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piper902021-01-14 07:28 pm
piper90npcs) wrote in piper902021-01-14 07:28 pm
Jorgmund Emergency Announcement
[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.
-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.
locked to setsuna
For a magical girl, you've got some balls. That's the Ultimate Supreme Leader you're bossing around, y'know.
[He says it with a cool, condescending air, but he seems distracted. He's not even looking at the comm, instead leaning to more closely examine something on one of the other monitors.]
Buuut if you're gonna offer up your services like that, how can I resist? The game's more fun when you have more cards to play. Be a good minion and I may even reward you when this is all over.
[That's not ominous at all. But he glances back at the comm, grinning cheekily.]
So your first task is to go search the area around the rewards lounge!
locked
I'm not doing this for a reward, Kokichi. I'm doing this to help, same as I know you are, deep down. [She pauses, considering.] But if you want to hang out sometime, after this, I'd be happy to spend time with you, too. Talk to Adora, she knows how to reach me.
[She says it, habitually, like a practiced sort of lie delivered cleanly enough that it almost does sound like she seriously intends to try and maintain her secret identity on the Rig, but the truth is she has very little interest in bothering; Jorgmund already know, and of anyone on the Rig, it's Jorgmund she fears having information on them all the most. So there's really no point.]
[But habits are hard to break, and it's not like she really resembles her "civilian" guise much, as Cure Passion, so it makes for a nicely effortless test of Kokichi's powers of observation, nonetheless ... and also a sincere question of his ego, as to whether he can resist letting her know he knows.]
[Not that she's thinking this hard about it. She's just doing what she'd do anyway, and trusting in Kokichi to tell her about himself in some way, whatever his reaction will be. But that doesn't mean Kokichi can't guess what she's playing at in full, even if she's not fully aware on a conscious level that she is.]
[Then she stops, and looks at the comm, eyebrow raised in bemused consternation.]
... Kokichi, was that offer of "reward" of yours supposed to be a pun?
no subject
Ew, why would I wanna spend time with a magical girl? That'd totally trash my image! Supreme leaders of evil and frilly do-gooders don't mix.
[It's not like he's totally oblivious, however much he's playing it up that way. He's genre-savvy enough to know he's not supposed to recognize her.
He's just also savvy enough to recognize that there's a very short list of people this ~mysterious~ magical girl could be. Most likely a young girl, probably has some kinda little mascot creature hanging around? Yeah, it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.
But that's a subject for later. For now, he's just flashing a shit-eating grin.]
Aww, you got me! But seriously, go check out the rewards lounge. That part wasn't a joke.
no subject
Oh, I don't know. You should try it sometime, you might find out you'll enjoy it.
[And then it's back to all business.]
I'm already on my way. I was keeping the line open in case you had anything else it might help me to know before I got there ... If you're that nervous about time, though, I trust you have your reasons. So you'll just have to do without my company for a moment.
[She doesn't wait to hear his assent before cutting the visual feed as she grabs hold of her comm in one hand.]
[Maybe a minute, maybe a little longer passes. Then the feed cuts back on, the rewards lounge crisply visible in frame as Cure Passion holds the comm up ahead of her to do a panning pass across the area; she just cut a cross-Rig journey that could have easily taken 15 minutes at least otherwise down to far, far less.]
All right, I'm here. I'm trusting you to be yourself, so tell me if you see anything I miss, okay?