Event № 1 : January 2024

[silentspringmods]

Event № 1 : January 2024
Part I; Chapter 2. Silence tells me secretly everything

universe/setting information, role assignment, and FAQs

I. A Thought Is Haunting Me

January 1st.

CWs: nonconsensual memshare/receiving of memories, flashbacks to combat zone and injury, blood, hearing loss/burst eardrum, panic attacks.

Just in time for New Year's Eve, the town square that held a magnificently decorated 15-foot Christmas tree last week now has a glittering silver ball to rival New York's own waiting atop a flagpole rooted in the same spot. Strings of lanterns illuminate the snowy brick courtyard, lined with stands offering hot cocoa, ciders, and various warm snacks, or perhaps characters are more interested in obtaining a pair or two of silly New Year's glasses that allow them to look through the numerals 1961. Eventually, though, all goes quiet for the exciting countdown.

'Five... four... three... two... one!

The ball drops, and confetti streams down onto the square (and the people standing in it!) as the Sweetwater High School Marching Band picks up a jaunty rendition of the New Year's classic Auld Lang Syne—but characters will likely find themselves distracted by the dark spots that appear in their fields of vision, gradually expanding until everything is eclipsed entirely by soft blackness. They feel less and less of the world around their bodies, numbness starting at their fingertips and toes and creeping up their extremities until they feel touchless, floating, completely absent of sensation. Then something replaces it: fragments, or perhaps all of what follows.

The world flashes black, then returns, hazy and doubled, half obscured by smoke as you lie face down on the hard, rocky earth. One ear shrieks, a whine that grows higher and higher. Hot blood streams down the other earlobe and drips onto your neck, washing off sweat and grime as it trickles toward your collar. Pain slices through what you think must be your eardrum like a jackknife shoved into your skull. You cough, throat burning, ribs protesting the movement. A coppery taste, a warmth, fills your mouth. You check with your tongue and all of your teeth are there; the blood is coming from your broken lip. The hair on top of your head feels hot and wet. You know your cheek is scraped open from the gritty sting taking up most of your face.

The doubled image of a medic gets into your face, his lips silently moving. You try to shake your head, to communicate that you can’t hear him over the shriek of your own tinnitus, but your neck is too stiff. Your brain slams against your skull and your head feels like it’s been hit with a brick. Blood drips off of your brow and into your eye.

The medic squeezes your shoulder and pushes off, scrambling across the debris until he disappears in the gray-brown smoke. There’s a moment of irrational fear: he’s leaving you here to die. You’re hit somewhere and you’re last in triage. You’ve heard about soldiers not feeling the gunshot until much later. When he and his buddy come back with a stretcher, surprise mingles with the dread of being lifted.

You shut your eyes tightly, trying to recalibrate your vision, but it still swims with the pitch and yaw of the rocky earth beneath you. When you open it, he’s trying to look into your eyes, hand on your shoulders, his lips finally moving in a pattern you recognize: Going home. Going home.

Going home.

You close your eyes.

*

You stare at a long tawny finger as you wind it into the red plasticized cord of the phone set, doing nothing when it begins to throb against its tethers, the single physical sensation anchoring you in reality.

“Listen to me. I need you to be calm and handle this. Someone will be there in thirty minutes, Ron. You need to keep it under control until then or we’re going to be in a world of shit you can’t even imagine—Put up roadblocks. Say a convict got loose. I don’t care. Do what you have to. Don’t call me unless it’s resolved or someone’s fucking dying, Ron, do you understand me?”

*

The door opens as the emergency light comes on, flickering. The room fills with the suffocating stench of diesel. A candystriper’s golden-brown hands wrap around your thin wrists, pulling you as she rocks back on the heels of her wet tennis shoes with all of her might. Tears stream down her cheeks, strands of relaxed hair hanging in her eyes. She chokes her words out around sobs of her own, eyes wild with terror, screaming: Miss Ruby, you have to get up! You have to get up, Miss Ruby! But your legs won't move. Your breaths shudder ragged in the air just like the volunteer's.

At 12:01, characters return to consciousness: but there are little changes, twinges that make this a bit realer than a dream. Perhaps their index finger twinges as blood returns to it and the impressions a tight phone cord left on their skin fade, or maybe they find themselves wiping a few droplets of blood from the corner of their jaw. Perhaps their ears ring, gradually giving way to clearer sound—or maybe they awake sitting on the ground with their arms around their bent knees, face wet with tears, overcome with a raw panic unlike anything they’ve ever felt. How very odd.

Notes:
—Characters can experience all of the memories, or players can pick and choose.
—Characters do not have to be in the square to receive the memories.

II. In the Valley of the Dolls We Sleep

January 13-15th.

CWs: violence, entrapment, hypnosis, living mannequins, dismemberment.


'New year, new you!' the cheery saleswoman on the radio and television ads for the local two-story department store proclaims ad-nauseam, becoming more and more of a regular guest in characters' homes as time marches on toward the 15th of the New Year. There are great sales to be had, and would you look at that, characters have a few gift cards to this very store in their respective purses and wallets! Over time, the voice of the young woman in the advertisement almost seems to grow more insistent, even though the same ad plays every time: surely it's just familiarity altering one's perception of her voice, right?

On the morning of the 13th, characters wake up to the sound of every radio and television set in the house turned on and blaring the ad. The saleswoman reminds them that time's running out, and that the sales will only last for another 48 hours before they're gone. If characters can't hear, they only make it as far as the living room before the television screen comes into view, the same message scrolling across the bottom of the screen in large close-captioning... even if they haven't turned it on. This time, something feels different, and characters find themselves compelled as though by a supernatural force to go check out the sales being advertised.

Characters may notice once they're inside of the building that it's only new arrivals here: the townspeople of Sweetwater seem to have already done their shopping! Fortunately, there are still some great items left. It may be when looking at that cashmere sweater or a nice pair of snowshoes that characters catch a tiny flicker of movement out of the corner of their eye: but when they turn in that direction, there's nothing except a faint, nagging sense that something's not right. It happens again as they pass through the store—and then, with no warning, the faceless, eyeless mannequins throughout the store burst into motion at the same time as the sales associates collapse to the floor unconscious, attacking characters with inhuman strength and whatever items they have at their disposal with the intent of bludgeoning them to death.

If characters try to escape from the way they came, they will find that the automatic doors and fire doors are all locked as though from the outside. The windows cannot be opened or broken, nor can the glass of the doors—they're trapped here. Really, truly trapped.

To make matters worse, the mannequins, unlike the salesman, seem truly impervious to... everything. Guns can pierce them, but they have no blood to lose or brain to damage. They can be dismembered, but they're strong, and hard to pull apart; even if a mannequin's head is removed, the body will still function. Characters have one advantage, however: the mannequins are not as intelligent as human beings, and seem to mostly lack object permanence. If characters can stay silent and out of sight after finding somewhere to hide, the mannequins will drop their pursuit after about fifteen minutes of trying to get to them.

The mannequins stay alive for 48 hours, and the doors stay locked for the same amount of time. Characters who do not find a way to sleep risk sleep deprivation symptoms similar to the ones detailed in the explanation of modes of torture in Sweetwater, and will be slower, weaker, and less able to fight off or escape from the mannequins. 48 hours is also a very long time to go without water, which can only be obtained from the sinks in the bathrooms... both of which feature nicely dressed mannequins in one corner.

Notes:
— The departments of the store are as follows:

- Women's Clothing
- Men's Clothing
- Children's Clothing
- Furs
- Baby/young child supplies
- Home appliances
- Kitchen
- Decor
- Furniture
- Toys
- Hunting, Fishing, and Outdoors (hunting-style guns, ammunition, snowshoes, fishing rods, flies/fly-tying equipment, dog beds, hunting blinds)
- Tools ( Limited. There aren't any electric saws or more specialized tools like bolt cutters to be found, but simpler "Little Joey picked this out for you, Dad!" wrench/screwdriver sets, branch loppers, lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc. - in general assume that there aren't any power tools player characters can use to bulldoze the mannequins with, but there might be some tools that could help with other things... )
- Fine Jewelry/Watches
- Ladies' Gloves

— Deaf characters and characters who wear earplugs to bed will be awoken by their spouse moving, or will randomly wake up even though they can't hear the ad.
— Players who wish to opt out can say that their character simply slept through it and woke up after the doors to the department store had already locked.
— The mannequin limbs are inert after they've been removed, but the mannequins can still operate without a head.
— Characters may try to investigate at the risk of leaving cover. If a character is able to get close enough to the service desk on the second floor, they may also notice that one of the customer service associates, a teenage girl, lies slumped over the counter as opposed to on the floor with her coworkers, an unlabeled, recently installed button depressed beneath her shoulder—she was leaning forward before she lost consciousness. If her body is moved, the button stays anchored in place. If characters check it again, hours later, they'll notice that it can't be depressed or lifted, but seems a little higher—almost as if it takes a set amount of time to return to resting.

III. Drill it in like J. Paul Getty

Throughout January.

CWs: torture, non-fatal electrical shock, restraints, medical/psychiatric abuse, nonconsensual drug administration, altered states of consciousness, needles/injections, gaslighting, brainwashing, sleep deprivation torture, antipsychotics overdose, smoking.

Should characters discuss the horrors of the month on the network, over the telephone, or in places where townspeople can hear, they’ll face the consequences. They go to bed the night of the offense as usual—and come into consciousness in a dark room, a basement of some sort, bound to a chair with leather restraints buckled onto their wrists, their ankles. A leather strap runs across their chest, holding it to the back of the hard wooden chair they’re bound to. A few feet away, the static electricity of a television box provides some measure of light as noisy waves ripple across the screen.

Upon further examination, there’s one more thing on characters’ left wrists, directly north of the leather straps holding it to the armrest: a set of electrodes and thin wires that run down and across the room.

“You’re awake. Good morning.” None other than the town’s private practice doctor, Norman Pollock, greets them, with the same matter of fact tone he’d use during a standard physical exam. “You seem to have lost sight of what makes Sweetwater so special, so we’re going to watch some videos, get your head on straight. We can’t have this kind of subversive behavior when the country’s already under attack, Sweetheart.”

He presses a button on the television remote—which characters might notice has a second, less refined one taped to its side—and a program comes on: What Communism Will Take From Us.

For the next 36 hours, the hour-long video plays on repeat, showing idyllic scenes right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, detailing the joys of the American way of life, emphasizing all of the ways subversive thoughts and actions undermine it, and how they hold the door open for the Red Menace. This is what’s at stake, what little towns like Sweetwater, Maryland have to use. Norman sits in a chair nearby, smoking cigarettes, reading issues of the New England Journal of Medicine, the remote never leaving his hand. The moment characters’ eyes close for longer than a single blink, the electrodes on their wrist deliver a nasty shock to help them wake up, growing in intensity with every additional offense. His never do for longer than a regular old blink.

By the end of the 36 hours, characters can expect reality to begin to blur at the edges, and may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoia, and their minds wandering in ways they haven’t before. At 36 hours of sleep deprivation, the body cries out for it, desperate to rest. Maybe they erupt into hysterical laughter, or weep uncontrollably, or panic. Norman is unphased by all of it.

If characters try to fight back, or prove too argumentative and unwilling to learn, Norman will produce a glass syringe and draw up a thick fluid from a dark glass bottle, which, if characters have the necessary visual acuity to see, reads haloperidol. He jams the needle into their gluteus and injects; within 10 minutes, characters will feel very, very sedate, almost catatonic in their stupor. Effects vary from person to person, but it is not a pleasant experience: in addition to the deadness it brings on, hearts race and mouths go dry. It gets harder to swallow, or maybe a character’s vision begins to blur. The limbs contract in fits and jerks in the immediate and for the week the drug lasts. The face twitches uncontrollably, muscles ache in their rigid stiffness, and it becomes hard to stay upright throughout the week as the drug interferes with the character’s balance, making them dizzy and confused.

THE TOE TAG
If characters fight Norman, however, they may find that he backs against the nearby metal filing cabinet–knocking loose a piece of paper hanging from a half-open drawer when he does. It’s recognizable as a photocopy of a toe tag, the kind affixed to corpses in a morgue, but characters have seconds before their vision doubles and blurs too much for it to remain readable. Characters who are injected with haloperidol for subversion, either for talking about the murder or a different offense, may comment to the event post under the designated mod comment to take a shot at reading the tag. Remember, though, it’s probably best not to advertise that they saw anything out of the ordinary, or to even mention what happened to them, on a publicly visible communications channel…

They wake up in their own bed shortly after losing consciousness, and spend the next week corpselike.

IV. It's Freezing and I Am Watching You Shovel Snow

January 7th onwards.

It's a cold winter for Maryland, characters will hear their neighbors complain, and within a few days of the New Year they have reason enough to complain too: the snowstorm everyone's been talking about in the neighborhood clubs comes on the 7th of January, dumping a foot and a half of snow. Better grab that snow shovel, or find someone to help you if you can't! A snowstorm like this takes multiple visits outdoors to keep up with, so maybe now would be a good time to practice divvying up responsibilities with characters' new spouses or children—or for bachelors to seek out the help of a neighbor. Characters may also have to deal with a power outage lasting up to 14 hours—better visit a house that has power if they need anything, but at least this is the kind of experience that brings a parent and child or a new couple or even two members of the same community closer. At least in theory.

It’s not all near-death experiences, psychological torture, and power outages, though! Characters who find themselves in need of some R&R will be pleased to know that the local fire department has tested the municipal park’s pond and found the ice is now suitably thick for ice skating. Characters will find lace-up leather ice skates in their size hanging from their tied-together laces in the garage, though this probably isn’t the best way to learn to skate if they haven’t before, given the lack of rail to hold on to–unless they have a friend to help them balance?

navigation

Comments

maureen robinson | lost in space | ota

[coefficiently]

→ I. NEW YEAR, NEW YOU

(a.)
There is a woman standing on one of the modest retaining walls of of the brick courtyard. It doesn't afford her much of a vantage, really—it's maybe two feet of elevation—, but it allows her to see over most people's heads and hats. It also makes her stick out like a sore thumb, a little foolhardy and unladylike there on the wall, easily visible between the pop-up shops and amidst the glow of string lanterns. But it's New Years Eve. A little nonsense is forgivable, isn't it?

Not that Maureen particularly looks like she's enjoying herself. Stood there in her heavy wool coat and sensible pumps (how challenging was it to clamber up onto the wall in heels? Don't worry about it), her attention is devoted to scanning the crowd.

(b, closed to one thread please. cw: abrasion injury)
There are worse places to be than standing than on a two foot wall when suddenly overcome by a bizarre out of body sensation that culminates in an all-consuming hallucination. Behind the wheel of a car, maybe. Over a hot stove. Doing laps in a pool.

But it is one minute past midnight, and Maureen Robinson (that's still her name) rings in 1961 by taking a bad step off a wall.

There's a crack—the heel of a shoe snapping free of its base—and the less than graceful tumble that follows. Hot pain, alien in its immediate familiarity (her ears are still ringing) bursts with renewed fervor as her knee meets and is torn up by the brick. So much for these stockings.

→ II. THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS FRIGHTFUL (w/Maureen, Jupe, and the family dog)

There are times in which a sudden unexpected loss of power would prompt decisive action out of Maureen. When the electricity fails in the Sweetwater house though—

(She freezes, a sharp bolt of something like anxiety rising in her. What now, it asks.)

—but given no visitations by murderous Sweetwater residents or rogue linemen, Maureen does the sensible thing: she packs up the disparate pieces of her project from the kitchen table into the brown canvas rucksack that shouldn't be here. She puts on her hat and coat. And she ushers her alleged husband and the pet dog both out of the house. If the power is out for a reason, then she doesn't want to wait to find out what it is. And if it's just out, then to hell with it. The air is breathable here. Nothing is technically relying on the house not being dark and cold and miserable for a few hours. Trudging through a few snow drifts and imposing on a neighbor isn't the end of the world.

Which is how the neighbors, complete with family dog, arrive on your, yes your, doorstep. Maureen shifts the packed rucksack on her shoulder. She knocks twice.

→ III. HOSTILE BRAND STRATEGY

(a.)
Somewhere in the depths of home appliances, amidst a series of show models of refrigerator units and stoves, something is making a series of small, studious clanks and clacks. It's the stubborn, metallic click-click of a wrench being turned. And occasionally, from behind a modest selection of portable stand washing machines, a rasping hiss is followed by a tell-tale flare of light.

She might actually prefer to have a lookout for this. A second pair of hands, even. As it is, Maureen has the crank flashlight crammed between her arm and side while her other hand works to loosen ring clamps and yank various hoses from the standing washing machines.

At the first scuff of a sound—someone approaching, human or otherwise—she pauses. Stills. Waits, while the small hairs at the back of her neck stand on end.

(b.)
"I can take first watch. You should get some sleep."

A series of clothing racks arranged to form an impromptu bower of trousers, winter coats, and various suit jackets, doesn't exactly seem like the most impenetrable position when it comes to an impromptu camp made in the middle of what now qualifies as a hostile landscape. But it's relatively easy to get in and out of, no one risks being cornered in the close quarters of a dressing cubicle, and the mannequins are just ungainly enough to be slowed down by the prospect of wading through layers of clothes that the vulnerable people inside it may well have the ample opportunity to slip out the other side before being beaten to death by less than ideally inanimate limbs. Besides, there's something to be said for hiding in plain sight. A few racks of clothes crammed together are inconspicuous, and mostly hides the occupants from sight which is all the mannequins really seem to care about.

Sitting cross legged on the makeshift bed of scavenged furs, Maureen has a baseball bat set across her thighs. From the faint indentations along its shaft, it's recently been getting a workout.

→ IV. WILDCARD

[I'll match brackets or prose for any threads. Feel free throw me a misc starter, or hit me up either at my plotting comment or at prosodi for something bespoke if you want something but none of these are speaking to you.]

closed to vasiliy, in the valley of the dolls.

[coefficiently]

How fast are you?

[Stripped of context, it would make for an odd question. It might technically still qualify here, where they've posted up behind the counter devoted to watches and fine gloves—a statistically less likely stomping grounds for mannequins prone to roving through various clothing departments in their pinned on model garments—, except that it's a relatively short distance between here and one of the two bathrooms in the department store.

This had been, strictly speaking, pitched as something of a reconnaissance mission. They'd get close to one of the bathrooms, get a look at what was going on, and then make a plan on how to get access to the taps. That Maureen had brought a cooking pot with a lid along with them was just good sense. Maybe the bathroom would be empty despite heresy suggesting otherwise, and there'd be nothing standing between them and the sink faucets.

But obviously, there had been. And apparently, the plan is evolving as they speak.

Maureen is presently running a piece of cord liberated off a snowshoe through the handle of the large cooking pot. She wraps it twice around the lid's knob, then runs the lace down to the opposite handle. It's not an ideal way to seal the lid into place, but she's not planning on actually dropping anything. So it's probably fine.]

[m1895]

[ He sits on the floor with his back against the jewelry counter, crouching beside his newest comrade-in-arms, a woman a decade or two older than himself who calls herself Maureen. She's sensible, and she hasn't treated him any differently, unlike the majority of the population here. She's also one of the ones who doesn't know how or why she arrived here.

They need water. It's something they both immediately agreed on as a priority; she has a pragmatic mind, the sort of mentality highly valued in the culture from which he originated. People like her are needed to keep a communist state running, and with that knowledge comes a degree of inherent respect. ]

Fast. Faster than them, I think.

[ He doesn't train for speed—but he does train, and he's sure that his cardiovascular endurance, compared to most people's, is well above average despite the smoking. ]

Sorry this is so late. Work agonies.

[coefficiently]

Great. That's good.

[It sounds like a box being checked on a mental list of them—pre-flight safety check—more than it does simple approval. Though that too; she likes a no-nonsense answer, and Ardankin's demeanor thus far has a whiff of familiarity to it that she approves of.

(The guys currently tooling on Project Mercury might disagree with her, but in 2046 everyone knows the value of a Russian engineer.)]

My guess is that anything we do to draw the one inside out is going to bring a few others from somewhere else. But if the hose fitting works and the water pressure is okay, I should just need five minutes.

[Now that she's tested it, quietly pulling the lid against the restraint, Maureen unlaces her make-do latching system from one pot handle so she can remove the length of hose—cannibalized from one of the department store's rare appliance floor models—coiled inside with the faintest rasp of rubber on metal.

Maureen looks to him. It's not quite hesitation, just—

She knows what she's suggesting.]

oh man i know about The Agonies don't even worry about it

[m1895]

[ Vasiliy does, indeed, know what she's suggesting, a heavy possibility that weighs silent in the air between them. He's already had a chance to live and die—really, the time he's living now doesn't belong to him, or shouldn't, anyway.

That doesn't take any severity from the decision, for the same reason he didn't simply turn himself in and face his rightful punishment a second time—there's something infernally human, a desire to avoid death even while recognizing it to be the only fair ending to his own story. But it doesn't overpower his desire to see these people live—and they will die without water. ]

Five minutes, [ he repeats, quietly. ] I can do that.

[coefficiently]

[A flickering moment of held eye contact—like she is double checking his own understanding, verifying what she sees in his face against her conscience—, and then Maureen gives him a curt nod. The appearance of indecision in her melts rapidly off. Okay. Great. Decision made.

(Not for the first time, she wishes John were here. She could set him on this without a second thought.)]

The trash can to the left of the bathroom door. [She'd marked it earlier, and doesn't need to shift up to glance across the counter to reassure herself that it's still there.] I'll crouch behind it while you draw the one in the bathroom out. If you make enough of a scene, it probably won't notice me slip around behind it. Try not to stay in the area in case more come. We'll need to make sure I can get back out, and I can help you shake them when I'm done.

[Hopefully he's good at running in circles.

With the pot clamped shut in one hand and the coil of hose in the other, Maureen makes to shift up off the floor. Steals a glance at him.]

Ready?

closed to sans & sokka, in the valley of the dolls.

[coefficiently]

[It is a truth universally acknowledged that where there is basic infrastructure, there's basic maintenance access. Actually locating and getting their hands on it, though?

More challenging.]

There can't be an interstitial floor. The ceiling height doesn't support it.

[Her eyes ache, and it has nothing to do with the rough diagram she's scribbling on the back of receipt paper. Exhaustion is starting to creep in at the edges of everything. Maureen is distantly aware of the presence of a migraine starting to work its way forward and radiate down from her hairline, and has decided unilaterally that she's going to ignore it alongside the ache in her knee. The migraine will self-resolve when they get some water, they get out of here, and she eats something other than novelty Christmas chocolates.]

That leaves, what? A stock room?

[They're sat behind a barricade of sofas strung up with fishing line trip wires. Did Maureen only come crashing into Sokka (and Sans)'s makeshift bivouac ten minutes ago, having narrowly avoided a series of mannequins roving through the home appliances section? Sure. But that's no reason to stay put for long.

Maureen jots down a note on the receipt back, pauses, and then jerks faintly as if startled by something. Right. Sticking the pen behind her ear, she produces her right hand to shake.]

Maureen Robinson, by the way.

[Hi, thanks for having her in your nightmare couch fort.]

This is smart, [comes with a faint jerk of the chin to indicate the arrangement of furniture and various angling trip wires.]

[carniravenous]

[The last time that Sokka was as tired as he is now, he spent an entire night running away from enemies and an entire morning fighting. It had been difficult, but there had been way too much on the line for him to slow down for a nap. That's the way he feels now, as he glances at the receipt to see if he can make out what Maureen is sketching. There's an ache under his skin that tells him he needs rest, but it's easily superseded by the desire to protect Sans — and now Maureen, too. Someone has to, and Sokka decided that he was that someone for Sans as soon as the mannequins started attacking, regardless of any complicated feelings he may have about the way they're supposed to be living life in this place. He kept imagining Sans trying and failing to hide, not picking up weapons even though he should, and he felt responsible for that, like it was his job to make sure he didn't get himself killed.

It was a relief to find him, and even though Sokka didn't know Maureen ten minutes ago, he's glad she found them, too. She reminds him a little of the Mechanist, with how she jumped into planning without formal introductions. Sokka is still operating at a disadvantage, considering he's not all that familiar with giant department stores, stock rooms, and related concepts. He's tried to learn as much as possible since arriving here, and he's doing better than he was in that first week, but he still has a lot of ground to cover. Which is exactly why he's paying close attention to everything that Maureen is saying, glancing up at the ceiling when she talks about the height. If Sokka had been able to help the Mechanist with his inventions, then he should be able to help brainstorm next steps, regardless of the gaps in his knowledge.

At least, he hopes he can. He tries not to think too hard about the last time he planned something important.]

Thanks. I wanted to make some snare traps, but this was all I could do on short notice. [And with only a crash course in the way things are organized in this place; he's lucky he found the fishing line as quickly as he did.

Sokka's been practicing his handshake, and even though it doesn't feel natural, he shakes Maureen's hand without slipping up by trying to grasp her forearm.]

I'm Sokka, and this is Sans.

[He chooses to introduce Sans so that there's no confusion about who he is in Sokka's life, aka not his father, a strong sticking point for him even after the time he's had to acclimate to pretending for the locals.]

[ribticklers]

Hey. [Sans offers a lazy handshake, not objecting to being introduced by someone else. Easier, really; Sans is exhausted. It shows in the growing dark circles under his eyes. Doesn't show in how he's acting, though, which is to say he's remained lackadaisical and surprisingly unruffled by the horrifying circumstances around him. It's getting easier to manage the extra muscles and twitches of his human face.

Maureen's entrance into the fort is, ultimately, better than a lot of other options. She's not one of those mannequins. She's willing to work on something practical. Even if somewhere in his gut he still feels some cold wariness at strange humans, he can ignore it. Sokka's got plenty of fighting experience, apparently, but these mannequins aren't alive in any traditional sense. Reminds him a little of a ghost-possessed dummy back home, except you could talk to the ghosts.]

Yeah, there's gotta be plenty of back rooms somewhere for a building this big. Good place to put the pipes so the customers don't do anything weird. [You know, like planning to find them and open them up to get some water without having to navigate a tiny, mannequin-infested bathroom. For all the lack of food and water--especially the water--is wearing on Sans, he looks surprisingly focused.] And hey, maybe someone left some snacks in the break room.

[coefficiently]

[If she's at all taken aback by Sokka taking the lead when it comes to introductions—

Then no, she isn't. Maybe if the circumstances were different, if they were meeting at some faux cheerful party or quite unquote school event, she might question it or it might strike her as precocious and a little funny. But things being what they are, it just is. This isn't her first extra competent kid.

(And if she actually, actively thought about that instead of it just being a fact, it might make her sick to her stomach. But luckily, it's just true. And the knot of worry for her own kids low in her belly is so constant that she's starting to take it for granted. And mostly she's too tired to examine any of it up close.)]

Right, exactly. So my thought is, [She gets as far as plucking the pen from behind her ear before veering away from whatever that thought is back toward—] That's a good point, actually. The break room, I mean. Even if we can't get utility access, there might be something else in there we could use. A back door, maybe. Or something more substantial we could lever a door open with.

[What she wouldn't give for a crowbar.]

[carniravenous]

[In a perfect world, Sokka would have had plenty of time to delve into learning all about modern utilities. He understands 1960's technology better than he did when he first arrived, but speculating about things like the most efficient way to access pipes in a building this large is still a little outside his skill set, as is guessing the nature of the possible backrooms in a store like this. Floor plans weren't high on his library research list; shopping hadn't been a priority, either. He might have been able to research department stores and related locations if he didn't spend several hours each weekday in school, which has significantly cut down his ability to learn practical things, but that would have attracted too much attention.

There's a moment, then, in listening to their conversation where Sokka thinks that maybe he should just stick to fighting. He was a planner, back in his world, but even in a place with enemies he understood, he messed up and made a judgment call that cost him — cost his dad — a lot. And here, he isn't fighting with warriors, and typical battle tactics won't work because the mannequins can't die. Sokka knows, because he tried hard to kill one.

But it's the mention of a back door that moves him from questioning his usefulness back into really thinking. He thinks of the Royal Palace back in Ba Sing Se, and how he managed to get inside that back door without anyone noticing, because he was dressed as a busboy. Hence, he abruptly blurts:]

We need disguises!

[Which, in retrospect, sounds like a non sequitur and probably also makes him seem a little ridiculous and/or stupid, because they're not hiding from humans, but that's fine. Sokka is used to that, and besides, the idea is relevant, so he continues explaining:]

The mannequins forget about us if they don't see us [There's a reason they haven't been hunted down in this furniture fort], so we need to disguise ourselves. Not as people. As objects. Boxes or clothes racks or furniture. Then we can go to any room we want.

[If they don't recognize them as human, then they might be able to sneak right by them. They're surrounded by objects they could potentially use for this. He could cut into these very sofa cushions to make a suit, for example.]

[ribticklers]

So you want to put your fort on wheels? [Okay, that's not what Sokka said, but it's certainly an entertaining idea.] Well, my bro always said I'd merge with the couch someday. [So, not a rejection of the actual idea, either, although Sans isn't sure if he can actually pull off couch. Boxes are probably easier. Of course...] It'll still be touch and go. Moving furniture's gonna stand out. But if we can stop out in the open when we need to, we can take a straightforward path to--well, wherever we're goin'.

[A back room, obviously, but searching the whole building, disguised or not, is too much of a risk. Sans doesn't know how much Maureen knows about department stores, but he knows this is new to Sokka, so:] They'd put the door out of the way. Behind one of the desks or some empty hallway. Could be locked.

gently puts thumb over timestamp 💀

[coefficiently]

[The line of Maureen's eyebrows flex upward toward her hairline at Sokka's suggestion—surprise, clearly, and maybe a little of something else with it. If there's a machine whirring away between her ears, this seems to activate some other part of it. And as Sans talks, she takes a moment to seriously consider the logistics of their surroundings. Allows her eyeline wander out past the backs of the pushed together sofas and the strings of fishing line to the various shelves of equipment, the staged displays. To think, for a long beat, about what she knows of the layout of the department store's levels and its contents. Its occupants.

When her attention snaps back, there's an air of decision about her.]

Okay. So we need to find our way off the public floors. We'll use some kind of camouflage to move around. We can't use one of the rolling clothing racks. It needs to be something we can stop. But we can use the rack and fill it with something else.

[The receipt paper with the diagram is flipped over. Scribbling there—] So we need a rack, one of the camping tarps, and more fishing line. [—produces a rough outline of something like a rolling screen.] That should help us get around.

[With a nod to Sokka. Good idea.]

If we find a door and it's locked, there are people who work here still inside. They might have keys near them. So we start with the service counter.

II

[frauseufzen]

Between the efforts of herself and her "husband", the Raskolnikov residence is one of few with light coming through the windows. It's not much warmer within, to be certain, but happily(?) neither of its inhabitants are altogether unused to adverse winter conditions.

The door opens to reveal a tall, hawk-faced woman, whose gaze cuts between the new arrivals-- and the dog-- without so much as an offered greeting. what.

[inaxorable]

Raskolnikov is hard at work gathering every candle in the house, which is unfortunately less than he’d hoped. He supposes he should be lucky they have any at all, what with how reliant the Americans are on their electricity. At least they’ll have light — the existence of flashlights hasn’t even crossed his mind — and some measure of heat, though.

He’s setting down his findings in the living room when he hears a knock at the door. One of the neighbors, probably. With the tired shuffle of a man who would rather be doing anything else, he makes his way to the door, only to see that his “wife” has already answered it. It’s tempting to let her handle it, but curiosity gets the better of him, so he peers out at the visitor — visitors, plural — from behind Agathe, waiting for them to say something.

[yupe]

While Maureen knocks and puts on—he hopes—her friendliest smile for the neighbors, Jupe is otherwise occupied. In cold-numbed hands he grips a leash, and is doing his best to stop what looks to be an enormous roving mop from racing up and down the front porch. Or at least slow it down.

“Hey!” he calls over his shoulder, from where he's—literally, kind of—dug his heels into the snow, braced for another outburst of canine enthusiasm. He flashes a frantic smile. “Sorry to, uh, disturb you. We live a block over—” He drops a hand from the leash to gesture—and that's when the dog bounds toward the doorway, Jupe staggering behind until the leash slips entirely from his grasp.

The dog is friendly—friendly and ready to plant her snowy paws on whoever strikes her fancy.

mea culpa, work ate me

[coefficiently]

Maybe she had been adopting her friendliest smile—which udber present circumstances, looks more than a little tired around the edges—, but now here is the shaggy mop of a dog launching herself up the porch step and excitably bowling directly into the raptor-shaped woman in the house's open doorway. Look, she can do the friendliest introduction!

Maureen lurches after the dog's collar. Between the heavy rucksack on her shoulder, she's not quite fast enough to actually intercept her (so enjoy that punting of paws applied directly to the body, Agathe), but she does manage to wrestle her back with a squawk of—

"I'm so sorry. She just" —is squirming against Maureen's grip, tongue lolling as her attention swings to the second stranger further inside the house—"likes people."

[frauseufzen]

The woman in the doorway recoils, only spared from being completely bowled over by her quick reflexes and those of the visitors. It does result in a sound of surprise and disgust, however, as Agathe retreats backward, hands raised defensively.

Too shocked, perhaps, to speak, she fixes her gaze on the neighbors. Sorry who exactly the fuck did you say you were

a.

[littlemissfutility]

That doesn't sound like the mannequins. They're about as delicate as a herd of walkers - faster and stronger, maybe, but still clumsy at times, despite their leggy strides and narrow little feet.

Beth had thought that, if they had big appliances in here, maybe they'd have some set up to demonstrate how they work. A dishwasher or washing machine that functions means water - drinkable as long as they don't sprinkle in any cleaners when they run it. But so far, it turns out that the whole idea is a stupid waste of time.

Until she hears someone else in here, anyway. Beth creeps close enough to see a figure silhouetted by the light they're holding. Probably a woman. And if she sneaks up behind her like this, probably not going to react well. She taps lightly on the glass front of an oven, hoping the sound will travel far enough to reach her - and no further.

[coefficiently]

That hiss of nails on glass—

It's obvious when the woman on her knee at the edge of the pooled beam of light pauses. She straightens marginally, the shape of the light dipping and narrowing and then consolidating to little more than a hot ring as the body of the flashlight is set directly against the barrel of the standing washing machine. She waits there in the murky light for two seconds. For five, maybe, listening hard for the more tell tale scrape of clumsy bodies jerking around the department floor. When it doesn't come, the light comes abruptly back as Maureen sweeps her immediate surroundings with the beam.

Passes. Jerks it back. Plants the light firmly on the crouched shape of a very flesh and blood girl.

Some of the tension inherent in her shoulders sags immediately out of them. The glare of the light defers downward by a few inches.

[littlemissfutility]

By Beth's mark, that's surprisingly calm - if the woman had pulled a weapon on her, she wouldn't have been the least bit surprised. She squints a little in the light, failing to make out details of the figure behind it.

When the light falls away, she can't quite decide if that's an invitation to come closer or not. All it really means is that the woman doesn't think she's a threat - and at the moment, that'll have to be a greeting for them both. Beth creeps closer, until she's close enough to whisper. "What're you doing?"

[coefficiently]

Belatedly, she thinks—

(if the girl is one of the brainwashed locals readying to jump and claw her eyes out or stab her with some knife lilfered from the home goods department, she's already too close to really defend herself from the first strike. If that happens, she'll just have to squirm away or steel herself to using the wrench in her hand, or)

—it doesn't matter what she thinks, a flicker of anxiety rising up and being dashed away in the span it takes for the girl to ask a real question.

Maureen hefts the wind up flashlight absently, dividing her attention briefly between her company and the half detached ring clamping the rubber hose to the washing machine.

"I'm," God, what is she doing? "Working on fixing our water problem."

Here's to hoping, anyway.

[littlemissfutility]

She looks like she's about Mom's age, maybe a little younger. In the reflected glow of the flashlight, she's all harsh angles, with a serious face - but Beth can see enough that she bets the woman is pretty when mannequins aren't trying to kill them all.

"How's it going?" Maybe they had the same idea, to see if there's water in with all the shiny appliances. If so, Beth's not moving an inch until she has to. She's thirsty as hell, and she wouldn't know how to do any of this - in the woman's place, she'd be sawing the rubber hose open with her knife.

[coefficiently]

"It's, you know. Going."

She's younger than she would have guessed from the clothes she's wearing, Maureen thinks. Or older? The girl's face had looked so round in the hard light of the flashlight beam, but up close the cut of her clothes about her seems wrong. But that's somehow true of everyone when the whole town is dressed like pictures of her great-great-grandparents behind sticky photo album clear sheet peel paper.

"It would go faster with some help."

With a tilt of the wrist, Maureen offers her the little crank flashlight.

[littlemissfutility]

She doesn't really know, but she's not about to volunteer that if she can help it. What matters is that they're both really thirsty, and maybe this could help. Silently, she takes the flashlight and holds the beam over the woman's hands.

Vague memories spring up, not of helping with mechanical projects, but of drinking sour-tasting river water out of old soda bottles with labels that came off years ago. Green plastic and the taste of dirt, and silently going through the motions of being alive. She's going to have to start carrying a bottle of water here, too. Or - not a bottle, nobody has plastic bottles of water yet, do they? Maybe she'll find an empty jam jar and use that.

She knows better than to talk, but she wants to. What's your name, how does this work, have you seen any mannequins lately? Keep your mouth shut, and you'll both be alive a little longer. She remains a silent presence beside the woman, watching her steady hands and listening for tell-tale clicks and thumps.