dualislogs | If I can't undo what's been done

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If I can't undo what's been done

WHO: Arkady + OTA!!
WHAT: Arkady can see the pat and future and other things when she wants to and she finally wants to! So if your character is new or you haven't been able to find a way to get your character some plot information, this could be for you!
WHERE: Dorms rooftop, Central Square Park, wandering streets at night
WHEN: Different times throughout December, feel free to specify a date/time you want.
WARNINGS: Alcohol consumption, discussion of violence and murder, discussion of overdosing, drugs, existential crisis???

A. ROOFTOPS

Hank said not to blame herself. Not to beat herself up over could have been. But he doesn't know. Nobody knows. That's the problem when you don't really talk about yourself. Nobody really understands. There's so much she can do. Or should be able to do. Some things are all mucked up here. Teleporting has limits. It shouldn't. Projecting has limits. It shouldn't either. Back home she's pretty sure there's nothing she can't do. Especially together. Though she's not together here. It's just her. A thought she refuses to entertain for long.

"Work to be done." The sun's setting and so far she's been lucky enough to not run into people up here. She has her legs dangling off the side of the roof with her FreakAngels jacket crumpled up next to her. There's a bottle of alcohol next to her that's only half gone so far. "I haven't let myself look but it's time." Her eyes close and when she opens them back up they're glowing a bright white.

Images flash inside her mind. A man? Two men. The same man twice. Another person. A bot? Yes. A bot. Two more. Four more. Five? There's so much fear inside the man. A name. T? Travis. He's so scared. Oh no, oh...he's so so scared. The bots move to him and they start to--

Oh. Arkady's expression twists as her mind shows her the bots circle the man and then putting their hands around his arms, legs, and head. They pull like it's nothing. Nothing at all to them. They keep pulling, ripping his limbs off while he screams and screams. There's blood, so much blood, so so much and she wants to stop looking but she can't. There's flashes of other people being ripped apart. Limbs. Blood.

Finally she screams out loud and her eyes turn back to their normal violet hue.

"Is this how they do it...?" There's tears coming down her face as she reaches for the bottle next to her. "We're all super fucked."

A. WALKING AROUND THE STREETS

For once Arkady's got her jacket pulled tightly around her. It's not that it's cold. It's more that she's cold. It's getting worse. That much she's noticing the more she looks with her abilities. And that's what she's doing. She's walking around the streets in the afternoon and she's looking. Sometimes when she walks by someone her eyes glow briefly as she slips into their mind and hits the wall. It doesn't hurt as much as it did that first time. That's probably not good that she's getting used to the feel. It's like hitting your head against a steel wall over and over. At first it's shocking and it hurts. Her nose bled that first time. Now it's just numb and...scary.

She's scared. She pulls the jacket around her tighter as the realization hits her. Scared. A tiny laugh escapes her lips as she passes by another person that has the wall feel. It's a nervous laugh. How many people that have been brought here like her know about this? How many people realize the number of citizens that are replacements? The thoughts are weighing on her and she's not really paying attention as she walks and then bumps directly into someone with her glowing eyes.

"Oh, you're not--" she cuts herself off before shes says that they're not a replacement. "Sorry." She blinks, her eyes returning to violet, and then she smiles at the person. "It's good you're you. Stay you!"

A. CENTRAL SQUARE PARK- NIGHT

It's night when she goes to the park. Every time she's passed by it recently she's felt something off. Something wrong about it. A chill down her spine. There's whispering sometimes. Or she thinks there is. Maybe it's just something in her head. It's hard to tell all the time. Maybe she's really actually going crazy this time. Or maybe there's something there. Or something will be there? She's been getting bits and pieces for days. Or maybe weeks. She's so bad with time sometimes. It all blurs together. Answers won't come from outside the park though.

"Time to go in." She says to herself, holding on tightly to a bottle of vodka she's brought with her just in case. Just in case what? Sometimes it's overwhelming. When she steps into the park it's dark. Death. It's heavy with death and bad. Bad bad things. She moves further in and eventually just plops herself down on the ground without any concern for getting dirty. Or if anyone else is around to watch a bald girl with a bottle of vodka sit down in the center of the park.

One leg folds over the other, her eyes start to glow, and then she opens up to what there is in the park.

"I can't die now. Not yet. There's so much I still have to do. I have tot ell him I loved him." It's a voice she doesn't know but the voice is so frightened.

"I don't want to die like this. Please, please gods don't let it go like this." Another. Just as panicked. Just as scared.

"Who knew it'd end like this. I never imagined this would be how it all ends..." Defeat. That's all there is in that voice.

There's tears. So many tears. "Why is this happening? Why are you doing this to us?" The voice is pleading. Desperate. "Why?"

"No, no, please, please..." there's more begging. Invoking gods names that she doesn't recognize. Pleading. Death. Death is coming. Or it came. Or both. Why is this happening? What's happening to them?

Tears start to stream down Arkady's face and she chugs half the bottle of vodka she has with her and then lets out a scream. She can't help herself. It's anger and sadness all in one. She pushes a hand out and a force of telekinetic energy smashes a nearby tree.

"Sorry, tree. You didn't do anything," she says with a frown on her face. Anger doesn't usually get the best of her like this. Her eyes start to glow again and she reaches out towards the tree in an attempt to put it back together. The pieces move and push together leaving it almost like nothings happened to it at all.

"There. At least I can fix that." Even though it looks like they can't fix anything else here.

[ooc: ping me on discord at selkie#4018 if there's a different scenario you want to play out! If your character has psychic abilities or is able to sense things feel free to have them pick up on the spike of power. ]

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“I think it lets you get it out of your system,” Tidus reasons. Not really something he’s had to think about before, but he also couldn’t imagine stopping himself from feeling sad (or any other way) either. “You’re sad because you care, right? You can’t stay feeling sad all the time, but it’s not like you can just switch it off. So you’re just bottling it without dealing with it.” Bottling it until it bursts, as they say.

“Some people can show nothing--” and doesn’t that sting to remember Auron, as calm as a statue, but inspire some fondness too “--but me? I couldn’t do it.”

He gets the idea though. Don’t let it bother you, don’t dwell on sadness. He knows about having to hold back one’s sadness too, to not wear how they feel on their face. But that treads too close to another person in his mind, one who their conversation turns towards. Tidus squeezes Arkady’s shoulder, not knowing if it’s for her apologies or for himself, quiet to begin with; letting it out a quiet breath, shaky. Needing it before he can speak.

“People kept telling me...maybe she did go home. It’s what you want to believe.” But he couldn’t believe it, even when he asked, what do you really believe?, tried to believe it too. Doesn’t try to sound as if he believes it now. “I already knew. A guy… he told me what they can do. Don’t go into crowded places. They can tear you apart.” So, it’s not really anything new. Hurts all the same, but he doesn’t want to dwell on that. Doesn’t want to put that guilt on this woman who did nothing wrong.

“If you can see stuff, he’d be a good guy to know. A greying old cop?” Tidus turns his gaze onto Akardy at that. “Ring any bells?”

50/50 chance. It was about as likely as him knowing Hank. Why would he ever know a guy like Hank?

But that was probably on par with anyone else he knew here.

"There are a lot of reasons I'm sad." The tone she says it with is oddly succinct. Sadness, and it's offshoot regret, feel like they're almost a part of her now. Perhaps it's a result of bottling it all up for so long. Or just a result of the pressure from feeling like no matter how hard she tries she just can't fix the things she helped to cause. Here the sadness ties directly into her feelings of helplessness. Just like back home she wants to be able to fix it all but she can't seem to manage. But, instead of expressing any of that, she just offers Tidus a hint of a smile.

"I know some people that can show nothing too," and she misses those people. In a way she can do the same, hiding her sadness and regret behind smiles and bright gestures. But is that just living a lie?

"You don't want to believe a lie though, do you?" Neither does she. Even if the truth seems very terrible. "You're handling it better than I would." Will that actually even be a comforting thing to say to someone? If it were Connor, or any of the other FreakAngels, she's pretty sure her reaction would be disastrous. Even just thinking about it makes a shiver run up and down her spine and suddenly she finds herself weirdly cold. Maybe it's a good thing she's here alone without any of her friends. It at least means they're probably safe. At least she hopes they're still safe.

She chuckles at his description of Hank. Greying old cop. It was accurate at least. "Hank! I've talked to him a lot. He knows some of what I do." But not everything, nobody really knows that. "He knows a lot about this place! But he worries too much." About her and about anyone who gets involved in things. Not that she can blame him with how dangerous it all seems to be. Though, she's certainly noticed that Hank's very quick to put himself into dangerous without too much though. Maybe being hypocritical just comes with age.

Is he handling it well? Handling it better than her--it’s a gauge, a comparison Tidus can’t comment on. He scoffs at it anyway, low, a spiteful thing for no one but himself. “I don’t know if I’m handling it well.” -but, his tone implies; but he won’t argue it, but he won’t change her mind. It’s nicer somehow to have company, despite the rest that’s come with it so far. If he divorces himself from that, or perhaps because of it.

He was bound to be miserable tonight, one way or another. They all had reasons for being sad.

At least his description was apt enough to work, and there’s a twitch at his lips for her laugh. “Yeah, but this place makes it easy to worry,” Tidus reasons. It did make him feel bad though. The guy knew a lot, knew how outmatched they were. “I wanna help out, but it’s hard thinking what I can do. Everything’s all...technology and robots. We need to know how to stop those things from getting activated, and how to shut down the big guy, right? It sounds over my head. I don't know where to start.”

If only they could bash at things. That'd be nice. Nice and simple.

"I think you are. If that means anything. It probably shouldn't," she smiles very gently at him. There's sadness in the smile but it's a more genuine attempt than other smiles she's given tonight.

"That it does, sweets, that it does," she replies in a somber tone. The more that gets dug up about this place, the more worrisome it becomes. At least more people were starting to learn things though, and maybe more information will be spread so more people can help. Or at the very least stay safer. "I don't think anyone knows where to start." She hesitates for a second and then turns her gaze out to the city again.

"I can teleport." The information seemingly comes out of nowhere but she continues on very quickly. "I taught myself back home and I hadn't found a limit yet. To anything. But here...there's limits. I can't go too far and I'm not sure how many people I can take with me." And that annoys her. Even her tone and the way her eyebrows furrow together betrays that. She's not used to limits. "The Head shouldn't be able to limit me. Not with my upgrades. But it has. Only some things though. Teleporting is the big one. I think it did it to hide where it is and where it makes the roboy-thingies. The city also changes. Maybe it's to hide things?"

At least that's the only reason she can think of for a place to chance and to try limit people being able to move around quickly.

Smiles can beget smiles, whether their smiles mean the same thing. Tidus’s is nothing more than a small tug of the lips, which eventually drops, remembering about trying for honesty, and once he realises he has nowhere to take the gesture.

But the mention of Arkady’s skills do get a more genuine response in surprise however. A skill he wants to give some credit to, but now isn’t the time. He listens, a smaller knot at his brow than the one Arkady wears.

“Hank said...there’s somethin’ in our heads. It can turn it on and off, control us. Maybe that has something to do with it?” Which would make it better to not describe it as on or off thing, but hopefully she gets the gist.

“Some places never change. You can get to the dorms or park easy no matter the day. I always meet people in one or the other.” Because it’s easier, and not just because the people you want to meet are usually staying in the same building as you. “So...there could be more places like them out there? Can we track them somehow?”

In a city always changing, perhaps even never settling to make the world disorienting to each of them. It was going to be tough, no matter how they did it. The Heart had gone for the power grids, took out the power for the entire city…

“The power grids?”

Could they be reliable? It was still a massive city, but... they weren't going to be able to track every single building.

"I think so. I think it stops things that might make it easier for us. Or harder for them." It's the only logical thing she can think of for why particular powers seem more affected than others. Perhaps she's wrong, but she doesn't think she is. And if she's not wrong then it implies a lot of planning actually went into them being brought here. A lot of planning. Which could make things even harder when it comes to stopping it all. But that's a very depressing chain of thoughts to go down and she quickly tries to pull herself back from it.

"Why would they make the dorms so easy to get to though. That seems strange." Unless it's just another way they thought of to make them feel more at ease. "The power grids are all I can think of. The thingies," she points up to her head. "Make it where I can't see things like I usually can. Usually I can, " she waves a hand in a gesture out towards the city, "I can see above everything. Make a map in my head and see things all over." Remote viewing is what she's trying to describe.

"But maybe if someone could figure out the power grids then they could be used to track back to things that are using big power." Because surely production of robot clones and chips in heads would need a lot of power right? "I don't know much about machiney things though. That's not my area of expertise." She says like it's natural for everyone to have a specific class they were good at. Mechanical things fell to KK and Carolyn. If only they were here now.

"Woah," Tidus mutters as he figures out what Arkady is describing with the aerial view of the world, follows it with a small but respectable, "that's cool." Though what's cool and isn't, isn't exactly important in this specific moment. More so when she can't currently access the ability.

(But hey, still cool. She's got a collection of cool skills.)

Tidus otherwise lets her continue with interrupting, waits to let out a sigh that's mutual in the didn't put skills puts in this class category. "Same. There's the maps on the phones? They change everyday, but the dorms and park don't. Maybe a smart guy can make something out of them." If they kept track of the entire city layout shown... was that even possible?

They really were stumbling in the dark. "But I don't want to be sitting 'round waiting for other people to figure everything if there's something we can do." The none machine-touching types. "Those... guys, the one who set off the robots in the first place. Think they know anything?"

There had to know something more they knew than just about the clones. Right?

"The park has something bad in it. Or will. Or both." She says it quickly and with just a small speck of fear in her voice. The things she's seen and heard at the park definitely have left her more than a bit shaken. It's unsettling, all the more so because she can't quite figure out what it means. There's very little she likes less than not knowing what something means.

"Yes. I think they know much more than they say. But I don't know if they'll tell us things." Nobody seems too keen on telling anyone anything. In some ways she can understand it. Information is powerful and it's also hard to know who to trust with too much. Or who might get compromised. At the same time it just seems to be making things needlessly complicated.

"There are probably other people here who know other things too. People like us and people not like us. But we're all paranoid now. Or maybe before too for some people." Some people clearly came here already riding the very paranoid train. "If all of us could completely work together..." They'd stand much more of a chance. At least in her opinion. Instead it seems like everyone's got their own circle of people they trust and that they work with. There's some overlap but she's not certain how prevalent it is.

“The...park?” Tidus says it--asks it--curiously, not sure what she means by the danger.

He still wonders if members of the Heart aren’t an option, if to only try and get something out of them, have a way of knowing their goals beyond apparent dramatic displays. But Arkady speaks about everyone, which makes Tidus pause. Well, to get everyone on the same page…

“We’d have to figure out who’s who, or, real, or, uh… who’s themself and who isn’t.” There, he got it that time. “And have somewhere safe for people to meet. Hank's dog can tell who's who...so if there's somethin' we can get that does that, it'd make it safer talking to people for a meet-up.”

Which are only a couple of the issues of arranging such a task, but finding some way of getting everyone on the same page and working together wasn't a bad idea. Difficult? Absolutely. But would it be impossible?

Well, the Heart's antics weren't going to make a big meet-up all that favourable for everyone...

"I was there looking," her eyes glow bright for a second and then she gestures out to the city. "Everytime I passed by I felt something bad. So I had to go in and look more. And," she squeezes her eyes shut as s shiver runs through her body.

"Why is this happening? Why are you doing this to us?" The voice she spoke with isn't her own, it sounds more like a young man. "I can't die now. Not yet. There's so much I still have to do. I have to tell him I loved him." Again, the voice isn't hers but rather an extremely frightened sounding woman. Then Arkady reaches for her vodka and takes a drink.

"Frightened people begging to be spared. A slaughter I think. Coming?" Its her voice again now. Fresh tears sting her eyes all over again. Coming or already came. It's not quite clear enough for her to tell. If she looks more she'll know but the truth is she's too afraid to.

"Maggie," she smiles at the mention of the dog. "I can tell too but I don't know if it's the most reliable. If someone could build something..." But who could possibly do that? Could anyone even do that? She lets out a frustrated sigh she's shakes her head again.

"Back home we use the static line for meetings we don't want other people to hear. " But again, could that be done here? There were options though if they just could figure out the hows.

It runs a chill down the spine to hear that--a voice not hers, the anguish that seeps through with it. A slaughter is worrisome (and not knowing when it takes place or why even more), and Tidus gives Arkady a squeeze to her shoulder.

It just makes everything they need to do all the more urgent.

“If Maggie was put together, then whatever tells her already exists. We just need to look. Get some help.” Maybe it was a security thing? It was something, at the very least, and the city was big and shady. As long as they didn’t ask for anti-clone radars, they could get away without attracting too much attention.

“But what’s a static line?”

"Looking seems to be the hard part. But we can start somewhere. And are careful. We don't know when they listen." Or how often they listened. There's so many things they just don't know that it frustrates her. And overwhelms her, but that's harder to admit. She smiles, still a forced smile, it's habit.

"The static line was what we used to talk in secret." That's not an explanation and she realizes it. "Telepathy. We talk in a group in our heads out of our bodies." Is that a better explanation? In all honesty, she's not sure there. Maybe it's just as confusing.

Telepathy. That Tidus can understand, though what out of our bodies means is puzzling, and maybe what he should take more interest before getting excited about the main part of the option.

"Telepathy works. Then we don't have to be anywhere." Except for maybe a certain distance near each other. "But...do we have to know how to talk in our heads too?"

Now he's realising he actually knows nothing about telepathy, except as a concept. Especially not Arkady's telepathy, if it's any different from the normal sort.

"No, you don't have to know. It's like thinking. Think it and then others hear it. If I'm there." She pauses for a second and then her eyes glow white.

Like this. Speaking in your head. I can project it to everyone. Her voice sounds the same as it does as if she's speaking but with a slight echo quality projected into his mind.

"I promise I won't look at other things though. Sometimes I can hear things that are loud so keep things you don't want known a bit further away. Lock it up." She smiles as brightly as she can muster.

It's--bizarre. Tidus's gaze shift, eyes widening, yet attempting to focus in on something not visible but internal, flitting between the actual real Arkady to... nothing. Nowhere. Like he's unsure if to look at her or not while there's that voice between his ears. Trying to look deeper inside himself which is, well, not possible.

He's still halfway distracted when she speaks up for real, putting a hand to the back of his head.

"I...sure," he says, as dumbly as the rest of him. The hand drops, and slowly he thinks. "Can we do that the other way? If I wanted to talk to you." He points to her. "Could I think at you?"

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If I can't undo what's been done

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