deadtention | R1 DEADLAND PT2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED, huh? Well well well. First of all, let's stand here and analyze that code with his AI GLASSES so we can try to force it in later if needed. Is there anything of note before he gets started?]

Edited 2018-10-03 01:17 (UTC)

[Mitarai thought at first that the experience of looking at his yearning code must be overwhelmingly unpleasant. When Yoosung denied experiencing such vehement disgust, Mitarai decided that the strength of this more fully realized AI totally outweighed his own discomfort at being viewed. Anyway they're moving on.]

Whatever works best for you. [This being different from pure happiness, as they know. Hey, maybe he can focus on the codes for other things instead. Who knows.] More importantly... It seems like only a fragment of the truth reached you... And leaving you holding just that shard could, well, cut you?

[He smiles, apologetic. It's a roundabout path to the point, but the setting is way better than the last time he told him something shocking, it has to be. At this point Mitarai has finally sat down at the side of the gazebo overlooking a flowerbed, though from the low seated vantage point the insects flitting over the flowers are what's easiest to see. He's kind of at an angle obviously waiting for Yoosung to sit down next to him, facing the empty adjacent space almost more than the flowers.]

[You can see that someone's still working on it right now; there's code being written here and there. It's primarily re-establishing the internet and setting up security. Despite the fact that it's running on an independent connection there are still several firewalls and the like protecting them from anything on the outside.]

[Cool cool. What's this independent connection like? Any indication of where it's coming from?]

[He was mostly overwhelmed with surprise and not given time to think about how it might have unpleasant consequences when technically the most he's seen, however strong, is a hard coded dopamine rush. What Mitarai does with that rush is beyond his knowledge... although, being told it could 'cut him' makes it sound a bit scary.]

You don't have to be so cryptic... I know more stuff now, but I haven't actually gotten smarter, haha.

[Well, he'll walk up to join him on the gazebo floor then. The insects are pretty noticeable. That's a lot of butterflies.]

You said this is how it should have been, right?

[He still remembers what Mitarai said when he hugged him on his first day in the simulation. Since he seemed to think it was obvious Yoosung should know, his only guess is that he meant...]

...With us as friends.

[He sits down by him. But his reactions are so much more than friendly. With them sitting together like this, the data will show that again, right...? Like he said on Chuseok, though, it's not an order. It should work out and be okay.]

Edited 2018-10-03 03:02 (UTC)

[ He's in.

Except first he needs to spend like an hour in Photoshop, hang on.

...

AND HE'S BACK, armed with a .png file that he is sending straight to his old pal Todd.

SUCK IT. ]

[It's currently set up in the robotics laboratory. Which means chances are that it's Vivienne that set it up.]

[orrite, pretty much what he expected. He'll just study this until it's completed then, and once it's done he'll run off to the computer lab and open the connection.

This messenger system is pretty new, huh?

He'll set his username as Superman ★ and try to set up a chat.]

[ Mishima blinks for a second, and follows Yoosung's gaze to his songpyeon. Oh, right--! Jeez, he'd almost forgotten too. ]

Mm... I dunno. I was thinking before that maybe I'd just wish for the Phantom Thieves to keep changing our world without me.

[ He shrugs, and looks back up at the moon with a more wistful smile. It still looks like the moon he's always known, though he knows it's not real -- he's not sharing it with any of the Thieves back home. ]

I mean, I'm pretty sure they can do that whether I wish for it or not, honestly, so maybe that's a waste... but I also don't want to wish for anything that's too impossible, you know?

[ SO hardcore, Hank. So much. ]

Well, isn't that always how it goes? A bunch of adults, don't know how to write teenagers... Honestly that's usually why I read, ah- more mature things.

...But I could give it a shot.

[ Breathing heavily, she slows...and stops, though she still shakes with rage. ]

Of course it isn't... Crivvens, I knew it'd all be for nothing. I knew, you'd end up here, a fucking murderer, bringing someone else with!

So... more "directly", then...?

[There's a subtle manic glint in his eye during the moment when he watches Yoosung sit down, like he's been given a dangerous toy. When they sit next to each other - everything has been so wild that Mitarai hasn't gotten back to that head in the clouds feeling at all. His heart is pounding, but rather than fast, more like... authoritatively.

He had thought it was obvious that Yoosung would know when, but not necessarily what, and at any rate they pretty much lost the thread of the conversation from the when insinuation, so Mitarai just acknowledges "as friend" with eye contact and a practically imperceptible nod, as opposed to saying out loud, "Yes. This is the entire specific idea that I meant." He looks back out at those insects.]

This is... where I went that day. To draw my... stupid anime. I should have just - brought you with me. Or... Or agreed to tell you how it went over dinner; or whatever you wanted! Anything you wanted. Anything would have been better than... than what happened instead...

Edited 2018-10-03 04:31 (UTC)

I don't think it's a waste. You've always given them the strength of your belief. Why not give it some extra power?

[He smiles a bit.]

Unless you have another good idea.

[Oooooohhhhh

Time to poke around with this gaping hole of data and see what kinds of trouble she can get into.

She only slightly knows what she's doing here. So what can go wrong?]

[There’s a small laugh. He’d always maintained Poe was a fool for believing in him, hoping for better...but maybe Gogol was an even greater one for thinking he had no reason to.

At the apology, he smiles. It’s a mixture of sad and forgiving. To be apologetic for his fate was a level of compassion he shouldn’t really be afforded, but there was a comfort in it all the same.]

I’m not sure what I deserve at this point.

[He’s had a lot of time to think, but he hasn’t gotten far with it. He always thought his time alive was his sentence for his sins, and that, eventually, his deserved freedom would be in death. Now, after all this, it’s starting to feel a little backwards.]

But I’d like to make a request. The folder Edgar gave me before... [Before all this.] Is there a way to get a hold of it here?

[To think Dostoevsky would only use him felt blasphemous. But...in some part of him, his faith has faltered, ever so slightly.]

[Mitarai puts a doorstop underneath the door of the computer lab. Then he takes a seat in the corner of the room furthest from the door. If you catch him while he's sitting there before noticing someone, he looks... mentally uncomfortable. Except when he's picking at the spiky ball of rice in the bento on the desk besides him, when he looks physically uncomfortable but mentally revitalized.

There is a beveled edge acrylic sign holder on the teacher's desk, containing a sheet of paper with some preppy rectangular geometric printing.]

Attention Everyone The computers in this lab can now open chat rooms that connect to Fayflower in the living world. Mitarai is monitoring computer notifications and dispatching Gogol as courier to inform affected parties. You may direct any further inquiries on investigation results to the Phantom Guild Office.

[ Of course, she'd said just earlier, if they got a roof she'd be far away from it. That's still entirely true, of course, but Rebecca can't help but...well, like with the library, wander a little.

Find herself at the foot of the stairs, leading up to it, and bite her lip. Feel her throat close up, a little. Murmur to herself: ]

What even were you thinking, Becca? Up the stairs?

[ Maybe if she'd lived... Maybe she could've--

...What if's, still all-consuming, aren't they?

It's a dour start to the day, but she finds herself wandering again. By that festival that seems set up, how ridiculous is that? ...It's a nice kind of ridiculous, for once, though, even if she's never been to something like this, beyond...a farmer's market, or something of the sort. The foods all seem a little too unhealthy for her tastes (can they...gain weight here? would she even have to worry about running off any of it?? uh?????)--but maybe she could be enticed to toss around a ring, or scoop a goldfish, or...

...Well. Or just sit near the cherry blossom trees. Simulated or not, it's...still sort of lovely, isn't it?

In the computer lab, late at night...Rebecca sits and finds herself drying tears. She never used to be the kind of person who cried, not that much. Not after...well, not after she found herself growing up, into a person who could speak her mind. But this...

On the other end of this conversation is a girl who looks up to her, a girl she left to fend for herself, after saying she'd be there for her. She means every word she's saying--she believes in Max, so strongly.

She just wishes she could help hold her up.

So, for a time, after her conversation with the girl, she just has to take a shuddering breath, elbows on either side of the keyboard and hands clasped in something almost like a prayer...if she did that kind of thing, still, and just leans her head against her knuckles, breathing slowly...in and out. ]

[...So Yoosung may have been behind this in so far as he'd suggested someone staking out the computers for opened chats on the living side, and Mitarai wound up being that person to atone for his sins by suffering in the computer lab.

That idea to refer everything to the Guild was NOT something he asked him to do though, so he's blinking at that sign on his way out after bringing the culprit computer club some bentos on the job. Is this bad for their brand??? Or is it just a recognition of the Guild Efforts to be the primary source of proliferating this information and a thing that inevitably everyone should do???

...Whatever, this is Mishima's area of expertise. He can sort that out.]

Good work, guys.

Edited 2018-10-03 07:53 (UTC)

[Things have been a little odd, lately. With the computer messages and all that.. there's not really anyone 2-D feels the need to send a message to himself, so he simply passes by the room without much of a second thought as he gets ready to head to his bedroom for the night.

Except.... he hears the sound of a sniffle coming from that room. A shaky breath. It's the sound of someone who had been crying, a sound that 2-D has become... awfully used to, in this last month or so. And being the kind of person he is he can't simply just leave it be.

He takes a couple of steps back, peering his head in to see Rebecca with her hands clasped into a prayer, looking just... terrible. And in the back of his mind he feels like he should just leave her be but... but what if she needs someone, right now? Company is company, and they're not in as awful of a state as they were, say, two weeks ago.. right?

Either way, he walks in quietly, speaking up before he reaches her so he doesn't startle her.]

Miss Gales? Are you alright?

Well, congratulations! You knew it before I did it!

[There’s a desperate, cheery malice to his words.]

All of it was for nothing! All those bodies, that entire association, everything I worked for, everything I did...

[His breathing is ragged, shaking. It could be because he’s just been beaten up quite severely, but his eyes lead to a different story. It’s the look of a guilty man, who understands exactly what it is he’s done.]

It was all...

[A lie?

No, no...it couldn’t have been. Dostoevsky wouldn’t have lied to him. They were always on the same page, he always had his interests in his heart, he knew more than anyone else could, all the power of a god and a demon...he couldn’t have been wrong for following him.

Unable to finish his train of thought, he exhales, steadying himself.]

Well, this is how it ended. It can’t be helped.

[Well, this got melancholy fast. Yoosung can't help but feel gloomy thinking about this... concept that Mitarai was just drawing the entire time he was being killed, and that he should have been saved. It's not what he would have expected to hear about this, though. To hear about someone grieving him, and that this someone was Mitarai. He frowns to himself for a moment - he doesn't really think that Grantaire would have killed someone other than him, after all, there had been a conversation where he compared someone obviously useful vs. obviously useless and Yoosung had been the example he gave for the latter. So there's no doubt in his mind that he died because he was considered disposable, and he would have been chosen regardless of what anybody did. That doesn't seem like something he should tell Mitarai though. His heart's in the right place. With its authoritative beats.]

Mm, sure. I would have liked that... whatever we did. I don't know what it'd have been, there wasn't much... if you were drawing anime I guess that could be interesting in its own way...

[Not like he knows that many artists, anime or otherwise. It's not something he's completely comfortable with, still knowing what his ends were.]

Although, umm, your anime still kind of scares me. If I had survived that way... I would have wanted to stop you, too. I hope we would both be saved.

[He didn't even listen to the perfect man Terra though, so he's not sure what the odds of THAT would be.]

[ Her eyes are shut tight. The light from above, from the computer in front of her. The blinking cursor, her own written words. I wish I could give you a hug right now.

All of them... Somehow they've become her kids, haven't they? And all Rebecca wants is for them to be okay. To...be able to see them be okay.

...

A voice, it makes her start, just lightly. Squeeze her hands tighter. Why is it he keeps finding her in this situations? ...Probably because she's constantly trying, and trying to put herself back together but-- but Hank was right. No on was meant to exist like this after death. No one was meant to do this, process the things they're all processing. Rebecca wonders...maybe if, for as long as they exist here, if she's always going to be... ]

No. [ It's a simple enough answer. She sucks in a breath. ] But that's all sorts of normal now, isn't it?

[ Now this, this is...strange. She hasn't seen him like this.

Close to showing something true. Close to--actually expressing something like...remorse.

...Her expression hardens. To something cold. ]

Far too late for you, to be developing something like this. Like self-awareness.

[It is kind of funny that 2-D always finds her at her worst.. whether they're alive, or dead. It's almost like he has a radar for these things or something, and honestly it is a little strange for him too and quite awkward. But he can't consciously leave someone crying by themselves, and so he takes a few more steps towards Rebecca, gently placing a hand on her back as she hides her face behind her hands.]

...it doesn't have to be.

[The tone of his voice is soft, and a little bit on the quiet side.]

But it really has become more of.. of what people expect nowadays. Even after all the good things that have happened lately, it's hard not to be down in this bloody situation.

[ The touch makes her clench her jaw, so much that it hurts her teeth. And yet Rebecca doesn't pull away, just letting her muscles stay tense, letting her throat squeeze shut. ]

There are many things, that I- that I don't think'll be okay, ever again.

[ Just her honest assumption. She blows that breath out. Nice and slow. Nice and slow, Rebecca. ]

Max. ...Everyone. They're still there. And this as as close as I can get, to...doing anything. Sitting at a fucking computer.

R1 DEADLAND PT2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

Robotics Lab

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oswald's computer

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Re: EVENTO

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Computer Lab

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computer lab!!!

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