january 2020. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Seventh Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of January 2020
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. champagne supernova.

Normally, the changes in the sky are subtle, happening between glances or over the course of days.

That's not the case now, when the bright sky with its three suns is wiped away in an explosion of blue light, right at sunrise on the morning of January 1st. The light pulses across the sky in uneven blazes, sending out lattices of what might be lightning or something worse. There's no moon. No brightness. Just this lightning-storm brilliance in space, shedding little light on the world below.

And the suns don't come back on. As the day wears on, the supernova brightness in the sky starts to fade out and no new light appears. The sky is static and black, with no stars, no moons, no suns. The mild rolling blackouts that started with the opening of the relaxation room intensify with the sudden loss of solar power, as the backup systems try to compensate for the increased use of power.

For a moment, power goes out in Anchor entirely, leaving the place plunged into darkness.

The darkness doesn't last. Thanks to those generators everyone worked so hard to sort out, the backup systems struggle back to life, keeping the lights on and the bar, kitchen, and agricultural supports open, but there are some things that the limited power just can't cover.

b. tower of babelfish.

The first, and perhaps the most noticeable system to start failing, are the auto-translation programs. While not affecting every area in Anchor equally, communication between those who speak different languages is going to be a lot more difficult. The effects are spotty, coming and going, sometimes completely failing, leaving only people's naturally-spoken languages available. Sometimes it just struggles, making conversations sound a lot more like babelfish translations than recognizable speech. People themselves seem to be affected differently by the translation struggles, depending on who and where they are. There's no rhyme or reason to when and how it fails. But the problem persists through most of the month.

c. the hidden passage.

The second system failure is harder to spot.

At the end of what seemed to be a maintenance hallway, a set of doors have appeared from behind what used to be a shielded hologram of a dead end. The doors stick out from their surroundings: thick metal, barred heavily from the outside. A clear attempt to keep something locked away inside, not to keep people from entering.

For those adventurous enough, or foolish enough, to wrestle the locks open, a problem will reveal itself. A short flight of stairs, leading down into an area flooded by murky water. It's hard to see more than branching halls down below.

Those who choose to brave the water will find a hallway lined with bulkheads and sealed doorways, all guarding rooms that could be accessed with the right combination of smarts and brute force. It's the question of what would be ruined by the water if the doors are opened that might give people pause. What kind of secrets could be wiped out or destroyed if the doors are forced and the water passes through the bulkheads? Can the water be drained? How?

But there is one room open, or mostly open, where the bulkhead doors didn't quite manage to seal when the area flooded. It'll be a squeeze, for bigger characters, but the flooded room beyond contains artifacts preserved behind glass - strange medallions, strings of glowing beads, broken sceptres, arrows fletched with feathers from creatures no one has ever seen before.

Only one object isn't sealed away. It's a handful of small orbs, with shifting colors, held in place by a shield array that still seems to function, for the most part. They can be touched, can even be removed from the stand with the right know-how or a willingness to smash stuff.

But once an orb is touched, the colors start to spin more rapidly. The more it's handled, the brighter and faster the colors shift. Whether it takes hold immediately or not is up to you, but those who handled the orb will find the bright colors start to glow under the surface of their skin, in the shape of veins, glowing bright for a few minutes before fading. And those people bring a different kind of contagion back with them to the surface. Memory loss, communicated from one person to the next via contact. It can be partial or complete, or not happen to your character at all - they can be an unwitting "carrier" of the effects, passing it on without experiencing the losses themselves. The loss can last from hours to weeks, with carriers being "infected" for the duration of that time.

It also leaves behind magical traces, ones that don't fade after memories return. The cleverest might start to wonder if it wasn't a kind of inoculation, though against what, it remains to be seen.

Navigation.

Comments

[nockturnal]

"How can you say that? I will promise no such thing."

He draws back again, this time confusion resurfacing. One hand shifts to rest on Genji's shoulder, or at least the cold metal that served in its place. "This...cannot be forgiven. Perhaps by you, but I will not."

Because he does care, but he can't put that to words. The words won't come. This is as close as it could come, the anger born of a desire to see this wrong righted, and his brother avenged. So why then is he stopping him? Who is he protecting?

He should know this. It feels like he should know this. That light flickers under his veins once more, and that hand slips away, reaching up to rub at his aching temple. "Something is wrong...where are we? How did we get here?" he murmurs, casting his gaze around the room.

[arcadedragon]

What does he say to that? Hanzo doesn't remember what he's done and now he's full of anger and seeking revenge. If he'd always felt like this then why did he....

"We came down here to obtain more arrows. You have them now and we should leave, I'm not sure what's wrong with you but we should get you medical attention." He moves again to help Hanzo should he need it. Meanwhile he's silently wondering what anyone in the Medbay would even do about this. Hello, yes, my brother touched a weird orb and now he loves me again, can you fix it?

"You touched that," He points at the orb now innocently back in place, "and it did something. There were lights under your skin. I picked it up but it didn't seem to do anything to me, it probably can't get through the armor."

Or the more unsettling answer: he wasn't human enough for it to work.

"Come, let us leave. I can take you somewhere to rest, have you picked out a room?"

[nockturnal]

Why did he. A question Hanzo has an answer for, but likely none that would ever satisfy the real question behind it: why choose his duty over his brother?

Perhaps one day that question would come to light. But in this moment, Hanzo doesn't remember making the choice at all. He doesn't remember arriving in Anchor at all, much less whether or not he has a room. His narrow features pinch in frustration as Genji speaks, before he shakes his head again.

"I do not know. My mind is clouded..."

Perhaps he simply needs to rest.

[arcadedragon]

"Alright, that is fine. I have a second bed in my room you can sleep on." He doesn't press it, Hanzo is clearly having trouble remembering things, making Genji concerned that the orb might have given him a concussion somehow. Or maybe done something to disorient him. Who knows at this point.

Genji leads him out of the flooded maintenance hall towards his room, trying to remember if his room is a complete disaster or not. He doesn't have many possessions but there's a chance that what little he has is strewn about like a tornado hit it.

"How do you feel otherwise?"

[nockturnal]

"I should be asking you that."

There's something wry that's found its way back into his tone. Strange as all of this is, as glad as he is to see his brother alive and well, if not whole, he'll never not be who he is at heart. And that has always been someone very skeptical of the world around him.

And the fact that his decidedly not-dead brother is asking him if he's alright.

He follows, just the same. Whatever lies in this room just doesn't seem as important, anymore.

[arcadedragon]

Mission accomplished in a way. He wanted to get Hanzo the arrows, Hanzo has the arrows. But now he's wondering if that came at a cost.

"Me? I suppose I am fine. It does not hurt any longer if that is what you are asking." He's not sure what to say, walking a strange line of wanting to reassure his brother while not letting him know he's the cause of all this.

Fortunately Genji's room isn't in complete disarray, he shoos the two small blue ice dragons off the second bed and gestures to Hanzo to sit down. "It is not all of me, some of this is armor."

[nockturnal]

Is that so? His eyes travel of what remains, the scars that cut across a face that had once been handsome and charming. Now, with metal fused to the jaw, his voice marred by whatever device had been installed at his throat. The damage that would have had to have taken place, to require such extreme measures...if not for his eyes, still human after all this time, Hanzo might have doubted if anything at all remained of his brother.

It still doesn't quite seem real.

Hanzo takes the offered seat with a frown at the dragons as they scurry off. They don't appear to be their sort, however, just animals resembling Western dragons. Unless he is imagining them.

Maybe this is all some sort of strange dream. He frowns, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose in frustration. "I don't understand what is happening," he finally utters, and it's difficult to keep his tone level.

This is all...a lot to try to take in.

[arcadedragon]

That makes two of them.

Sitting down on the opposite bed, he pulls a garish orange sweatshirt off the floor and tosses it on the bed for the two dragons to sleep on. They pounce on it immediately, walking round and round to make themselves a little nest.

Watching them instead of Hanzo, he reaches up to his left shoulder pulling on some hidden internal mechanism and loosening the plate that attaches to his chest. Each metal panel elegantly slides into the next before he lifts them away exposing his arm beneath. There's faded scars there too, slashes and circular ones where tubing once connected, but otherwise very human.

He extends a finger to one of the dragons, letting them sniff him, "I do not either. You were fine until you touched that thing. I have no idea what it did to you."

But he finds that this version of Hanzo is a little easier to talk to. Someone he'd not mind hanging out with. But first he wants to make sure he's okay.

"Do you need anything? Food? Water? I have some snacks." He has things other than twinkies now, though he does have a lot of those.

[nockturnal]

Again, he shakes his head. No, he doesn't feel particularly hungry or thirsty. Just at a loss.

And his attention has been taken by the reveal of what remains of Genji. His arm, mottled with scar tissue. There's no way he'd feel any sort of appetite to eat, after that.

"You said before that Overwatch were the ones that saved you?" he begins at last, determined to piece this together as best he can. There's something Genji isn't telling him. He knows his brother well enough to know when he's being purposefully cagey.

[arcadedragon]

"Yes. I joined Blackwatch after. The covert ops team." The team responsible for assassinations and murders and taking people for questioning. He'd wanted to help people, and his only skills involved death.

Though at the time he'd been so full of rage and bitter betrayal it had seemed fitting. It wasn't until much later, looking back on it, that he could see it for what it was.

"When they were disbanded I joined Overwatch. There are posters." He gives a faint smile. He didn't think of himself as a hero, but Overwatch sure did. It was something anyway.

"But that was a long time ago. Where have you been?"

[nockturnal]

"After the clan ordered your death, I abandoned them. I sought..."

He frowns. Again, that gap in memory means it isn't fitting together quite like it should.

"Redemption." Though for what, he cannot say. Grasping for the memory only sees it slip away, intangible as smoke. "I wandered the world as a mercenary, seeking those who brought pain to this world. If death was what I had to offer the world, I could make use of it."

By seeking out those who reminded him of himself. Shadows of what he could have been to strike down, as if that would make things any better. But it feels hollow, now.

[arcadedragon]

"You abandoned them? Of your own volition?" He knew Hanzo had left, but he'd never known the circumstances. For all he knew it was possible the clan knew Genji was alive and exiled Hanzo for not fulfilling his duty. Deep down he was fairly certain that wasn't the case, but he'd never known for sure.

In a way that made sense. Killing was what they were good at, and even in Genji's effort to be a better person, to be a hero, ultimately it was his skill with the sword that suited him best.

"Redemption." The word tastes bitter. So Hanzo had been trying to atone for what he'd done? The incense and offerings hadn't been some symbolic act, a tradition he'd adhered to for proprieties sake rather than a genuine feeling. "What will you do when you find it?"

[nockturnal]

"I do not know."

It had only been a way to propel himself forward, rather than remain mired in the past. But is that really true? Was clinging to his brother's death and killing every version of himself he saw in the world really what would bring him peace?

Hanzo's eyes slide shut, a muted, tired noise slipping past his lips. A small admission, but significant. "Perhaps I believed that by the time I found it, the journey would have changed me. I would understand more than I do now."

[arcadedragon]

An honest answer. In truth he's not sure what he expected him to say. The future had always seemed distant and unobtainable, a myth more than a reality.

"Maybe you will. The journey has already changed you, everything we do shapes us, molds us. Like rocks in a river." Zenyatta had put that far more eloquently, but the meaning is the same. Even this conversation is changing them, but Genji isn't sure how long they can go without addressing the actions that had brought them here.

He pulls his legs up, wraping his arms around them and resting his head on his knees. "I think we have both spent our whole lives searching for who we are. Maybe someday, we will find ourselves."

[nockturnal]

It's not the sort of thing he'd expect to hear coming out of his little brother. The hopeful optimism isn't a shock, something Genji had always possessed. It's that quiet wisdom that seems so out of place.

But perhaps his brush with death had shaken away some of that carefree recklessness that had gotten them both into so much trouble before. He'd always hoped he'd grow out of it, learn to see the bigger picture, but...this is not how he'd wanted him to learn that particular lesson.

None of this was as it was meant to be. They were killers, born and bred. The clan had been their entire world for so long, raised and trained, educated and molded. Without a true path, it is little wonder they struggle so.

Hanzo turns to watch Genji arrange himself nearby, expression softening by degrees for just a moment. "I once believed we would find our purpose with the clan. Now, I can scarcely imagine what fate awaits us. At the very least, we will see it through as we should have done. Together."

[arcadedragon]

"Even had we stayed, the clan would not have given us the purpose we seek." They both would have been miserable, just shells of themselves doing what the clan wanted or what was best for the family and losing themselves bit by bit until nothing remained. Sometimes he wondered if that's what had happened with their father, did he want to lead the clan? Or had that been thrust on him as he was trained from infancy just like he'd done to Hanzo, with no regard to his own wants or needs.

Genji couldn't have stayed. He would have left eventually, or been killed by someone if he didn't drink himself to death first. All his self-destructive reckless behavior would have caught up to him eventually.

He closes his eyes tightly before looking up at Hanzo again. Together. He's not ready for this, spending the past decade convinced that Hanzo hated him, that he valued the clan above his own brother. Duty was more important than the relationship between them.

"You are welcome to stay here. It's safe, and Peter removed all the cameras for me." That's not what Hanzo means and he knows it, but he can't let go of the past in order to consider the future when the past is sitting right there talking to him.

[nockturnal]

It isn't quite the past, though, is it? It's almost as if it's an alternate version of Hanzo, one who never made the choices he did. The clan would have cut away pieces of them bit by bit, but Hanzo can't remember taking the blade in hand to dig those bloody chunks out of himself.

All he knows is that they are here. Now. There is hope for them to move forward, or so he thinks. And at the offer, he just quietly nods. He trusts his brother, machine or no.

He will stay. Strange that in this place, unknown and unfamiliar, it's the closest thing to home he's felt in years.