Participants:
| Scene Title | How Do You Feel About The Government |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Adel and Joshua have a very important question for their prize, who happens to be Alia. |
| Date | February 12, 2011 |
New Jersey
She's been in the dark for a long time. Even less accommodating than the traps Colin Verse had built previously, mimicking some kind of technopathic hibernation, static and without anything in the way of sensory input. Only the function that got her inside, unhooked as it came to be from any kind of network she could escape through, like water from a white river kept stagnant in a jug. And so when something does connect to it, Alia Chavez surely knows about it.
It's like a gate way, and acts as a vacuum, yanking her out of her prison and into what for all she can tell must be a simple laptop, full of mp3s of classic Americana rock, some eastern European tunes, a few porn videos of sexy teen amateurs, or at least that's what their file description claims to be, and a text file, just one, resting on the desktop.
hello.txt
dont be scared.
Wireless access could probably send her spinning into the reaches of cyberspace, but more importantly, she can feel her body nearby.
Words. Something that Alia, in her body, is not adept with… yet her time out of it lately has allowed her some semblence of adeptness. She decides, however, to write back, as words appear on the screen…
Scared is not exactly the word I'd use for how I feel right now.
There's a pause, like maybe whoever is using the computer isn't sure about chatting to someone via text document. But eventually, there are words. They aren't typed slowly, but backspaces blink in and out in haphazard accuracy.
i mean not scared of us.
wait
And then she can see. The quality of the webcam is— that of a webcam, predictably, but it's something better than darkness. The world tips as the laptop is manhandled, and she can see the blurry image of high windows, a tractor partially covered in tarp, and then it swings around until she can see the face of a young man, all hard angles and uncertain glancing at the webcam. He speaks, but the microphone isn't on.
He angles the device towards the woman he's seated on the ground with.
The young woman has her hair pulled back out of her face, her clothes mostly of the dark variety— But her smile is bright and cheerful, touching her eyes. Lips move as if to respond to something that he said, and then she makes exaggerated gestures of hello, by waving her hand.
Within a moment she's leaning over the keyboard and typing something around her companion, perhaps realizing that she can't hear.
HI! :D
Alia would blink if she could, then idly checks to see if the microphone is just turned off on the software side. Easy enough to turn it on if that's the case… and a lot more useful to hear then just assume from typings. Even as she does this she replies with the text once more.
Hello. I hate to be rude but… who are you two, and where am I?
The microphone flicks on, and though the window displays itself to the girl as indicative of this, the young man holding the computer probably isn't aware as his voice suddenly booms into Alia's input. "— her to maybe steal us money, that's all I'm saying. We saved her life. People died, yo." Facetious, rather than serious, although it's a dry sort of humour that may only maybe translate well. "What's she doing?"
Through the cam's scope, Alia can also see a tanglement of wires leading off towards a black, glassy looking box, roughly the same size and shape as an external harddrive. Perhaps her prison.
"We could use more money. My apartment is crap," Adel says with a click of her tongue, before she leans over and plays fingers along keys. Once again favoring the Caps Lock.
YOUR SAFE. IN A STORAGE BUILL^HDING. WE RESCUED YOU. :D
"It's really too bad we weren't able to record the rescue, we could have shown her the whole thing! But then it might end up on youtube by accident and there's enough youtube videos of stupid out there thanks to…" With a blink, she squints at the screen. "Wait, did you turn the microphone on?"
Alia sighs. Litterally. THe computer sighs. Alia apparently also knows how to manipulate soundcards. "No. I did." She finally says. "And it's obviously easier for you two to talk then type.. and it is far easier for me to talk here, then it will be if I try to rejoin my.. other side." Alia is glad she can't physical wince. She hadn't completely gotten over the LAST migrane before she was sent tumbling head first into this new rendition of the old mess.
The laptop wavers a little when Joshua's grip falters, surprise crossing his face where Adel can see it. Then an unsuppressed scowl pulling at his mouth, before mouthing to Adel: fucking technos. He then roughly positions the laptop so that Alia can see both of them, Joshua shuffling and positioned in a knee-down on the dirty ground, a leather jacket pulled over body armor. "So you're Alia Chavez." He says that, like he's muttering some kind of mythical creature's name, and a little sarcastic when he continues with; "It's awesome to meet you, my name's— " He glances to Adel. They haven't really rehearsed or anything.
Fuck it. "Joshua. Joshua Spingsteen. This is Adel." He considers what else they might like to let her know, and adds, "She's in a band."
"Yeah. And Josh is— Josh," the young Miss Adel in the band says with a wide smile and a brief nudge against his side, but not hard enough to actually jar him. It wouldn't be good to drop the laptop or something.
"It's nice to meet you! At least— well— as much as we're meeting you. We have a friend who can kinda do this, not quite, but sorta. It's pretty neat to be talking to something that you don't think should be able to talk. Though I guess it isn't that weird really, I mean there's that Skype thing where people do phone calls over computers all the time. So this is totally like a phone call or something. Only not cause you're in the…"
The lack of rehersal seems to have been a bad choice, considering the rambling that she's doing, and she bites down on her lip and looks sheepish. She, certainly, has no trouble saying many words. She has trouble saying just enough.
Theres a idle bit of time as Alia listens. "interesting taste in music.. and other media." she states blandly. "And yes, I am Alia. You sound like you know my name from somewhere other than whatever they used to label whatever they shoved me into. And yes… like SKype but… not. I don't suppose either of you knows the medical condition of my rather… physical self? And you know someone else kind of like me?"
She doesn't finish the thought as she considers things throughly. "rescued. You intercepted Federal transport? Defense transport? Oh goddess… How long ago, how far away?" She asks as both are very vital questions to the long term safety of all three of them. She doesn't touch the network that may or may not be avalible yet. She doesn't want to risk giving herself away if the awnser to either is too short.
"We owned them," Joshua agrees, blandly. "And we're going on about— " His hazel eyes flick for the time in the corner of the screen. "Twenty minutes. Couldn't get that far, hauling your comatose ass around — we sort of totalled the trucks." A guilty sidelong glance to Adel. They may have wanted to think that one through a little better. It was all well and good, taking a motorbike down from New York to New Jersey, but now—
He reaches, and shifts the laptop enough so that Alia can see where two bare feet lie vulnerable on the ground, attached to legs, but she can't reach to see much beyond that. "I got a question for you, lady."
There is a soft sigh. "I think now would be a good time to ask that question." Alia says blandly.
"How do you feel about the government?" is equally bland, a wrinkle of irritation developing in Joshua's brow at the affect of sighing without a set of lungs. His short temper flares. "Gee, I hope I'm not boring you. And gimme a straight fuckin' answer or I'll put a knife in your body and you can figure out an app for bleed outs."
There's a grimace at the mention of blood from the girl, who decidedly looks away from the feet and the form attached to it, nose wrinkled as if she smells something bad. But Adel chooses to stay quiet, likely to hear the answer.
Alia's awnser is straight, but maybe not as short as many would expect. "Our government? I used to think it was a reasonable if sometimes stupid institution. I think they threw reasonable out somewhere between 10 years and a month ago. Then again, being held without trial for… nearly two months, and forced to help under threat of death hasn't greatly improved my mood. And frankly, stabbing my body would really likely only piss me off right now since I'm already going to have a morphine-tier migrane upon trying to put myself back in, and I doubt either of you has that on hand."
Alia winds down, maybe a bit surprised at her own verbose-ness. "Not bored, either. Worried, but not bored. Since I am reasonably certain that the DoEA, or worse, is going to be breathing down our necks in short order, since Mayes is going to be ever so pissed to not find me, one way or another." Alia's tone is certain. She intends to NOT be here… either her body won't be, or her mind won't be. Preferably both.
There's a short silence, Joshua obviously considering her words — but it's sort of difficult to pick out lies through an electronic voice chirping out of cheap speakers. He glances at Adel as if to get a read on what she thinks, his fingertips tapping against the screen. "Man. This is retarded. We should be finding a way to get rid of you — chuckin' that thing," he tilts his shaven head for the technopath prison lying shiny on the floor, "in a river would be a good start.
"But that's not what we're doing. How do you get from a Mac into your body? I can't find the USB port. I checked everywhere." An exaggerated wink.
"You perv," Adel shoulders against him with a grin, before she goes backwards to start talking too much again. "We totally won't chuck you into the river. But we had to ask to make sure that they didn't like totally break you and you were brainwashed into believing they were sugar and spice and rock and roll."
While she talks she makes grand gestures, as if using them to describe her words, touching her head and making that spirally finger wave next to her temple to signify that she thought Computer Lass could be bonkers because of all this.
"Cause they do terrible terrible things with you and we'd rather you— not do terrible terrible things for them. Cause they suck."
There is a momentary pause. Then a soft laugh. "No, not brainwashed. Unhappy. Dosed with things I"d rather not remember. But not broken and believing anyone at face value." She shakes her head. "You might want to plug your ears. I'm likely going to scream when I do this." Which should lead someone to ask why anyone WOULD do it. In this case, it is reaching out through the wireless card, brushing her awareness over the receptive body sitting there… and sliding back into it.
True to her word, Alia shouts, wordlessly, a sound of pain as she tries to grab her own head… she does manage to resist the urge to curl up and cry uselessly, but it's a near thing as she shakes from the migrane, plus the oversensitivty all over again. She says something, under her breath as she tries to pull herself together… and/or look herself over to make sure that her body didn't take damage when the trucks were 'totaled'.
It would be bad, if she had been in the truck that got flipped.
She wasn't, fortunately, and so her aches and pains are only what she expects them to be. She lies on the hard ground, with a blanket spread out as thin buffer from the concrete, dressed in a hospital gown that offers very little against the chilly afternoon air. There's a click as Joshua shuts the laptop after hitting the power down button, yanking out wires so as best to stuff the device into a backpack. He's not the one with the spare clothing, so he occupies himself with squirreling away the imprisonment device.
The one with the spare clothing happens to be— the female. With a hop up onto her feet, Adel hurries over to the side to grab a back pack she'd worn on her back during the ride out of the city to the site of the ambush. She pulls the zippers down and takes out simple clothes, sweat pants with stretch bands, and large t-shirt with the logo for Meat Loaf (Bat Out of Hell, to be exact) and a dark hoodie. "Here you go. I picked those… 'one size fits all' stuff, cause I didn't know how big you'd be and stuff, so hopefully it fits. Oh— and…" She pulls out a pair of white cotton panties that have likely never been worn (or one would hope) and piles them on top with a pair of woolen socks and passes them over.
"No shoes, so don't try walking into any stores anytime soon."
Alia pushes herself to her feet. Does it hurt? Yes. She grits her teeth and moves anyway. All the years of martial arts training apparently paid off for something in that while it ALL hurts, she still is able to function. The chill is noticable to her. "… phone?" She asks simply, grimacing both at the sound of her voice, and the fact that she was trying to say more, explain more, then she managed with that one, curious word, even as she rather well starts getting into the clothing… and says two words that have all the feeling possible put into them. "Thank you."
They are almost immediately followed by a wincing, sqiurming motion> Being hyper sensitive to touch does not make cloth all that terribly comfterable. Still, a more humanly then most lately Alia is dressed, and looks to be in a hurry to be away… or at the very least, better hidden.
Despite doing some of the talking initially, Joshua is a silent, hulking presence now that Alia is out of her prison and back in the flesh. He grips the laptop case by the strap and slings it over to Adel to store it away where clothes had come out of, before he has his hands on his hips, standing as he watches Alia become reaccustomed to thinks like having limbs, wearing clothes, breathing air. Unimpressed, in a sense, reluctantly trusting at best.
It takes him a few seconds to dig a cellphone out of his jacket pocket, take a step closer, and hand it to her to take.
"If you need any help I can totally be an extra set of hands," Adel offers with her hands held up and fingers wiggling. For a moment she may even be accused of making jazz hands until she puts them down again. There's no looking away as she watches the woman get reaccustomed, perhaps even shamelessly watching her by most definitions.
From her smile she appears to be trusting, or at least, she doesn't seem to be supsicious. The reluctance can be left to the taller, more dangerous looking one of the two.
Alia takes the phone… but doesn't make a phone call. Instead, the sound of it sending a text message… then receiving one is made. She hands the phone back. She doesn't delete the messages in case he feels like reading them to trust or not trust more. The outbound message reads "Hurting. Finding cover, White Bishop escaped Black Queen." The reply is even more blunt, and possibly more cryptic, as all it says is "St. Joan's Defense."
Alia shifts her weight and grimaces again. The headache isn't going to go away, not any time soon. But there's no time to worry about it. "Next. Cover. safe place. Somewhere further." Alia's tone makes it obvious that she fully expects the DoEA and possibly the DoD to be pulling out more than a few of the normal stops. She has no idea where, geographically she is, and thus has little advice to offer on good places to go to ground just yet.
"We probably got another half-hour of going breakneck north before we need to find a place to bunker down 'til nightfall. That's when we split," Joshua says, abruptly. "Mostly 'cause I want to double back for my bike, but 'Del can stay if she's being super nice, and I'll let you keep the car if you want it.
"You got friends, don't you? Redbird Security Solutions." And his hands go to make thumbs up gestures of pure sarcasm.
"I got a date with the Dome on Monday, but until then I can stick with you to make sure you make it at least near there in one piece," Adel says with a smile, to show she may indeed stick around for a time, at least until Monday. "The band's not practicing til after that— and I hope you can drive, cause I'm not good at it." Nor can she do such an action legally.
"I'm a bicycle girl."
Alia twitches a little. SOmeone knows more about her then she likes. "Friends? Yes." She says simply. "WOrks fine. Let's go, before roadblocks" She doesn't want to be here. She has no ID, doesn't have her skateboard, doesn't have her backpack. "… can't drive. Never learned how." She states flatly to the car offer.
She finds it rude to ask, so she doesn't, but she ponders the simple question. Who are these two, and who did they work with? She highly doubted that two people would just randomly flip a transport without reason…and the odds of it being the one she was in are just a little low. Still, no looking gift horses in the mouth. Not until later, at least. She smiles a little though, and finally says one word, ruefully. "Skateboard."
"Seriously?"
This question is posed to both women, Joshua showing his youth a little in humoured exasperation, hands out and empty. "Ladies, c'mon, I know chicks can't drive but this is ridiculous." He blows out a sigh, a hand up to scratch blunt fingernails over his skull. "Hide out 'til tomorrow or whenever, night time, then if you can't get anyone to smuggle you back into the city, gimme a call and we'll work it out, or brave whatever it is Adel calls driving. But then," but then, goddamnit!, "we're splitting. Just— like hell did I go to all that trouble and waste a perfectly good frag grenade on gettin' your ass arrested again."
"How am I supposed to get good at driving when you always call it," Adel says with a very mature sticking out of her tongue at the older man. "But I can drive if needed, but I figured if she was better we'd stick with her. Since she's not, I'll do it." But there's that 'we better hope there's no hazardeous conditions to worry about!!' in her expression.
"And if worse happens, I can call someone in the band. I'm sure they'd be cool with it."
Alia blinks a moment at the mention of a fragmentation grenade. She decides now is NOT the time. Instead she moves towards the door. "Talk on way. Like to know… how you know me?" She looks … both amused, and worried, all at the same time. But still… It's good to be finally, truly free once more… even if that freedom may come at the expense of being on the run.
It's a fair question. She gets a vague answer, and probably the only one that the man of the two is going to give. "I'm just a big fan of your work," Joshua says, delivered dry as he crosses by her, shouldering out the door and into the bright afternoon winter sky. Which for now, happens to be free of any black and white search helicopters beating rotors like giant, buzzing insects in the air. Here's to hoping it stays that way.