Jorgmund Emergency Announcement

[piper90npcs]

[In the middle of the night, when even the night watch shifts should be pacing through the dorm area, there’s a peal of noise from the communicators impossible to ignore or sleep through. It’s clearly an alarm of some sort, like tornado alerts back on Earth. It goes on for solid three minutes, long enough for everyone to move on from being woken by it to loathing it, before a message shows up on the communicators-

-and the doorways out of each of the dorms are sealed with a semi-translucent forcefield.

On the communicator screen, Richard Washburn shows up and straightens his tie.]

Hello, employees. Believe me, I’m not any happier about this midnight interruption than you are, but we’re currently in a state of – mild – emergency. I don’t want anyone to get overly excited, but until the situation is resolved, you will remain in your dorms. Depending on how long this takes, all activities scheduled for tomorrow morning have been suspended.

The reason for this is that we have an intruder in your living quarters. We have this footage from a few weeks ago.

[A new image shows up on the communicator: a security camera video of a Santa Claus with a line of the highest executive-level parents and their small children waiting to tell him their wishlist. A little girl in pigtails and a sparkly t-shirt of a Christmas tree hops up onto his lap.

“Ho, ho, ho!” Santa says, and he boops her nose. “Aren’t you a peach? Tell me, little one. What would you like for Christmas?”

“I want a big plastic spider!” the girl says excitedly.

“A creepy little child, aren’t you? Well, that’s just swell, because that’s my favorite flavor,” Santa says, and then – blurry on the security camera footage – transforms into a mass of black goo, latching onto the little girl’s face and suctioning to stay on. The child’s mother screams and yanks her daughter away, and the footage shows pure pandemonium as some parents lunge forward to help the mother with her daughter while other parents snatch their own children and start running. In all the chaos, the black goo vanishes.

Washburn flicks the footage away and reappears on the screen.]

Thankfully, there were no fatalities in this incident, and after we couldn’t find any evidence of the attacker, we assumed that it was a freak incident of the Stuff. However, there was recently another unsuccessful attack on a teenager by this same creature posing as one of the tutors on the Rig, and then again on another thankfully unharmed child disguised as another child, and then on another child under the guise of a children’s television show host named “Mr. Rogers”, and tonight-

[He takes a deep breath, annoyed, as if this is somehow the Hires’ faults.]

-tonight we found a security breach to your floor, and we have good reason to believe that the shapeshifter is posing as one of you.

We know this: we know it poses as figures appealing to children, so for obvious reasons, you won’t be allowed anywhere near any Jorgmund staff whatsoever until this is resolved. We know that its ability to disguise itself is relatively seamless. And we know that it preys on minors.

If you can determine who among you isn’t at all appealing to children, we can consider releasing you from your dorm and discussing next steps to search out whoever’s been replaced.

If this starts taking long enough that it jeopardizes the Jorgmund’s mission, we may start taking more drastic measures to ensure that we aren’t harboring any imposters.

I’ll keep you updated if you keep me updated.

Comments

[tarnishedavenger]

Now hold on a moment. Fred Rogers was a friend of mine.

[walkingballpit]

Mr. Rogers was everyone’s friend. This affront will not stand.

[xrater]

So, obviously, the Easter Bunny and all of the superheroes get to stay in their rooms. Anyone with a glittery transformation, too.

Anyone who regularly kills, drinks, smokes, or swears is probably free. Our hopes rest on Mac's shoulders, I fear. The Space Marines get to stay, meaning the Freelancers and Tucker, as does Garviel Loken. Sorry, you all look too much like you have action figures and a Saturday morning cartoon show.

[zerofield]

I can't contain my relief at knowing my life may be in Mac's hands.

[tarnishedavenger]

Right, so-

[morebetter]

What? Kids love me. I have boyish charm.

[alderaani]

So what weapons do we have? I'm still catching up on that here.

[hallelujahjunction]

Not to single anyone out, but unfortunately any talking animal ain't getting out of here for a while.

[zerofield]

[ So deadpan. ]

Great.

[hallelujahjunction]

Son of a bitch. [Dan was still awake, because his circadian rhythm gravitates towards nocturnal, but he somehow still looks like he just rolled out of bed.] I've dealt with those motherfuckers before. We got a babadon't on our hands.

Washburn's right - they're seamless shapeshifters, and they absorb people's memories and personalities almost totally. Almost totally. They're angry spirits that eat souls. And I got no idea how we'll kill it aside from setting it on fire, which we obviously don't want to just start doing willy-nilly to anyone we suspect.

[onequartershark]

And what does it do with the person it's imitating?

Are we looking for a body too?

[zerg_rush]

I'm a telepath. [She says, pinching the bridge of her nose.] Just run your killer clown suspects past me and I'll tell you who's faking it.

[Kerrigan's probably too pretty and too not obviously a ball of psychological trauma to be released.]

[hallelujahjunction]

Might could work, might could not. On my world magicians who try telepathy and astral projection with them, it don't work well because they camouflage their thoughts.

[morebetter]

Well, since you've all decided I'm not child-friendly, or whatever, children are ████ anyway, so obviously I'm leading our expedition outside. Which of you losers are going to be my goons?

[hallelujahjunction]

I'm a smoker and I swear a lot, so I could probably petition myself out, but I reckon I'm more useful here.

video;

[heterochrocatic]

What the hell?

[ Catra looks very sleepy and very annoyed and very... Poofy. That's the best word for her fur. ]

I am not appealing to kids.

[ She looks off-screen. ]

Setsuna, am I appealing to kids?

[71lines]

You're a soft, cute cat girl. Named after a cat. Your ears wiggle sometimes.

You've got tons of kid appeal.

[locked to new hires]

[trialbyliar]

[Kokichi is on the loose.

Which is to say, he tends to sleep in random hidden spots around the Rig because the dorms are super exposed and he's a paranoid little shit. But hey, it's working in everyone's favor right now, because he is free of lockdown and is immediately getting to work. Between illusion magic, a magic disguise choker, and generally being a top-tier sneak, he's bunkered down in an unattended security guard station and started going through camera footage. It's an enlightening experience.

He leaves the lights off. Better if his location isn't immediately recognizable when he hops on the comms. His face is only lit by the glow of various screens as he adopts an unconcerned smile.]

This place sure does keep things interesting, huh? Another murder monster already! How exciting!

[He hates it. But this is his brand, so he's all smiles and easy confidence.]

Of course, there's no way I was gonna get caught up in a lockdown like that. And I've some stuff to deal with out here, so you losers are on your own. But hey, have fun with it! It's a game of suspicion! Those are my favorite.

[Leaning over to double check someone away from the comm, Kokichi gives a thoughtful little hum.]

Buuut it wouldn't be any fun if there was a bloodbath and the game ended too soon, so I'll give you guys a hint: The breach occurred about two hours before the alarm went off. The Babadick had to have snatched someone up in that time. So if you've got a solid alibi for those two hours, now's the time to share it!

[71lines]

You're worse than trash, Kokichi.

video, locked to new Hires

[acroodawakening]

This doesn't seem like something that affects me or that I can actually help with, so I'm going back to bed. Someone either wake me up if you need to do something to clear me or when it's over.

[He leaves his comm on and sitting there in float mode, and flops back to bed, before slapping the message off.]

[voice message locked to Dan and Sam]

[bringinghopewithme]

I had a niece named Peony. Sam, you know a secret already that only Gaia and Terra and I knew before you learned it. I was in the garden for lockdown. I'm not going to bother trying to prove it to anyone else while they're busy. If you see anything acting as me, ask it to sing another line of "Lightbringer." I'll sing you one now. "Hellebore dark of stellar deep-"

[It sounds like a hymn, but not one that either of them would have heard in any church, and the simple melody is hard to mistake for any other.]

Anyway, I'd just distract the others, so best case scenario you won't see me at all.

[hallelujahjunction]

[Dan gets this message, but while he can listen to his communicator by putting it against his ear, he can't respond without the possibility of Julio hearing him. But he trusts Bunny would be able to grill him the same way. He's sure as hell seen enough.

If only it were easy to know which memories this evil creature got and which ones it didn't.]

Video

[garmr]

Not sure if I’m much use here unless that thing’s got a physical neck to snap.

[Guts does not, in fact, consider himself child friendly]

video;

[fuckingaqua]

Considering how all this creepy murderer shit keeps breezing through the setup, I'm just gonna assume "security breach" means "got through the revolving door and picked up its complimentary Rig map".

Anyway, hit me up when you get to the Ts on the New Hires release list. If any execs wanna bust my cool sword out of storage in the meantime, it literally only works for me, so. That's easier than handing over my social and proof of address, in my right opinion.

[No actual reply]

[bringinghopewithme]

[It's too bad Bunny's running on total radio silence, because he chuckled and agreed heartily and will just have to tell Tucker so later.]

[myagents]

[Well, that was unexpected. Part of Price wants to act as if he himself belongs among the child friendly ones so that he can rot in his room without preoccupying himself with dealing with others' nonsense. On the other hand he knows he would just go insane so he might as well go on this mission and try something, he could either contribute to save the day and earn some respect or once again not have to deal with others' nonsense once he's dead.
That, and if he went 'home' he'd be in a prison ship floating in the middle of nowhere with the scum of the galaxy - oh, and also with his fellow inmates (Felix is worse than many of them - not worse than him, but still), so it's a win-win.]

I can guarantee that my agents have been dealing with each other and taking care of their personal business [which is not personal anymore because he shared it in his apology, whoops, but that was just the surface and there's way more to it]. They are capable of putting their differences aside and work as a very efficient team, which is going to be a crucial factor in this mission. It would be a mistake not to let them help in this situation, regardless of their appeal to children.

[He's aware that this might make him sound like a coward who wants to send people to die in his place, so he specifies.]

In the meantime, I would like to join the searches.

[He doesn't really have to specify why he's not appealing to children.]

video

[parannoyed]

We're not your agents!

Video

[prairietroubador]

[Greg is visibly in his dorm, and counting off on his fingers.]

Cowboy, superhero, musician, motorcyclist...no way I ain't stuck here 'til this blows over, unless any of you folk have any bright ideas.

[hallelujahjunction]

Have we met? You just checked off my top four favorite qualities in a person.

[Is it a bad time to flirt? Probably. Does Dan care? Absolutely not.]

video, locked to new hires

[ownperson]

Okay, so North and I are y'know, twins, so we share memories going back as far as either of us can reasonably remember. Yadda yadda we don't know if memories is enough, I know, but far as I can tell it's still the best we got, so...

[ She has her comm set to float so that both herself and North are visible. Some people may have noticed that North was spending more time sleeping at York's than in his original assigned room recently, but he's back there now. ]

Alright asshole, what's the nickname I used to let you call me when we were fucking tiny?

[bothbarrels]

[ He knows she doesn't really want this information getting out, but he also knows how important it is to establish that they're really them. So he answers immediately: ]

Tasha.

Where was my old facial piercing?

Cleared for Release (Sign-Ups)

[hallelujahjunction]

[OOC: This is for the list of people considered "child-unfriendly" enough that Dickwash will approve them to be released and go looking for the Babadon't impersonatee. Consider this a plot sign-up. If it's IC for your character to sign up but you don't want to do the rescue mission, let me know and I'll just say Dickwash denied them.]

Alright. I'm staying behind, but it makes sense that folks who can get cleared to go should join Kokichi and the like out there and look for whatever person the babadon't replaced. Find the person they replaced, we know who it is.

Who's heading out?

Re: Cleared for Release (Sign-Ups)

[xrater]

You'll all need some supervision. I'll go.

audio; locked to New Hires

[whethertheyshould]

Ah, I hope those on you on the search party are getting details they didn't answer to on this post. Such as, you know, when this breach happened, and where, because it's going to be hard to find the imposter without that.

Oh, also, I'm wondering—it seems like none of the children in the dorms have been attacked by a roommate. Am I correct in that?

[hallelujahjunction]

It appears so, Doctor. And we already know this thing ain't got compunction about attacking folks in public.

Clearance

[googledox]

We should attempt to formally clear ourselves and each other through the various methods we've established that might work.

So if you have an alibi from two window time period before the alarm [He provides the times] this is the place for the other person to verify your alibi on your behalf. Or they can perhaps verify you've answered questions about old memories. You can also use meta powers on screen that the creature may not be able to duplicate and so on.

The more methods you can use to prove it's you, the greater the chance you may be able to clear yourself. For instance, I can use my powers and Robbie and I can provide alibis because we were together during the time window that's been verified.

As for Washington's idea for the Freelancer agents temporarily housing Theta, North and Theta, please let us know if you're amenable to this proposition. We can perhaps inform Jorgmund about this potential method so you all can briefly be released under guard to do so.

Re: Clearance

[infailtration]

No alibi but I'll take Theta and I can use my power onscreen. That should be enough to prove I'm me, right?

video;

[princesspower]

Why am I locked up when I could be helping? I get it, I get it... I guess. But still-! I'm not that good with kids...

Re: video;

[prairietroubador]

Kid? You're a sword-wieldin' princess with magical powers. That's just about all you need to appeal to kids.