HALO CLXXXV: The Titles End Here

[Thursday Violist]

[Quiet Dinner]

He doesn't need to worry so much: everything is already on the table and they're both adults. So long as there's not a big unresolved plot twist waiting, it can only get better.

"She's...she's been liking it. Causing less problems, too, and not trying to escape as often," Harley answers. "I figure they know most her tricks, so they're more ready for when she bolts."

Speaking of feeling guilty, though, here is some more for Harley, for not being more involved with the daycare: "Unfortunately, I don't really know if she has been making friends or not."

[Reinholdt]

[Quiet Dinner]

There's three big unresolved Rein plot twists remaining, but they don't particularly have to do with their relationship and may never actually come up or get resolved! Impossible to say. Things can still get better though.

"That's probably my fault. Sophie's had to catch me and the other projects from escaping GLoG from time to time. I'm sure she's learned a lot of Manja's best tactics from that." Reinholdt smiles, feeling a swell of pride at how Manja's taking up the exceptional art of causing trouble and slipping away.

Reinholdt doesn't know either, so he must be just as guilty! "Well, how about I pick her up with you tomorrow and we can ask?" Asking is the best way to find out.

[Ironsmith]

[Shuttlepod 401]

Despite her failure to get Dorota to cooperate with her, Rose has maintained a steady stream of casual exposure to the alchemist regardless, always showing up in non-threatening ways, plainly visible but not really bothering her if it can be helped. Half the time, she's just sort of been there, not even bothering to actually interact with or even observe Dorota in the meantime. She's just another passenger on Riftline. Or just happens to be in the market at the same time (she can never quite find the grapes). Shopping for clothes at the same store. She's even been taking the shuttlepods to and from HALO on a fairly regular basis, with the cover that she's coming down to check on her friend Vlad (who in turn confirms that he has, in fact, been seeing her; they meet up for beer and darts every Saturday).

So it's not at all out of the ordinary for Rose to be on this shuttlepod, tonight, on her way back to the surface. Maybe a bit forward for her to be waving at Dorota like that, but she's never been anything if not friendly.

[Morty]

[Shuttlepod 401]

Rose's presence has caused Dorota increasing discomfort and anxiety. It's one thing to repeatedly run into the same person; it's another if that person divulged a plan to kidnap you. For now, the alchemist is staring dead ahead, trying to ignore Rose. And wondering how to get her off her back. Ask other people from HALO to help so she backs off?

[Airbase]

Olvisin arrives here, with Septimus in tow. Hopefully Vlad will be waiting for them here. Or someone else who can take care of him. If Olvisin has to explain sexual reproduction to him again, she might take drastic steps.

[Ironsmith]

[Shuttlepod 401]

"Hey, Dorota." Rose smiles as she slips into the seat next to her, burying her hands in her coat pockets. "Another day, another dollar, huh? Nothing quite like being on the far side of..." She stops and frowns, seeming to read the other woman's expression for the first time. "...Are you okay? You're looking awfully tense for someone who just got off of work. Something bothering you?" She stops and points to herself. "It's me, isn't it? You've been kinda leery of me ever since that incident in the market. I told you, you said no, I'll be respecting that. I'm not going to ask you to come with me again."

[Airbase]

Vlad seems to be running late. For the moment, Olvisin is alone with the curious elf, who hasn't been quite able to contain his curiosity, nor has he been able to sate it; every answer Olvisin might have given him opened up three more questions, and by now he's babbling them back-to-back without pause.

Drastic steps may be called for.

[Morty]

[Shuttlepod 401]

Dorota breathes out.

"I'm not comfortable around someone who expressed a desire to kidnap me. You said you wouldn't, but if you want to prove it, please avoid me."

[Airbase]

Olvisin never wanted to be a mother, though her culture places motherhood on a pretty high pedestal. It doesn't help that for a good chunk of her life, people (including herself) thought she was a man. Dealing with Septimus is a good way to reassure her that her instincts were correct. Imagine dealing with several little creatures who keep asking you questions. If the Spirit in Gears is listening, may it bring this Vlad guy here quickly before she pushes Septimus off the airbase.

[Ironsmith]

[Shuttlepod 401]

"Well, it might help if you got your facts straight." Rose replies with a little shrug, leaning back in her seat. "First, I never said I wanted to kidnap you. I said I'd been ordered to. Me, I like you. I don't want to hurt you and I don't want to disrupt your life by abducting you. And I still think the timing of that particular request is a bit unfortunate." She gives a little shrug and rolls her shoulders into the chair. "And second, I never said I wouldn't do the job. I said I'd respect that you declined. I'm definitely still going to do it at some point, whether that's today, tomorrow, or a few years from now... though it probably wouldn't be this job at that point." She leans back and closes her eyes. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't hold that against me. A bit like I wouldn't hold it against you if you injected me with some of that paralyzing stuff before I got the chance to do anything. End of the day, it's just a job."

Rose's voice gets a little shaky there toward the end. Dorota might get the impression she doesn't fully believe the words that are coming out of her mouth.

[Airbase]

"Sorry I'm late." Vlad rumbles as he steps out to meet them. "Was meeting a friend for darts. We ran a little long." He extends a hand toward Olvisin and smiles. "I remember you. You were at Trog's when we first touched down. How're you doing?"

[Thursday Violist]

[Quiet Dinner]

There's three big unresolved Rein plot twists remaining, but they don't particularly have to do with their relationship and may never actually come up or get resolved! Impossible to say. Things can still get better though.

"That's probably my fault. Sophie's had to catch me and the other projects from escaping GLoG from time to time. I'm sure she's learned a lot of Manja's best tactics from that." Reinholdt smiles, feeling a swell of pride at how Manja's taking up the exceptional art of causing trouble and slipping away.

Reinholdt doesn't know either, so he must be just as guilty! "Well, how about I pick her up with you tomorrow and we can ask?" Asking is the best way to find out.

[Quiet Dinner]

"If she already has figured out some of your simpler tricks at her age, she's going to keep picking up more and more every time she gets caught. I'm a little fearful what she's going to be like when she's in her fours, or when she's a teenager even," Harley says, with much more amusement in her voice than just her words would suggest. "I've actually had to escape from GLoG once, too. Actually, thinking back on it, Vigil and Watchtower, as well."

She pauses. "For that matter, HALO and AMEN once each, too. Huh. Weird."

Harley thinks.
Are there any other organizations she should try to escape from? Just so she can get once from each?

Back on topic, she goes: "To be honest, GLoG was definitely the hardest one to escape. The ghosts were the worst, and I still feel guilty for terrifying a couple of children."

"...sure. Let's ask tomorrow." Great plan. Perfect plan, even.

[Reinholdt]

[Quiet Dinner]

"She'll probably be teaching me new tricks when she's four," Reinholdt softly laughs. Probably true though. "Unless she ends up one of those kids that grow up stupid quick out of nowhere. If she's sixteen tomorrow, don't blame me." That's probably a ripple effect from all the various time travelers that come in and out of the Nexus. That Vespe time lord character really did a number on the fabric of spacetime.

"Sounds like you're addicted to struggling." Reinholdt's going to have to learn other ways to use ropes. "It also sounds like you forgot to punch the MERC part of your escape card. You could probably hire them to do everything they can to keep you from getting out of their base." Hire them. Antagonize them. Either way works.

"Tomorrow." Yeah. Then they can both hug Manja and tell her how much they love her no matter what.

[Morty]

[Shuttlepod 401]

...how does Rose know about the paralytic? Dorota's going to have to talk to Reinholdt and Felandria about it. There are clearly some weak spots in HALO's security.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says in a voice that's not likely to fool anybody. "But maybe I should stab you with something. Or else I'll spend a while being stalked and never knowing when you'll try to kidnap me."

[Airbase]

"In general, I'm fine." Olvisin shakes Vlad's hand. "Right now, specifically, I'm at the end of my rope. How much did Rose tell you about the situation we're dealing with?"

[Ironsmith]

[Shuttlepod 401]

"Yeah, that would get me off your back for a hot minute." Rose agrees with a nod. "But as soon as it wears off I'd be back to it. And I've got legitimate reasons to be in the same place as you a lot of the time, and some plausible deniability about knowing that you're there in the first place, so good luck with any restraining orders or anything." She rests her chin on her fist and shakes her head. "Take it from someone who's been on the other end of kidnapping before; what you want is a controlled detonation. Pick a time and a place where the damage to your life is going to be minimal, don't do anything sensitive in the interim, and try to make sure your team knows where you are so you can be rescued in a timely manner. The alternative is having it all happen without any control on your part and that's how you end up being buried alive under a freeway." She grimaces. "...Sorry, that sounded like a threat, didn't it? I mean that's what happened to me. I wouldn't dream of doing that to you, and I won't let my boss do it to you, either. Just some free advice."


[Airbase]

"Well, she said there was a 'hot elf' involved, and when I asked if she meant he was attractive, radioactive, stolen, or on fire, the response I got was 'most of those, yes'." Vlad shrugs. "So there was that. But yeah, she filled me in on the basics. This guy showed up, you feel bad about turning him away but can't exactly hire him because he's a hazard, we're taking him off your hands so he'll be comfortable without being a threat to anyone. That sound about right?"

"...This man is talking nonsense." Septimus observes. "Are you sure I should stay here? He sounds like an idiot."

[Morty]

[Shuttlepod 401]

Dorota sits in uncomfortable silence for a good long while.

"Why are you telling me this?" she finally asks, sighing.

[Airbase]

"No, no, it's fine. We'll explain everything." Spirit in Gears, last thing she needs is Septimus deciding he doesn't want to be here. "But yes, that's about the size of it. We can't hire him, but if we turned him out he'd be lost. I hope you can figure out how he was created, maybe find his father. I have no idea if he's supposed to be radioactive. He says he's incomplete, so maybe you can find out what ir means."

[Ironsmith]

[Shuttlepod 401]

"Well, confidentially, you can't work for a place like HALO and expect nobody to care, ever." Rose replies, leaning in a bit and lowering her voice. "Odds are pretty good this won't be the last time somebody tries to kidnap you. And, unless the next guy on the list is Magtok himself, I don't think you can expect a whole lot in the way of professional courtesy. Even then, it's probably still a toss-up unless I've severely misread the man." She gives her a little smile. "So, going forward, when things are out of my hands, I want you to be safe, okay? The last thing I want is to open the newspaper one morning and see your name in a missing person ad. Since, you know, that implies there aren't any leads."

zzzkt

No sooner has Rose finished saying her piece than the lights on the interior of the shuttlepod abruptly cut out, snuffing the interior cabin in a thick layer of impenetrable darkness. The floor seems to crawl back as the pod comes to a stop, throwing its passengers and cargo forward as a product of momentum.

"Oof!" Rose calls from the floor a little distance ahead. "What the fuck was that?"

She's certainly not alone in that sentiment. The other passengers are letting out similar exclamations, which in the small, sealed space that is the interior of a shuttlepod, becomes a lot of noise in a very short period of time.

"The controls are dead!" Someone further up calls back to the other passengers.

"I can't hear the oxygen recycler!" Someone else points out.

"Are the ballast tanks okay? Somebody check the fathometer!"

"I can't get anyone on the radio!"

"My cell phone isn't working, either!" "...Really, Mark? We're so far underwater, why did you even try the phone?"

The passengers are probably about ten seconds away from full-on panic. Which is an understandable reaction to being trapped in a sealed container a few hundred meters underwater.


[Airbase]

"...Oh. One of those situations, huh?" Vlad shrugs. "All right. I'll see what I can do. No promises, though. There's a fair chance his creator isn't even around to contact." The mechanic stiffens. "...By which I mean, we're on the far side of an interdimensional portal or something. Getting ahold of him could be pretty difficult. And without blueprints, I'll essentially be reverse-engineering the guy, who you just told me is missing parts, to try to figure out what he's supposed to have and doesn't." He grimaces. "...So, yeah. No guarantees."

"...That does not make me feel better." The elf declares simply.

[Morty]

[Shuttlepod 401]

Dorota's own panic and visions of suffocating in a metal can deep below the sea surface are pushed aside by one thought that suddenly occupies her mind.

"Are you responsible for this?" she asks Rose, not bothering to turn around in the pitch darkness.

[Airbase]

Olvisin sighs.

"Yeah, it's not great, is it? I can help if I have the time, but I don't know how much I can do. There's an artificer in MERC, named Cassandra. Fayyaad called them, but they weren't available. Maybe I can ask them later."

[Ironsmith]

[Shuttlepod 401]

"No!" Rose snaps, from her position on the floor about a meter ahead of Dorota. "You think I'd give you a lecture about how you need to plan for a kidnapping out of courtesy and then immediately kidnap you before you have time to plan anything?"

"Kidnapping?" "Did someone say kidnapping?" "Oh, god, what's happening?"

HNNNNNNNNNK! Interrupts the sound of a foghorn playing over the radio, stunning the occupants into silence.

"Attention, passengers of shuttlepod 401." A synthetic voice crackles over the the speaker. "A fault has been detected in your navigational system. Please remain calm; assistance is on the way. We are remotely activating the surfacing function for safety purposes. To facilitate evacuation procedures, we ask that you organize yourselves into groups of two or three, and be prepared to disembark when the emergency transport arrives. Thank you. (clk!)"

As promised, the shuttlepod slowly begins rising, and the aforementioned fathometer lights up, confirming that they are rising at a pace of about five meters per minute.

"Whew. There, see? My hands are clean." Rose gives Dorota a little pat on the shoulder, having reclaimed her old seat while that announcement was being made. "We good?"


[Airbase]

"If you could get me their number, that would be great." Vlad nods. "I get the distinct impression we're going to need all the help we can get on- hey! Get your hands off of that!"

Septimus recoils away from the mechanic, his hands zipping from their position of curiously prodding at the man's Hotbox to being hidden behind the elf's back. "...I am sorry. Sir."

Vlad sighs and shakes his head. "All right. But for now, I can take things from here, if there isn't anything else."

[Morty]

[Shuttlepod 401]

Dorota relaxes a little as the situation shifts from "certain deep-ocean death" to "emergency evacuation". Still a stressful one but less terror-inducing.

"Now noble of you. Now if you'll excuse me I need to organize myself into a group of two or three with someone who isn't you."

With that, she strides forward towards the rest of the passengers.

[Airbase]

"I don't think there's anything else for now." Olvisin feels uncomfortable as though she'd dropped a ticking time-bomb into Vlad's lap and is now running away quickly. "I'll see about getting Cass' number for you from Fayyaad."

[Ironsmith]

[Shuttlepod 401]

"All things considered, yeah, I can get that. But you might want to sit down; you aren't looking so good."

It's around this point that Dorota will get a stinging sensation in the base of her neck, comparable to being hit with a paintball. If she touches it, she'll find an unifentifed gummy substance there.

Then, depending on how resistant she is to toxins, she'll feel the immediate area start to go numb and her eyelids getting heavy.

No points for guessing how that will end.

[Airbase]

"Good. Okay, come along, guy." Vlad gestures for Septimus to follow him back into the base. The elf, of course, complies, and before long the two of them are out of sight.

[Morty]

[Shuttlepod 401]

"Oh, you... conniving little..."

Whatever epithet Dorota had for Rose is unspoken, as the alchemist falls over, managing to drape herself over a chair, fast asleep.

[Ironsmith]

[Shuttlepod 401 => Omega Briar]

"Language." Rose gently chastises Dorota, catching her mid-fall and helping ease her into her chair.

Whew. That's the hard part done.

With Dorota having abruptly lost consciousness, it's a trivial matter to establish to the other passengers that she's having a medical emergency. She won't even have to define what that is; nobody completely healthy is going to just collapse like that. Though, obviously, anyone who was paying even a little attention to the conversation leading up to that point would be leery of putting Dorota in Rose's care, so while this trivially accomplishes the goal of getting Dorota on the first transport away from the shuttlepod (which was arranged beforehand, to take her to a different destination than the other evacuees), it also puts her with a stranger accompanying her and forces her to mingle with the other passengers for a little longer than she would have liked. She's able to arrange for that transport to come back and take her on the second trip, after which she calls the real emergency services to pick up the rest of the passengers,

"...but by that time I had two stragglers with me, and they were both really curious about why the 'ambulance' looked so much like a hover tank, so I had to sedate both of them, too. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except one of them weighed, like, six hundred pounds and change." Rose laughs into her phone. "Although, thankfully, he was also really dumb. I mean, really, really dumb. Like, I shot him twice in the face and he just looked at me like 'aahooeh?!'" She lets out another cackle and slaps her leg, shaking her head. "Anyway, yeah. That's the situation, Empress. I've got a couple of spares in the tank now, so I'm going to be a bit late dropping off our alchemist. Gotta find the right hole to dump the witnesses in."

[Thursday Violist]

[Quiet Dinner]

"Oh, don't jinx it," Harley says, as she places her forehead on the back on her hand. "I need years' more time to prepare for a shapeshifting escape artist teenager." She sighs. "When I was a teenager, I snuck away from home, pretended to be the long-lost daughter of some high-ranking paladin my mom had locked up in her basement, and joined a human supremacist knight's order. Thank goodness they had some chastity vows, so I didn't have to also deal with teen pregnancy."

Harley decides she's been pushing food around too much without eating it, so she puts down her silverware finally.

"I can already see how it's going to happen, with MERC. One of their higher-ups figures out that I faked my death while looking into one of the missions 'Holly the Merc-licensee' was involved in...or maybe they don't figure that out, but they find there's a lot of inconsistencies in the info, since I actually did work kinda closely with one of the higher-ups during that rat plague. So they either manage to track a line back to either the city hall of Eastside, or here to HALO and 'bring me in for questioning' because I'm an idiot and am holding on to my old MERC license out of sentimentality, to try to figure out what's going on. But then I get a phone call from you saying Manja's being really fussy, or there's some angry guy holding her hostage, or she just did something photoworthy, and they don't let me leave..." Sounds very plausible, she thinks.

Anyway. "Yeah."
She lays her head down on the table. "Maybe it's an addiction to struggle, maybe it's an addiction to adrenaline and life-threatening situations. I've been thinking about it, and I suppose I just have two big defining traits: I like romance novels, and whenever I get too bored, I end up in a dangerous situation." Well, three defining traits. She's a very forgettable shapeshifter, too. She starts tracing spirals onto the table with a finger.

[Reinholdt]

[Quiet Dinner]

Reinholdt snickers as Harley laments the troubles of parenthood and reveals her own teenage rebellious years. "I don't know if I was ever a proper teenager. Though I guess I did try to stop my dad's war, so maybe that counts." Took a lot of flak for that one. Until it ended up killing most everybody. Not a lot of people left to disagree with Rein after that.

"Sounds convoluted, even for MERC. That's where Reina works, so there's a decent chance she might run interference somewhere along the way," Reinholdt informs Harley. Reina being the one female Rein clone.

Mimicking Harley, Rein puts his silverware down as well. If actually anything tonight, his nerves would probably have made him return it to sender. Even if things are calm now, he's not hungry enough to take the chance. "Hmmm... are you bored? Am I a... dangerous situation," Reinholdt half-teases, half-flirts. This was good. Comfortable even. Nothing felt more right and normal than flirting with a very forgettable shapeshifter.

[Thursday Violist]

[Quiet Dinner]

Harley agrees: "Rebelling against your father, definite sign of being a teenager," she says, even though she doesn't actually have experience with rebelling against a father.
She pushes her plate away a little, with her elbow.
"Ah. Would her running interference make it more or less complicated?" If more complicated, then that basically kills any chance of it happening. It needs to be simple, otherwise it'd just be a huge mess with no chance of happening.

"Not bored," she simply answers.
It's true! How could you be bored after this!
She looks at Rein's face, and smirks. "But I do need a shot of adrenaline. And you're plenty dangerous,"[color] Harley says, informing him of that. "Definitely dangerous," she says, somehow mistaking calling someone 'dangerous' with flirting back.

[Reinholdt]

[Quiet Dinner]

"Less for you, more for her, I'd imagine," Reinholdt replies after a moments thought over the question. Though that's really just a guess. He doesn't have any idea how it'd actually turn out. Probably messily.

It sounds an awful lot like flirting back to Rein. Enough so that he leaves his chair to step over to her, taking her hand and helping her up until he's dangerously close to her face. "Well then, it's my job to... fill with you adrenaline, then. Get you your fix of excitement." Holding hands might be too dangerous, but he's doing it anyways and his lips are close enough to kiss and getting closer.

[Thursday Violist]

[Quiet Dinner]

If she's going to plan on escaping from MERC, she'll have to come up with a new plan for it. A much simpler plan, probably. Less convoluted.

Harley stares back at Rein, getting ready to counter his dangerous closeness. Sure, everything's not 100% okay yet, but after all this time talking, a bit of adrenaline and excitement would be enough for the next big step. After he helps her up, Harley finishes closing in the distance and snatches a kiss.
Luckily, the curtain starts descending before all that handholding gets too out of hand.

[Zefir]

[Airbase]

Somewhere on their way they suddendly see a green stuff animal fly through the air and drops right in front of the two. He remains laying on his back and his tiny little paws wiggle in the air.

"Help please?"

[Ironsmith]

[Airbase]

"...Are we looking at the same thing here?" Vlad asks, looking skeptically at the mobile but impotent stuffed animal in front of him.

The elf just shrugs, quietly, as Vlad reaches over and gives the tiny treen animal a little nudge, to push him onto his side.

[Zefir]

[Airbase]

Just to be clear. Mr C is a stuff animal who people might first think of a lizard but all cloth no lather. He is 1 inch high and maybe 3 inch long if he stretches himself. he is green with a yellow collar and two black orbs for eyes. His voice on the other hand sounds like a grwon men stands next to you so he is kinda loud if you have him on your shoulder.

"Thank you Mr. Vlad" he says as he is back on his paws. "Another failure of my emergency transport system through the base. You might read up the memberlist of HALO to avoid this skeptical look of yours. I am a member of this organisation. The name is mr. C, don't ask my creator was a funny guy and not very creativ with names. Who is that person acompany you?

[Ironsmith]

[Airbase]

"...So that's what those tubes in the wall are." Vlad mutters, stroking his beard. "And here I thought the airbase just had a really unconventional ventilation system."

The elf frowns and gives Mr. C an experimental poke. "...You are strange." He says, his mouth continuing to move long after the words are out. The Nexus's automatic translations seem to be truncating his speech quite a bit. "What are you? A golem, maybe?"

[Zefir]

[Airbase]

"I prefere the catapults in the corners of the hallways. Tubes doe have the problem that when you get stuck your... stuck for a long ti...." Then he gets poked which rolls him back on his back. The guy is light as a feather or should i say light for his size? Anyway, he does look happy now with that smile... or maybe he is really mad and it just looks like a smile?
"You too are strange and your translation device seems to be partly broken. Normally it translates AFTER people have spokenn not before, unless you speak that ancient elven tounge. Really hard to understand and easy to missunderstand. Thought the writing is much easier to read."

"You can put me in the 'animated object' box. Thought I am closer to a real boy then pinoccio."

[Ironsmith]

[Airbase]

"...So you are a golem." Septimus reiterates, staring at the tiny stuffed animal. "But, yes, I do speak Elvish."

"Is that why your mouth is so..." Vlad makes a vague gesture with his hand, imitating lips flapping with his fingers.

"...So... what?" The elf looks at Vlad skeptically. "...You are the one who stops speaking long before your words are finished."

"...Well. That's confusing."