silentspringlogs | [open] CAPTAIN'S LOG 001

Entry tags:

[open] CAPTAIN'S LOG 001

Who: Maureen Robinson + YOU!
When: February
Where: Various (noted in prompts)
Open/Closed: Open
Applicable Warnings: TDM Warnings apply; anything additional that comes up will be noted in the subject line.

→HAVEN STREET, BLOCKADED (smoke gets in your eyes)

It's a problem not being able to get to the so-called 'Sector 1.' It's less to do with the food situation—dry cereal and canned food may not exactly shake out to a particularly luxurious lifestyle, but there are worse things—, and entirely to do with a question of power.

Half way through the week, Maureen stuffs her rucksack full of miscellaneous foodstuffs raided from the kitchen, a handful of books scavenged from the household's shelves, and the tube of toothpaste from the master bath's medicine cabinet ('I'm taking this,' she'd informed Jupe, standing in the doorway of the living room with the tube in hand and the rucksack over her shoulder. 'There's baking soda in the kitchen.'), and sets off through the neighborhood.

The last time she'd been driven from the house in search of supplies, it'd been laying down snow and she'd had a so-called husband and a dog at her heels. This time when Maureen shows up on the doorstep of various neighbors, she's alone. There's smoke on the air. She has a scarf wrapped prudently around the bottom half of her face, but pulls it down when the door is answered to say—

"Can I ask for a favor?"

→AROUND SWEETWATER, POST-BLOCKADE

Maybe it's the clear air, the smoke from the fires having at last drifted away, that inspires her to clamber into the household car and go for a drive. After all, after a week stuck inside the blockaded 'sector', just buzzing around from point a to point b is a thrilling luxury.

Or maybe it's work. Certainly there's a distinct air of a woman on a mission about Maureen over the next week as she appears around town: at the hardware store, making doe-eyed apologies to the clerk helping her decipher her 'husband's shopping list', and at the library where she casually cycles through whatever city planning documents may or may not be on file, or can be found copying down the Morse Code alphabet. And here, late one evening in a diner, where Maureen has a table in the back to herself. She'd finished her dinner some time ago. By the patina of the coffee cup's interior she's been here long enough to have been on the receiving end of more than her fair share of refills.

But she needs to work something out and the confines of the house on Haven street make her want to lay down and stare at the ceiling instead of doing this: presiding over a series of little notes, presently scribbling calculations in a little booklet.

→MARJORIE'S NEOCOLONIAL (everybody's somebody's fool)

She's bad at this. Not the getting dressed part. That part she can and has done. Maybe the hair isn't quite right (who the hell designed curlers?), but the rest of 1961 house cocktail party chic Maureen has more or less managed to achieve thanks to the contents of a closet she's had almost no hand in stocking. It's the pretending part that doesn't work. It hangs uneasily about her shoulders like an ill-fitting coat. Smiles that are too briskly produced, and evaporate a shade too quickly off her face. She doesn't drink the right amount; she drinks her cocktail too quickly and has nothing to do with her hands afterward, loathe to pick up a second (overly strong, Jesus Christ) drink to replace it too soon lest it either somehow be socially unacceptable or just because the idea of being more off her game than she already is makes all the little hairs on the back of her neck that she's failed to capture in her up-do stand on end.

And when she feels moved to step outside, the excuse she gives is 'Smoke break'. It only occurs to her after she's standing in the February cold, wrapped tight in the coat wrestled back out of wherever Marjorie had stowed her guests' outerwear, that no one really cares about smoking indoors.

But the air is refreshingly biting, and the sky overhead dark and full of stars. Maureen lets herself stand on the little shadowed back step for longer than she should, her head tipped back so she can observe the sky. There is Jupiter—a bright dot in the blanket of stars—, and Auriga the chariot driver, and Canis Major, the big dog chasing Orion, with Procyon burning bright in its lesser sibling.

→WILDCARD

[ooc: Prose preferred, but brackets is also aokay with me so if you prefer to use that then go ahead and I'll reply in kind. Nothing here hooking you and/or want a custom starter? Hit me up via PM and we can plot something out.]

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[She is standing in front of the illuminated television set. Beyond it, the curtains have been drawn shut across the room's window, a defense against the prying eyes of various busybody neighbors. Even so, she is aware—distantly, in the way one notices something but can only bring themselves to observe the fact and not to measure its implication—of a gap between the fabric. A dark space through which the light of the black and white broadcast may be permitted to seep through, painting a pale glowing stripe across the thin layer of snow clinging to the front yard.

She should probably fix that, Maureen thinks.

'I think I can handle closing a few curtains,' says John Robinson from inside the television set.

Maureen twitches awake. When it comes to sitting up in the dark from the narrow twin bed in the house's second bedroom, she goes about it slowly. Presses the heels of her hands to her eyes. Rubs her forehead with her fingertips. It's been nearly a week since the video of the too-familiar Indian woman and her baby, the infant's fat hand being waved playfully out at the viewer, had randomly appeared. Apparently it's lodged itself firmly enough in her thoughts to start plaguing her subconscious. Probably fine.

Also probably fine: the faintest glow of light flickering in under the edge of the bedroom door, notable only for the darkness of the room otherwise. But she can do something about one these things, and not the other.

Which is how Maureen comes to lay a hand on Jupe's shoulder, making to rouse him from where he's asleep in front of the tv. It's late. The broadcast has changed over to shapeless, mute static. The dog is asleep on the rug at his feet.]

Edited 2024-02-14 07:21 (UTC)

Sans is good at parties. Good at mingling, good at talking about absolutely nothing, good at blending in like he's always been there. Wearing suits, though, now that he really doesn't like. Oh, he's wearing one, but he can't stop being aware of how he's wearing one. It fits fine but it feels like it's too tight at the same time. And while fitting in here is certainly to his benefit, if he wants to stay away from mandated movie nights and injections of drugs, he can't stop feeling like--and maybe this is paranoid, even for him--if he keeps doing it, he's not going to be able to stop.

So, when he spots Maureen stepping outside, he follows. His eyes go to the stars immediately; it's actually a surprise to see she's looking, too, but a welcome one.

"Nice view, huh?"

[ Jupe wakes up quietly, blinking sleep from his eyes. Looking from the TV to her face with the same sedate wonderment: unconvinced she isn't looming over him to deliver instructions. That this isn't a ripple in another dream, another freaky memory unfurling in his head.

He wishes the dog was awake—she'd know, right?

Eventually he sits up, tugging absently at the collar of his shirt. ] What's up? Are we getting a divorce? [ It comes out—blame the huskiness of his voice, the lateness of the hour—sadder than intended. He smiles; it's fuzzy at the edges. ] Kidding. Ha.

She starts.

But only by a fraction, her attention falling out of the sky like some errant chunk of stray meteorite. The flicker of alarm—probably a good instinct to have in this place, given the givens—has burned away by the time it actually lands on Sans. What moves in to fill its space is a brief, tight smile absent of teeth but not completely of warmth. There's a speck of humor there in her bearing as she twists around. It's the self-deprecating 'caught red handed' kind.

"It is, yeah."

The line of her attention flits just briefly to the house beyond him, a check at the glow of the curtain across the little window in the door, and then back. Maureen shuffles a little half measure over on the step she's occupying. There's not room, exactly, to share it with him, but the implication is a welcoming one.

"I've missed seeing them from this angle."

[If there's a flex there in her expression as she draws her hand away, it's suspiciously as if it might just there to humor him. Ha ha, yup. Funny joke. Good work.]

You shouldn't sleep in a chair. [Sure, that's why she'd woken him—the practiced impulse to mother hen. Only, obviously not. Maureen only drifts a few paces toward the TV, as if she means to switch it off by its heavy dial, before her focus twists back on him and she pauses there. Not quite hesitation, just teetering in the direction of it.]

We need to talk about the radio.

Numbers isn't expecting any visitors. He's been standing in his kitchen, staring blankly at the concerningly empty fridge when he hears the knock at the door. His head jerks to the side, eyebrows raised in surprised, before he slams the fridge shut and staggers to the entrance. Before he gets there, he takes a moment to comb his fingers through his hair and straighten his posture. With confidence, he strides forward and opens the door.

Ah. It's the...astrophysicist? Engineer? The woman from the far-flung future, according to her testimony at the dinner party. Numbers never actually introduced himself at the party--mostly because he was too preoccupied with ranting about a potential revenge plot against Norman Pollock. Numbers raises an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side. He's dressed casually, wearing a blue button-up and slacks and shoes inside the house--which might be an egregious sin for some.

"Maybe." His tone is polite and subdued. It's definitely a contrast to his previous behavior at the party. "What is it?"

Margaret never thought that she would miss the war.

The novelty of these social gatherings is starting to wear thin on Margaret. The Christmas party was alright, if a bit strange, and her New Years celebration was enjoyable up until the point where she suddenly became tormented by strange visions. It's here, at this particular party, surrounded by a saccharine celebration of love, that she realizes what's wrong.

She misses the 4077th. She never got to say good-bye to them, never gave them well wishes or told them "let's keep in touch". And though she would never miss the times when the unit was threatened by enemy--or allied--fire, these celebrations didn't feel the same without them. Here, she always felt like she had to hold herself back among polite company, straining to smile as they spoke about their adoring husbands.

She's desperate to find an out--so when she sees Maureen go outside, she decides to join her. For a few moments, Margaret quietly stands beside her.

"Too loud in there for you?" she asks, breaking the silence. Her eyes momentarily flit upwards, towards the stars.

He's not her ideal pick of neighbors. But his messages earlier had suggested (to the unwitting observer) that he'd—

Well. Not cooled off in the subject of revenge, really, but that he'd still posessed the capacity to type instead of being laid up half comatose somewhere. So maybe he and Lester had thought better of the whole thing in the cold light of morning. Anyway, needs must. Though from the flicker of her attention across him, Maureen has clearly been anticipating a markedly different reception from the one she actually gets.

Though she's dressed in a long winter coat, the space between it's hem and the top of her shoe suggests she has a dress on underneath it all—not, apparently, quite so anathema a wardrobe choice for her as it seems for some of the 'wives' on the block. If not for the military looking rucksack on her shoulder and the scarf pulled down from her face, she might almost pass for someone who belongs here.

Right up until she says, "I need all your tin foil."

Okay. [ Jupe says, not in the tone of somebody who knows what he's agreeing to. Between the two distinct and alarming possibilities, he doesn't even know which radio she means.

Still, he straightens up in his seat—he's in a regular old t-shirt and pajama pants so convolutedly patterened they could secretly be a Magic Eye—and runs a hand through his hair. See: all business. ] Here? [ In front of the TV? ]

It's cold out here, crisp February air biting after exposed skin like the tips of ears and noses and the ends of fingers. They won't want to stand out here forever (and probably shouldn't if they want to keep up with appearances), but for the moment—

"It's a little stuffy," she says, lowering her attention from the clear night sky in order to punctuate it with a slightly sidelong look. This is, kind of, a joke; the conversations happening inside that house must not be Maureen's thing either.

She gathers her coat a little closer about her, smuggling hands into pockets.

"You and Ardankin left in a hurry the other night. Everything all right?"

Here works.

[The soft crackle of static might be a good thing. Not that there's any reason to think that anyone is listening, but— (she should have done that first, is a thought so distant that it's practically subconscious; she could have cobbled together a signal jammer to make sure).

Maureen absently plucks her dotted pajama top closer about her. Crosses her arms. It's not an anxious impulse (yes it is), it's just how she stands.]

I have everything I need to finish it. [So they're not talking about radio on the side table, then.] But I doubt anyone's going to like it when I set it off, so I need you to know the plan for when they catch me.

[ Happy. That should be an easy beat to hit. Enthusiastic. But his eyebrows shoot up of their own accord; what slips out is a not-particularly-congratulatory: ] That was fast. [ For a twitchy few seconds he just processes what she's saying, what it means—having a secret radio project in the basement hadn't seemed like a big deal when it was a project, like a homebrew kit or whatever, but now he has to stop and think. Everything urgent, everything dire in this town happens over the radio. They could think she's calling in a Russian airstrike.

And there's the question of who else might hear it.

Jupe presses his hand over his mouth, rubs at his face. ] Do you have to—I mean, you're totally sure there's no version of this where you don't get caught?

The brief pause that follows Maureen's question probably gives her the answer. Margaret fiddles with the ring on her hand, looking straight ahead into the shadows that stretch beyond the safety of the house lights.

"Yes, everything's fine," she says hastily. "We just--well, he wanted to leave before things got too exciting. It was getting a bit rowdy for his tastes."

And he was probably right for it. Margaret was never the kind of person to sit idly when there was something afoot. She could trust the army and its authority to do the right thing in her eyes, and perhaps some small, naive part of her still trusted the authorities of this town, as well. That maybe this was just some big misunderstanding, that whatever threat they faced was external, not internal. But the origin of the threat was inconsequential when facing proof of the consequences that could occur if you went looking in the wrong places or pushed against the idyllic veneer just a little bit too much.

Margaret continues to twist her ring, trying to ignore the bitter cold biting at her fingers. She looks tense.

"It's just--" She lowers her voice. "I don't like not knowing what to do next. At least in the army, I knew to follow my orders, and I could speak up about what I saw and trust that things would be taken care of. There were rules that made sense. While here...."

She trails off, laying down the implication of what she's trying to say to Maureen.

[Does she have to? Yes. Every minute she hasn't yet feels wasted.]

I don't know. It's a small area. Even if I take it out to town, I can't really get that far and it's not something I can just trigger remotely— [Threatens to dip into the semantics. She makes herself stop. Adjusts course, the shape of her crossed arms shifting in more tightly about her.] I think the chances are slim.

So [it's fine. She knows what she's doing. Doesn't she sound like she has a plan?] You need to be on board with this so we can work out the best way to handle what could happen. If my kids get the message and turn up, you might need to be responsible for them.

"Uh--"

Numbers blinks, looking slightly befuddled. He's not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't that. He gives her a look over, as if something about her appearance might suggest a reason behind the request.

"I mean, sure. You can take it. It's not like I'm using it," he replies. He pauses for a moment, then continues. "Can I ask why? I'd like to know if I'm being complicit in shenanigans."

Not that he cares about shenanigans, legal or otherwise, but Maureen has now piqued his interest.

They're not even a full half dozen paces away from Marjorie's back door. If Maureen's attention flickers absently in it's direction, a reflexive check to ensure that no one is peering out a window in their direction or something similar— well, then it's just instinct more than it is really cautionary.

"We're a little off the grid," she agrees, something conciliatory in her tenor. Yeah, she gets it. There's a sense of being in the dark out here, lonely and remote and dangerous with the rest of the world outside Sweetwater as thoroughly inaccessible as the distant stars overhead are.

"I wonder how long the rest of them have been stuck here. The locals."

Great. Cue Maureen hefting the straps of her rucksack a little higher on her shoulder as she moves closer to the doorway and potentially up onto the very step of the threshold on the assumption that he might just, y'know, cede ground and let her inside the house to rifle through his kitchen drawers.

"I'm not planning to murder anyone with it if that's what you're worried about."

Ha ha ha. We have fun here.

Margaret raises her eyebrows in surprise. That’s something she hadn’t thought of.

“You mean…you think they were like us?” she asks, somewhat apprehensive. That the other townspeople also just showed up one day, not knowing where they were or how they got there? Perhaps over time, they had fallen in line after being beaten down, that they had experienced what she had experienced and had simply accepted the ongoing horror.

“Surely someone’s moved out before,” she insists. “Maybe not us, but someone else. There’s that professor that just arrived in town, right? There must be somewhere to go to, then.”

Edited 2024-02-22 21:56 (UTC)

[ He's working up to saying something (no, for real) when she just drops her kids into the conversation, turning it into a completely different conversation. They're disturbingly easy to picture, thanks to the TV's occasional psychic transmissions—but the rest of it's a smoking crater, a rippling hole.

Okay, okay. He's worrying over nothing, he soothes himself. Summoning her kids from another galaxy? What are the chances? ] Yeah. [ Jupe says eventually, like he hasn't been staring at nothing for the past...hopefully thirty seconds, max. ] We should figure out somewhere safe to hide them. We should probably be doing that anyway. [ Somewhere far away from Openly Plotting Torture and Murder Boulevard.

He pauses, takes a breath and a calculated risk: there's no way she'll let him, even if she could. ] How complicated is it gonna be? Once it's all set up. [ With a no-big-deal shrug, he ventures: ] I could...

Number's face doesn't change.

"Very funny," Numbers replies, flatly. He does notice her step closer, and does move to the side so Maureen can enter the house. It's cleaner than it has been in weeks--mostly because he's no longer recovering from the bitter effects of haloperidol. He closes the door behind him and vaguely gestures towards the kitchen.

"There's some in the drawer by the sink, barely used," he continues. "Seriously, though--if I give you this tin foil, am I going to be looking over my shoulder for the HOA's goons?"

"It's a pretty good angle." Sans wishes he could ask more about seeing stars from a different one. Not here on Marjorie's back step, though. Really, he still can't help but be excited to see stars from any angle. He didn't think he'd be able to. Something else he can't talk about. Won't talk about.

"When me and my bro were kids, I'd talk his ear off about stars. Memorized all the constellations. You know that kind of stuff?"

What Sans is trying to ask is if constellations are still a thing when you've advanced enough to completely ruin the picture by flying to another planet.

No, [is as reflexive in her as that shell shocked look is in him. She has to gather herself after for a moment after, stood there in the hazy light of the tv's static. To rationalize what is knee-jerk.] It makes more sense for you to have some [—what, exactly? None of this makes sense if she thinks about it too long—] plausible deniability that it does for you to try helping.

[But that he'd offer— there's something tight in her expression that eases just faintly in response.]

You can do that, right? Act like you don't know anything if someone comes asking questions.

[It's a soft ball of a question. She has a feeling she knows the answer.]

"Maybe. But I didn't see him get here, did you?"

It's a hypothetical question—thinking aloud by reflex. There on the biting cold back step, Maureen draws the coat a little tighter about herself and huffs out a breath. It fogs before her face, and the dissipates, as insubstantial as this or any other theory she's had for the past month is.

"I think," she says. "That we don't know what we don't know, right? Maybe we are the only ones that came from other places or know some thing's off. But I doubt it. Otherwise why bother punishing anyone? I just think that maybe it's a mistake to assume that everyone else here is so different from us."

Great. Inside, with a closed door at her back, is an improvement to standing in the street wondering who's watching her. Once inside, she doesn't wait to answer him. Instead, Maureen hitches her rucksack a little higher on her back and follows his gesture in the direction of the kitchen. Apparently they're going to have this conversation on the move.

"If I was in the middle of some shenanigans and the HOA asked you a few questions,"—his word, not hers—"Wouldn't it be better not to know?"

She should probably just say, 'Me, what? No. I just need it to cook with and forgot to buy a roll the last time the entire neighborhood wasn't barricaded. Silly her.'

"If anyone asks just tell them I wanted it for lining windows if the power goes out again."

This mention of constellations, his brother—it prompts the barest flicker of good humor out of her, a heretofore rare spark of something other than the drawn, (over)thinking quality of her bearing that seems to have defined her both in that department store and at the, quote unquote, dinner party. It's possible that in circumstances that don't involve being trapped in a malevolent 1960s Coca-Cola ad that Maureen is fun.

(Maybe. No one ask her kids' opinions on that.)

"Yeah." A fine web of wrinkles flex briefly at the corners of her eyes. "I did the same thing when I was a kid. Drove my mom crazy. I think she regretted getting me the telescope for Christmas."

Margaret hesitates.

"No, I didn't see him arrive," she admits. "But--But he must've come from somewhere."

Stubbornly clinging to explanations that make sense for her reality. There has to be a physical space that exists beyond this town. They're in Maryland, which implies they're in the United States, which then implies the rest of the world's existence. Right? But then there are the obvious inconsistencies of the town's inhabitants and the year itself. Things she once took for granted can't necessarily be trusted anymore.

"I see what you're saying. Discouraging people from stepping out of line so you don't try and reach out to other people," she says quietly. "So we become more and more isolated."

She wrings her hands together, trying to warm her frigid fingers.

"Maybe the thing to do is to talk to the other townspeople. Try to make friends. See what they have to say about the town and the HOA."

Numbers raises his eyebrows, then puts up his hands in a resigned gesture.

"You know what? That's fair," he continues. "The less I know, the better."

He digs through the drawers and hands Maureen a largely untouched roll of aluminum foil. Clearly, he hasn't been using this.

"Here. I hope whatever you're doing'll help us get the fuck outta here."

"At least to start with. Maybe I'm wrong—I mean, I think we're all out of our depths here—but it's like that thing about flies and honey, right?"

It should feel like a less dangerous suggestion than it does. But everything unsettles here, so maybe she can just ignore that feeling. There's no gathering the coat closer about her either to offset it, or the bite of the winter night air. Even inside her pockets, her hands are cold. The tips of her ears are starting to hurt.

They should probably go back inside. Instead—

"My husband was in the service. —Not here. I mean my actual husband. The Marines. I think he liked the structure of it too." She gives Margaret a brief smile, a flicker of sympathy there for the tension in her. "This place would drive him crazy."

It's a start. Both in the getting out of here goal sense, and in the aluminum foil stock sense.

"We'll see. Thanks."

She takes the roll from him, slips the bag with its JUPITER 2 ROBINSON military styled stamps across the canvas from her shoulder, and makes to smuggle the foil inside the bag with a crinkle and clanking from whatever else is living inside.

"I'm guessing you and Arthur called off having a 'conversation' with Dr. Pollock. Do you want any of this?" A can of green beans, a tube of toothpaste, an Agatha Christie novel, produced from out of the rucksack. She'd been anticipating a trade.

Edited 2024-03-03 17:37 (UTC)

[ The tiny victory barely has time to register before she's barreling on. ] Well, yeah... [ Jupe says, unhesitating but reluctant. This is feeling less and less like a plan and more like a whirlpool he's getting sucked into. ]

Have you thought about— [ He runs a hand through his hair, and then he's gesturing with it. ] What you're gonna say? [ When you're tortured. When they take you to a basement and torture you. He shrugs, exaggerated, like the thought's a soaking-wet coat he's trying to struggle out of. ]

Maybe there's something you could give them? [ Deliberately casual, he looks at her, eyebrows raised. Ready to shut this down if she takes it wrong. ] Nothing crazy, just a little bit of what they want. What they think they want. You know?

Margaret raises her eyebrows, nodding slowly. A small smile tugs on the edges of her mouth.

"The Marines," she echoes, the memory of her time in the military somehow feeling more distant than the mere three months she's been here. "I can only imagine. When you've spent so long following the rules of the army, coming back to civilian life can be...somewhat jarring."

She lets out a nervous half-laugh, though there's little humor in it. She turns her head downward to look at the half-melted snow gracing the edges of the stoop.

"I just--" She hesitates, unsure the level in which she wants to open up to Maureen. After a long pause, she continues. "What was he like? Your real husband. Do you miss him?"

Numbers winces slightly at the mention of Dr. Pollock, seemingly a little annoyed on how it was handled.

"Uh--no, we, um. We had that 'conversation' with him. It went a lot more pleasantly for me than it did for Arthur, though."

For one, Arthur got drugged a second time while Numbers skated by trying to suck up to the doctor. Bastard. Numbers tilts his head to the side, staring at the objects offered in trade with a quizzical expression. His nose wrinkles, and he points at the book.

"What's this?"

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[open] CAPTAIN'S LOG 001

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marjorie's neocolonial

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