Participants:
| Scene Title | No Rest For The Weary |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Liz checks in with the respective Raytech and Yamagato leads for the Agartha project with long-term planning concerns. |
| Date | July 19, 2021 |
Time continues its march forward, bringing ever closer the day that people will move into the bunker, and the closer it gets, the more stress everyone who knows what's happening is under. There is room in Agartha for 20,000 people. Even after the Second Civil War decimated America, its population is still well north of 200 million. That doesn't even consider the rest of the world's 7+ billion inhabitants. The magnitude of the losses being faced are nearly incomprehensible.
And yet. Here we are.
Zoom Meeting
She's not RayTech in any official capacity. She's just the CEO's wife, a position that has no authority in the scheme of RayTech itself. But Elisabeth Harrison has something almost none of the people in this fine project has – experience. And a lot of bad dreams to back it up. The request to Seren had to be sent via emails – Elisabeth couldn't find room in Seren's itinerary to meet in person. Marlowe's invitation was at Seren's behest, and Liz is glad that she'll be able to make the video meeting as well. She cannot do much in all of this preparation, but she feels a deep-seated need to make sure several … potentially weird and random… things are on someone's list. If Yamagato dismisses her as a crackpot, so be it.
As the screen on the desk comes to life on her end, Elisabeth looks toward it. She's using one of the corporate conference rooms at RayTech. The blonde appears weary, but considering the Safe Zone has Pure Earth assholes on the loose doing things up to and including trying to burn the damn country down just a couple weeks ago, it's not unexpected. As the video conference lights up with Seren's arrival, Liz's blue eyes turn to the screen and she smiles just a little. "Hello, Seren. You holding up out there?" She's never met Yamagato's point-person, but she notes that her connection is coming live too. "Ms. Terrell, I appreciate you taking the time for this."
"Hey, Mrs. Harrison," Seren greets with a flicker of a smile. Formalities first before anything else. Their hair has grown to their ears a bit from where they normally keep it shaved down to, more attention being paid to the urgent matters on their all's minds recently. At their shoulder, a diminutive white stoat with pale growth of branched and waving horns settles his head down on the black dress shirt they wear. Baird's amber eyes regard the screen curiously, at least until he lets out a tiny yawn, exposing an absolutely purple tongue. "Doing as well as we can out here," his summoner relays, though the smoky ring around their eyes might highlight signs of tiredness of their own.
"Marlowe-san," they likewise greet her when she appears in view. It's quickly after that their attention goes back to Elisabeth and they fold their arms against the side of their desk, peering down at the laptop screen. "What can we do for you?"
Unaccustomed to being on camera, the current Director of Technology and engineering lead of Project Agartha, Marlowe Terrell, is not. When her video connection flares to life, it is with a short blip of light and a sparkle of jewelry deliberately arranged for a pleasing, but professional aesthetic. Though the Yamagato Industries logo serving as her video conference background is also chosen for a discretionary plainness, Marlowe contrasts it with her choice of makeup and fashion. One might note the woman's choice of eye shadow color somehow manages to compare with Baird's purple tongue. "Good afternoon, Seren, Mrs. Harrison," Marlowe returns the greetings smoothly, "How's my signal? Clear, I hope." One more last minute adjustment on something off to the side, a ringlight type apparatus perhaps given the slight shimmer off her earrings, and then her attention returns to the meeting more focusedly. Since Seren has already cracked open the first minute, Marlowe uses the brief moment to study Elisabeth curiously.
The peacekeeper is not an unknown face, much to her own chagrin at times. Elisabeth doesn't seem too concerned about Marlowe's inspection. She is not seemingly too concerned about her appearance, being clothed in a simple button-down shirt with her hair clipped at the nape of her neck. Her tone is not demanding but she does sound just as strained as perhaps both of the others on the conference call.
"It appears to be a good signal, Ms Terrell. I'm glad to meet you, even for such an unusual thing. I wasn't entirely certain who would be appropriate to contact with the things that occurred to me, so I hope you'll forgive me if what I'm asking sounds ridiculous," she offers first. "I know that we all have teams of people whose jobs are to make supply lists for the project." She carefully phrases it just in case. "I'm sure there are far smarter people than I on those teams but…" Her blue eyes flicker from Seren's visage to Marlowe's, and she admits, "The closer we come to moving day, the worse I'm sleeping so… random thoughts of things being left out seem to be plaguing me. Having firsthand experience living in such a project, I hoped I could just ask whether particular things are already accounted for in the stocking of our project. Nothing… high-security, I promise."
"We've got experts for pretty much every critical thing coming online and providing aid as much as asking questions," Seren answers thoughtfully, shifting more to one elbow as they reach for something off-screen. "And while the dig's underway, it doesn't mean we still don't have a long way to go yet…" A nearly unheard click of pen announces they're listening. Baird for his part shifts from one shoulder to the other to account for the reduced real estate caused by the lean.
Nodding to indicate receiving Elisabeth's confirmation on signal strength, Marlowe keeps a placid appearance as the other woman launches into her meeting agenda. A shadow of stress wrinkles down the line of her lip corners slightly upon mentioned euphemisms, but she remains quiet, patient, listening as the others speak first. "I am sorry to hear that," she says initially commenting on the sleep quality, "Indeed I think we still have time for some adjustments. One of those might be the amount of coffee being kept on site." It's an attempt at levity, although she doesn't mean for it to come out as dry as it does. Her eyes glance first to Seren, then her brows lift at Elisabeth's window. "But let's not make promises just yet. What are your particular concerns, Mrs. Harrison?"
Elisabeth's expression lightens at Marlowe's coffee comment, and she lets out a laugh. "Ms. Terrell, you are a woman after my own heart – coffee budgets better be really high, I think. Or … I wonder if that's one of the crops we have going in? If not, perhaps it ought to be." The amusement takes away a lot of the strain in her expression and the blond seems to relax significantly.
"The list of things that I remember from my time in similar places is short. I know we're already planning for educational materials for the kids, but I wanted to be sure we were planning for hard copies of textbooks for all age groups. Just in case the digital versions are somehow corrupted or not available. And … sort of adjacent to that, I wanted to ask if we were planning for things like crafts. Chalk and chalkboards might be better than paper or white boards – they could be used for learning in the same way they were used in the 1800s but also for fun."
Elisabeth swallows and says quietly, "Again, these things may already have made someone's lists, they're just… weighing on me because most of us don't think in such analog ways anymore, but that was important when I was in the middle of it. I'd like to suggest if it hasn't already been done … someone or many someones start hitting up every craft store that exists for chalk and small chalkboards, maybe crayons and coloring sheet, but also… cloth bolts, thread, needles, scissors, yarns, and knitting and crocheting materials. All of the ready-made goods in the world won't help if people don't know how to make and remake those things."
Seren's lack of familiarity with Elisabeth's personal experience makes them take pause for a moment, but a nose from Baird against their cheek reminds them about the notes they were meaning to take, setting to writing several bullets down. "I… can tell you on my end that I'm not thinking quite that small just yet," they admit with some apology. "We only broke ground a while ago, and I'm spending a lot of my time making sure our plans to fill it are well-optimized in terms of building materials and space design, so far… but that doesn't mean those kinds of matters aren't important either."
Their head bobbles for a moment. "If the worry is if Raytech's level in particular won't have enough of all that, we do have full control over what goes there," Seren acknowledges. "Storagewise, if the ask were larger, it would have to compete against other resources… but between coffee and chalk boards, the latter definitely takes less space and energy to bring with us." They start to smile, but it's an awkward thing weighed down ultimately by the starkness of that reality and cut brief by it.
The mention of children causes Marlowe's features to twist in visible pained empathy. Another layer washes over before she can truly stop it, a nervousness not hidden behind makeup and painted lips that press together and hold words back. Marlowe goes still in the frame of her video screen, almost long enough that one might think her feed has frozen, but eventually a blink of her eyes betrays her.
"Yes of course," her words come out flat, forced from a stiff throat as she blinks a few more times and shakes her head slightly to clear off dark clouds of darker thoughts. "It is as Seren said, Mrs. Harrison, we wi— we are in the midst of constantly updating and requisitioning materials that would be… essential… to the health and welfare of all inside Agartha. But our main thrust currently is in ensuring safety, and the solidity of the bunker construction." Marlowe's eyes shift to the window where Seren is, lingering upon the Raytech architect, then flick back to Elisabeth. "You say you've been in similar places? Is that from…" She hesitates, stalling in brief indecision and inner debate, then mutters a foreign curse in her mother tongue before looking straight on to the other participants. "From time spent abroad?" Marlowe's tone turns a little tighter, tense, heavy as she stares to the screen before her. "Is there anything," she follows, "you think you might know that would help us within that experience? Something… behind the chalkboards and crayons?"
Elisabeth can see the toll on them. They'd have to be monsters not to be deeply affected by the knowledge they have and the choices that are being made not only by their own hand but by the hands of others. Marlowe's question sharpens Elisabeth's attention on the woman, though. She cannot hide the flicker of surprise that passes over her features as she realizes Marlowe is more read in than she was aware.
"The time I spent abroad in similar facilities, I was not among the leadership, of course," she says quietly. "I was more or less a visitor. These things are… what most would consider trivial, but personal observation and experience says they are far more important to long-term well-being because they are things that can't be easily manufactured once the doors are locked. Musical instruments were important to people's mental health when devices no longer functioned. Instructional materials in hard copy on mechanics and sciences to upkeep the machines later when those who built them aren't there anymore. And it can get very cold in underground facilities if something happens to the machinery. Fabrics, yarns, the ability to make and remake clothing and blankets – "
She swallows hard, a deeply haunted look passing over her face. "Stockpiling boots and shoes in all sizes but especially work boots for those deep in the machinery…" David Cardinal sitting on an upended milk crate, his shoulders hunched and head hanging as leans on his knees in the alcove, staring blankly at a pile of shoes left behind by those who died "…because replacements may only be available when owners are gone." She will never escape the horror of that pile of shoes.
The helplessness she feels by knowing ahead of time is, in so many ways, worse than simply surviving the catastrophe. It is reflected in the way she has to stop speaking, in the way the color washes from her face at the last words, in the way she has to turn her face from them for a long moment to gather herself.
Clearing her throat, Elisabeth finally says softly, "Everyone is and should be focused on that bigger picture, obviously. The safety and security and solidity of the structure. I know that it's early in the process. These smaller things are just some of the ones that hit me as possibly being forgotten but they were everything to the people who remained. Especially if scavenging outside is not an option. I cannot do almost anything helpful with the preparations, but perhaps knowing that it's on your list will at least ease the anxiety of 'what if you don't say anything and no one else thought of it?'" The self-deprecation in her tone says she can't imagine she thought of something no one else did, but still… it haunts her.
Marlowe says time abroad and the reference sails right over Seren's head, and they're too mired in the scenarios they were already contemplating for it to really sink in and make them wonder what they were talking about. Abroad is the word that really escapes them, truthfully. Abroad is a word that could mean in the depths of the Dead Zone, as far as they can feasibly, easily reach for in playing games of association.
It's rough enough, imagining only that.
Seren clears their throat uncomfortably and offers up, "I can check in with folks focused on long-range planning… frame it as wanting to make sure we're allocating enough space for their needs. Mention things like material stockpiling, machinery for long-term sustain… Growth…" That was a lot to hope involved with that single word, though.
It might look like Marlowe's connection could be frozen, if one were to judge the stillness of the woman's picture as she listens to Elisabeth speak. From the Yamagato director, there are no quiet bursts of typing as one might assume from a more analog keyboard. Likely there's active noise cancellation and mic isolating software in effect. Yet in a moment the further reason of silence is made clear, as Marlowe lifts her hand, a mechanical pencil of dark magenta color along the length of its transparent plastic shaft wiggling in between fingers as the woman thinks. The movement seems to break the icy stillness. Her eyes shift down from what's on her desk, reading something, then back up to camera.
If she had noticed Seren's lack of getting the subtle reference about being abroad, Marlowe is not making any clarifications. But she does linger upon Seren's word, the hope involved in its connotation making her press her lips a touch closer and lower her purple-shadowed gaze to the writing in front of her.
Eventually, her conclusion comes with a short nod and sincere promise. "We will do what we can, Mrs. Harrison. As for that anxiety, it's my hope to help ease it away. That's the glory of us engineers." Marlowe smiles brighter, "You don't have to say anything at all, and we're already problem solving for it before you think of it." A touch of dry humor quirking one side of the expression, she adds, "And if not, then I believe it's highly probable your husband's already got someone on that as a company project."
Elisabeth lets out a slow breath, seeming to pull herself deliberately away from the dark spot that caused that momentary expression of remembered despair. Her lips quirk upward a bit and she nods to Seren's hopeful outlook. "That would be wonderful, Seren" she agrees quietly. "I know yarn and material and string and shoes are such minutiae, but…." She trails off briefly before turning her blue eyes to Marlowe's window as well. Those minutiae are the things, perhaps, that haunt to most – the small things that were just gone, the tiny things that really only mean something when they are gone and there's no chance of replacing or re-creating them.
Her smile eases still further as Marlowe comments on the engineers. "Well, I have faith in engineers to do a great many things, certainly," she acknowledges. "Between your company and ours, we've some of the best minds on the planet working on this. But my husband can't think of all contingencies, nor can any one of us, right? I appreciate very much that you took the time to listen to this list of things I was asking about. It's… sort of one of those things that only really crops up once you're boots-on-the-ground, as it were. But it does help me immeasurably to be able to tell myself I've done what few things I can to fill in small gaps where firsthand knowledge is useful." She studies the director of Yamagato, and smiles slightly. In another place and time, the woman was basically doing the same kind of job, really – rallying people and putting them to work. "It is really good to meet you, Ms. Terrell. If you have other, more… specific… questions, I'd be happy to answer whatever you think of."
Her gaze flickers slightly back to the other part of her screen and she adds, "Seren, I hope when you're next in town, you'll stop by and see me. I know you're both running ragged." How could they not be? "Ms. Terrell… perhaps I can buy you dinner some fine evening as a thank you for humoring me."
"There should be a lapse coming up, sometime in the next month where I'm hoping to come back. Trying to align it with a visit from my parents," Seren offers with a small smile. Their parents had never come to visit New York, but now seemed like as good a time as any. As ever. "I'll be sure to let you know when that happens."
On their shoulder, Baird lifts his tiny head, the faintest sound of some chitter carrying through the microphone. His summoner smiles wryly and clarifies, "He promises to not let me forget." And indeed, tiny stoat he looks proud on this front.
Marlowe's head tilts at what sounds like an open invitation to pose some quite burning questions about specifics, but ultimately the woman smiles and shakes her head with a polite self-denial of her curiosity about Elisabeth's experiences. There is already a lot on paper, as it were, for them to consider. "If there is anything I should come up with, I will be sure to contact you. But I know you are busy with the NYPD, so I do appreciate and respect your time as well."
What she does remark upon is a Seren's mention of their parents coming to visit in New York. "Ah, really? We absolutely should show them around, then," she says, before noting to them both, "I'm sure even as busy as we all are, there's still time enough to bring a grand tour of the Safe Zone and Yamagato campus about. Hit me up if you need a guide." Marlowe glances down at an unseen notice on her desk then, and then back up to her screen. "You've my email, Mrs. Harrison, if there is anything else you think of to add to this list."
Elisabeth's expression, while still perhaps tense, has eased considerably since the beginning of the call. "I do indeed, Ms. Terrell. And you have mine now as well – don't hesitate to use it if you feel the need. I won't keep the two of you – No rest for the wicked or the weary, as they say," she quips gently. "Thank you both for making the time." It means more to her than she can reasonably convey without sounding like an utter lunatic.
At Marlowe's offer to join them– help them, even– with making a tour successful, Seren's posture picks up. No matter the overwhelming stress about it, they're proud of the partnership they're helping further develop between their two companies, proud even more of the sheer scale of the work they've all endeavored upon. Not just this, but everything leading up to it.
"I really appreciate it," they enthuse with a brief burst of warmth. As the call comes to its natural conclusion otherwise, they lift both hands and wave for a moment at the screen. "See you both soon," Seren promises.
And then one feed blinks out, followed by the other, and a click leaves Seren looking at a blank screen themself. Their smile fades and they sit for a long moment, only staring. The moments between action are like this for them– pits which could be dropped into unless they kept moving. They're pulled from the long spanse of dissociation with a touch of Baird's cold nose to their cheek, which gets them blinking, coming back to themself, and sets the snakes of shadow and fire that had begun to grow from the floor blowing away back into nothing quickly.
"Right, right," they murmur, and put a hand to Baird's head gratefully before they push themself from their seat. A walk before getting back into things, maybe. They echo what Liz had said before the call ended.
"No rest for the weary."