Event Log: Flu Season

[hadrielmods]

Who: All characters
What: The event log for the Flu Season event
Where: All over the city
When: March 20th-March 30th
Warnings: Gross sneezing, sick people, and paranoia

It starts with a cough, a sneeze, a sore throat - something small and simple, easily ignored. But then your symptoms get worse. It's probably been awhile since you've been sick, that sort of thing doesn't usually happen here. You might be able to raid the shops for some tissues and tea before it gets too bad, and hopefully you've got a friend to help out until you get better. Surely it'll be over soon, right?

Until the fever sets in, and you start to understand why your friend is really there. They don't want to take care of you. They want to make sure this is the last anyone will ever see of you. They want to learn all your secrets. They want to steal your most precious possession. You know they're plotting against you, you know they're keeping something from you. What will you do to find out what it is?

Then, as the sickness fades, you realize it was all in your mind. Let's hope you didn't do or say anything too awful. But that friend of yours... they seem to have picked up your cough. Maybe you should help them out?

► This log covers March 20th-March 30th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If your paranoia ends in murder, please let us know here.

Comments

[evocation]

"Okay. But only because I like you so much." Apparently he can't escape teasing even when he's sick. "Sorry I didn't warn you about teleportation feeling weird. I'm really used to it and I forgot."

[hardwearing]

"I think it'd be fine normally. Teleporters back home are way worse, I was just already dizzy and... yeah. Sorry you had to clean that up."

[evocation]

"Would it make you feel better or worse if I said I've seen Tucker throw up like, a million times?" Really, she's seen Tucker and Harlan in far more undignified situations than she's ever seen Wash, so he can hold onto some of his pride. "Why are teleporters back home worse?"

[hardwearing]

"...better?" Not that he's ever going to be happy about Kyna seeing him a mess, but. If she's accustomed to cleaning up her friends' vomit it's not as embarrassing somehow. As for the teleportation question, his brow furrows beneath the washcloth.

"So, it kind of depends on what tech you're using. Aliens have it down a little better, I feel like, since the Covenant had a long time to study Forerunner technology. I've heard they could actually manipulate time, or stop it from passing entirely within a field. But all teleportation is based on accessing slipstream space. I'm not a physicist, but I know we discovered it when we were trying to crack faster than light travel like... 350 years ago. The drive all human ships are outfitted with now is basically a particle accelerator that creates a bunch of tiny black holes, and there's enough radiation energy in those to tear into slip-space. It's harmless if you're in a ship, they're shielded."

He pauses to cough here, before getting to the actual explanation. "Anyway, human teleporters access slipstream space, except because the person traveling doesn't have an accelerator you need to link up with another device wherever it is you're trying to go. Alien tech doesn't need a portal on the other side, they can just use coordinates -- I'm not sure how. Charon seems to have figured it out, sort of? Back on Chorus we got ahold of some of their teleportation grenades, and you can program those to either hold objects in slipspace for later retrieval or transport everything in the blast to coordinates. They're only good for one use. That tech feels... so much worse. A normal teleporter trip is painful, maybe a little nauseating, but the physical strain probably won't kill you unless you're barely holding on already. Those grenades are awful. We never had to use two back to back, but the vitals after a single trip go off the charts. The time we had to take one to a fight we planned in recoup. I don't think it's more radiation than usual, but it's instantaneous. Maybe that's why it's rougher."

[evocation]

Kyna listens quietly, still absently stroking his hair as he explains. "Huh. That sounds... shitty. I guess technology sucks compared to magic, huh? Teleporting with magic can be dangerous, too, but that's usually if you're trying to go somewhere you've never been, or if you accidentally teleport into a wall or something."

[hardwearing]

That's nice. It soothes the fever-headache, at least, and he tilts his head into her hand curiously. "How does it work trying to get somewhere you've never been, with magic? At least even on alien tech without an exit device we can count on coordinates being fairly accurate. But if you're just picturing a place... you could end up anywhere, couldn't you?"

[evocation]

She smiles a little, scooting closer until her hip presses into him. "Yeah, you could end up in some random place, or somewhere that's just kind of similar. Like, uh, maybe I'm trying to go to New York but I end up in another big city, like Chicago or Tokyo or something. If you fuck up badly enough, the spell can even hurt you. But a lot of places have teleportation circles, so if you know its sigil sequence, you'll get there even if it's somewhere you've never been. Most teleport spells are for shorter distances, though, and some of them dump you into the ethereal plane for a little bit."

[hardwearing]

"So... kind of like coordinates and slipspace, actually." Huh. Even with how different things seem, there are still similarities. But he's curious. "How could it hurt you?"

[evocation]

"You can screw up with any spell, but some spells are easier to mess up than others. If you're like, 'Okay, I'm going to go to Brazil', but you've never been to Brazil and you don't know anything about it, so you just picture some random rainforest you saw in a movie once, it's like... The spell doesn't complete? The magic doesn't have a predictable outlet, so a lot of times it'll backfire and hurt you." She shrugs. "Most of the time you'll end up somewhere else, though."

[hardwearing]

"Sounds too risky. I'll just take a pelican, thanks." What's the point if you wind up halfway around the world and just have to turn around and go home?

[evocation]

Kyna laughs, interrupting her affectionate petting to mess up his hair instead. "A pelican? What the hell is a pelican?" And anyway, the fact that she can teleport almost anywhere in less than a second is enough for her to brave the risks.

[hardwearing]

"It's a dropship. Multipurpose transport vehicle you can use in atmosphere or space, for short trips." He grins a little, even as he sniffles. "Space marine talk for I'll buy a plane ticket."

[evocation]

"What a lame name. Have you ever seen a pelican?" The grin is a definite step up, so she's going to make fun of this even more dramatically. She shifts, then lays down beside him, resting a hand on his chest. "They couldn't have called it a hawk or something?"

[hardwearing]

She's determined to catch this flu, isn't she? Well, he's done arguing about it at least. He reaches up and tangles their fingers, his other hand idly petting Olympia where she still rests on his ribs.

"Yeah, in pictures. It doesn't look like any kind of bird, though. All the weight is in the front, not the back... kind of like old helicopters?"

[evocation]

"Oh. Well, helicopters look stupid, so I guess it fits." She settles against him, utterly unconcerned about contamination. "Do you ever... you know, wish you could visit Earth?"

[hardwearing]

"We name all our vehicles after Earth animals. Pelican, Falcon, Warthog, Mongoose... I have no idea why." And then she asks another question, one that makes him shrug the shoulder she's not leaning against. "Kind of? I mean, I'm curious, but I'm also pretty sure it's not much worth visiting these days. Some places might still be nice, but a lot of it's wrecked... you'll hear people talk it up or down depending on where they were from but I always got the impression we only stay out of stubbornness to abandon our home world."

[evocation]

"Wrecked?" Somehow, that's not the answer she was expecting. "Wrecked how?"

[hardwearing]

"Uh... I mean, it's not toxic or radioactive or anything. The Covenant lost the Battle of Earth. But the greenhouse effect wasn't reversible so most coastal cities are underwater at this point, and a lot of the land left is desert, lava pits, or just has a lot of extreme weather. And the resources are exhausted. Earth largely depends on colonies. It's still the capital, though. Probably always will be."

[evocation]

Oddly, that bothers her more than she expected. "Jesus. That's fucking awful."

[hardwearing]

Wash acknowledges that being from the past, this kind of information is upsetting. It might not have been war that wrecked things, but it's still humans' fault Earth is a mess. They even import a good amount of their water at this point. He squeezes Kyna's hand a little.

"No guarantees it'll happen to your Earth, you know." They'd joked about her dying before aliens showed up, but. That was also probably not going to happen in her world.

[evocation]

"Yeah, I know." Still, it's hard to wrap her head around. She shifts, resting her cheek against his shoulder. "I hope you can visit my Earth someday."

[hardwearing]

"I'd be up for that." A lot of the others probably would be, too... he's actually discussed how neither of them had been to their Earth with Ephemera, who'd heard stories of places that weren't wrecked. But an Earth of the past would be completely different, to all of them. What year had Kyna said it was? Over 500 years ago, he recalls.

"Things were pretty good back then."

[evocation]

"Yeah, it's pretty sweet. We can check out all the tourist traps and you can try all of our awesome Earth food." Because the food is the most important part, clearly. "Have you ever been on a rollercoaster?"

[hardwearing]

"Make me a list of things I need to try." To the roller coaster question, he shakes his head. He'd been to a few fairs, back on Minab, but none of them had ever put up a roller coaster.

[evocation]

"Okay." She's already mentally been making a list, but it's woefully unfinished. "Roller coasters are first, but you have to promise not to puke on me."