we use the amusement park as a reference, and start out from areas where we know weird stuff happens —" he raises the other, "— we should be able to find out some kind of shape."

"Haro...? How cute!! What does he like to do?" She was looking over at the robot again, still impressed. "And yeah, I think it's a cartoon mascot requirement. ...Geeze, I'd never have believed someone if they'd said I would meet...well, a robot. Like, a few months ago."

Or if they'd told her any of this. She would probably have laughed and been nice about it, but belief - that was asking for a step further than she would have been able to give.

"Oh, right! That'll definitely give us a frame of reference...and might even shed some light on the enemy's movements, if you think about it."

"Neither would I, believe me," he chuckles, despite himself. Thinking about space is something he still doesn't like. "I think he likes being outside like this a lot. And meeting new people, probably. He's always first in line when I bring him anywhere. Let him get tired of that, and you won't hear the end of it."

Though right now he was having a grand old time wobbling around the edge of the fountain. Luckily he'd already braved rain once, or he'd be worried about the robot taking a plunge and short-circuiting. His attention quickly turns back over to the topic at hand, though.

"Their movements... you think so?"

"I suppose anyone would get bored cooped up inside. It's a shame there isn't a reason for him to meet people more often...but he'd be restricted to just us, and I can see why." It's sad. Maybe someday that won't be the case, but...

Aria doesn't see that changing in the near future.

She nods. "Well, at the very least it might give us some ideas about it...so far, the things that happen, like the statues and the like, and the reservoir poisoning...none of them have been really out of the way places, have they? They're all more important-ish locations in the city."

"Normally I tell anyone else he's for a final, or a toy, but that's only if he keeps quiet." Which was way easier said than done, on most days. He smiles with a shrug. "My mom likes him."

Banagher moves then to peek over the map's edge, indicating the spaces already marked.

"It's exactly like that, yeah. First the Dead District... no one even looked twice at that place for a long time, until all of this. Then the art gallery, and, um. The police station. It's pretty contained, thinking about it. There's not a single place I don't recognize, so far."

He hums.

"We knew about the police right away, and the military has been really quiet. But now it might be other people. Government jobs, maybe."

Which meant that any place downtown that was of any note could be fair game. For the 'enemy' and for them to start from, in theory.

"Right, and the reservoir we mentioned...I guess it all makes sense if the public workers - I mean, police, etc. - are being mind controlled, but. It's a little worrying! I'd feel more comfortable if they weren't all going on in places I've been or know about. Or rely upon." Since, you know. Who do you trust?

It would be nice to go back to the time where in a situation involving lots of danger Aria's first impulse would have been to call 911. Now she has to worry about whether or not that will summon help or harm.

"I wonder how long it's been going on. I mean - okay, we know when we started remembering things, or whatever - but how long has something or someone been doing something in the city or the government?"

"I've thought about that too," Banagher admits, pulling away from the sprawling network of roads blocked across the page. He leans over and opens up his palms. Without having to be signaled more than that, Haro coasts to a stop on the lip of the fountain, wobbles, and pops off, hitting the grass with a hollow thump and rolling his way over. Banagher picks him up and holds him up to the sky thoughtfully.

"That this isn't just something that happened overnight, you know? It's been going on a lot longer than we've known about it. We sort of came in towards the middle, I feel like."

Lightly, Banagher tosses Haro up like a soccer ball to fill in the breadth of his thought. When he lands against his palms again, Haro chimes in with: "Middle! Middle!"

"What's it called... in medias res, if this was a story."

Aria nods, watching Haro roll his way over. She covers her mouth with one hand, trying to hide a smile, before giving it up. The casual signal and response is somehow sort of cute - like watching a pet and owner.

The subject matter, though, helps that to fade away. "In medias res, right. It really does feel that way. And I have to wonder...what happened in the acts we missed? I have the feeling that we really need to know. At least, if we want any chance of doing more than muddling our way into the third act."

Or knowing what the third act was even meant to be. As of now, well. What did they know, really? They had guesses and pieces of a story that didn't make sense, not without the information they just didn't have. "...I guess there's nothing to be done about that, it's just...something to keep in mind."

"It's true, but I don't get the feeling that we're all alone, either."

Which could have been the token idealistic response to puncture the heavy atmosphere, if it didn't sound like he believed in that so much. Banagher lowers the robot, pauses, and offers him out to Aria.

"Maybe it's easy to forget where we all met, but the network is pretty incredible, when you think about it. Someone made that for us, you know? Someone who wants us to do something about this."

"I've always wondered who made it." Aria admits that easily enough, although...she's never had any guesses.

She lifts her hands from her lap and reaches out, a bit cautiously. Of course she's going to take this chance to maybe hold an adorable robot. She couldn't live with herself if she missed this chance. When would she ever get this chance again?

"I mean, no one has ever come forward about it, so it's just...there. It's part of a bigger plan, I suppose? I hope someday we'll figure that out, and meet whoever wants us to...do whatever we're meant to do."

Banagher hands him over easily enough. He's fairly light, bottom-heavy, and hollow if given a few taps with the fingertips. On the trade-off, Haro's red optics blink twice, and his raises his arm...ear-flaps: "Meant to do! Meant to do!"

"That sort of guidance would be nice, right?" Banagher lays the atlas back out across his legs now that his hands are freed up, and places this fingertips together, making a circle shape. "For now, we're going to have to make our own paths," he grins a little, believing this could work. He moves his hands about the locations marked off. "Trailblaze, I guess."

Aria does admittedly tap at the shell, gently. She's curious - it's hard not to be, when the robot is right there - and her expression only gets more so at the feeling of hollowness. How does that...?

"There are worse things than trailblazing. And as long as most of us are trying to figure it out..." She grins back at him, easily enough. "...I can't help but think we'll manage to learn something, you know?"

Picking up on that shift in expression, he laughs.

"I thought about seeing if I could take him apart, but then I think I'd feel weird. Like I'd be dissecting something."

Haro simply blinks twice. Sass and silence, he's used to that.

"And there are, definitely! I always did like explorer movies more than... say, film noir. Espionage stuff, and sneaking around under fire," he makes a gun motion with his hand with a chuckle. "Either way, I know this is real, but I'd rather not have to rely solely on — well, this."

A bit more slowly, he points his hand 'gun' out at the fountain before letting the gesture go, to illustrate his point.

"Without knowing how to put him back together..." Aria had to agree, even from the short time she'd spent in Haro's company, since arriving here. The little thing seemed to display too much personality to consider him just a robot, or some sort of inanimate object or toy. ...And, admittedly, since she was pretty sure she used to be a robot, that felt...weird.

"Right. More than just the danger and intrigue. ...I mean, I think we're slowly getting better at this as a whole - or at least people are getting...more useful talents, I guess we should say, but..." That still didn't give them any idea where to direct said useful talents. Which was a bit of an issue. "So, this is basically going to be a lot of splitting up areas to check out for barrier points, right?

"That's the idea, yeah. With enough of us, it might not even take as long as we think. Going in pairs or small groups ought to be the safest way. With what you found out, the chances of everyone going out of sync at once should be low."

Well, so he hopes. There was no telling if this was some thing that could be turned up or down at will, but that was a chance they'd have to take.

"It's not the flashiest attempt to find things out we've made, but I think I'm okay with that."

"Flashy isn't important so long as it works, really. And you can sign me up as on board, obviously - the only times I'm not free are days with track practice, or anything I'd tell you about in advance." And she doesn't mind forgetting things for a little in a test function, really.

"I'm not much for flashy anyway," he admits, with grace enough to be a little sheepish. "I work at the library, and have classes during the week, but I don't think it'll be impossible to coordinate something. You can bring whoever's up for it with you too, obviously. We'll just have to meet up at some point to compare what we find out."

"Me either," Aria admits, although she...doesn't mind flashy. And she likes adventure! But if there's a practical solution, not taking it seems a bit silly. "And that sounds cool. I can text you my schedule and let you know if I snag anyone else who happens to be interested, for sure. I bet Danny at least won't mind helping out."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(no subject)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

idk if you heard about the faq answer about fields being the same now and centered on tuning towers?

yes i did!

OKAY COOL, i just wanted to check

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject