cape_kore | voice; day 106, late afternoon

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voice; day 106, late afternoon

What is the _point...?

Every step forard becomes another leap behind.

There is ^no food. Or not enough to go around.

There is a monster in the wa_{ter that they} can't keep in check.

The guess is: the captors are gone.

The ex^{periment has g}one awry.

And we remain.

[ ooc: weird text is meant to indicate parts of River's post that are difficult to understand. Network instability for the lose! ]

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Has Erik's pessimism begun to rub off on you, darling?

[ Charles is in another room than River, but he doesn't want to try and use the network. Too much hassle and he already has the edges of a headache. ]

[ Ned tries to answer River with the communicators, but his seems particularly uncooperative at the moment, refuses to let him transmit much of anything at all. For most other people, that would mean taking himself away from the porch of his house and going to look for her around town. With River, however, Ned thinks there might be another option. Feeling a bit foolish, he closes his eyes and tries... though he isn't sure how... to think her name rather loudly. Is he just making himself look like an idiot, trying something like that? He tries once more, decides to give it a few minutes before he gets up and starts to search her out the conventional way ]

Everyone's.

Chin up and make the best, don't think of the worst.

Erik's desire to break something has rubbed off more.

[ But it works; by the time Ned has decided to be a bit more conventional, as it were, River is standing outside of his house clapping slowly. ]

Good job. [ Totally without sarcasm, actually, but not without some good-natured teasing. ]

Hi. [ And now he gets a hug because he's not been perforated by a sea monster. ]

[ Ned hugs River back, because she also wasn't perforated by a sea monster, because she came and found him when he thought about her, and because her broken and disjointed message over the network has him, as is customary, worried. He understands her frustrations all too well, knows his inability to do anything to lighten or ease them, but all the same he wishes he could. ]

You know, it's pretty convenient being able to do that. [ He doesn't mind a bit of teasing slow-clapping. Not from her, anyway. ] Hello, River.

[ Ned wanted to see River because he intended to ask her for a favor, but he hesitates, now. Maybe it's not a good time. He hates to be demanding, to always take from her and never give anything of value back. He knows she must have other things on her mind, now, after what had happened to Charles, after the general shock and trauma that everyone had experienced during the attack. These things have a heightened impact on her, thanks to her powers - Ned knows that much by now.]

If the experiment has .... awry, then is escape .... likely?

[She's not entirely sure how much of that got through the static, but she tried.]

It doesn't change the statistics of it.

If it breaks too far. We're stuck. More than before.

Well, if you insist on it, make sure it's a chair and not a bone.

[ He knows how Erik feels, is the thing, knows how River feels too.He wishes he could do more. ]

But the guards are gone. .... make a difference?

[She won't let herself fall into despair. She won't. Also, damn this primitive communication method.]

42.

[It seems for a moment as if that's all he has to say, but after a crackly silence, he follows it up with:]

The point is constant. Even if our [the words 'magnanimous benefactors' are heavily distorted, though just about intelligible if one really puts in the effort] did decide to go on vacation without us, the point of living, no matter how hard it might seem, is the same as ever. It's either forty two, or the noble quest to amass as many gummy bears as possible and one day build a sticky, gelatinous house out of them.

No insistence. Who wants splinters?

[ He exists. He's ALIVE. That's enough, really and none of this is his fault at all. ]

Improvement or change, either way.

[ River stares at this and makes a face or three for good measure.

It is really hard to tell with you, Gabe. ]

...42.

Yes. No. Maybe.

The walls are still erected and difficult to climb.

Maybe e could get Charles to show you what it sounds like. [ To have someone who cares about you, loves you, to try and reach out into the miasma that is the thoughts and feelings of everyone and ring like a clear, familiar bell.

It's actually pretty nice. River likes it. ]

Ask it, ask it! Distractions are in short supply.

[Ned's... not exactly sure he is curious enough about what it sounds like to have Charles messing around with his head, but it's worth considering, at the very least. His own occasional squeamishness aside, it would be interesting to be able to hear what River hears, to have a less abstract idea of what it's like to be her on a day to day basis. ]

[ When she goads him on, he gives in almost immediately, should've remembered it's no good trying to be polite and keep things from her. ]

I wanted to know if... if you could teach me to fight. [ It sounds wrong even hearing himself say it. Ned has spent so long convincing himself that fighting back never helped, that running or hiding or turning the other cheek were more effective and more noble. But some of that had been cowardice. He doesn't want to learn to fight for his own sake, or because he has any interest in hurting anyone. He just wants to be useful, to be able to defend his friends in their times of need. To feel, if at all possible, confident enough in himself that he doesn't hang back with the sickening worry that his presence will only make matters worse ]

[ River would call it a much more abstract idea, but, well. That doesn't mean either of them are exactly wrong.

Ned's request surprises her, but then again ...there's her, on the one side, and everything she's willing to do, and there's Daneel on the other, and everything he isn't willing to do, with Ned somewhat in the middle. ]

You should know. [ A precise nod. ] What do you know?

Then we build anew. If we cannot leave, then we rebuild until we can. If there is any chance of success, then we must fight!

Just one question - if the captors are gone, why do they keep bringing people here?

Not me. Though you wouldn't let me use staples on my trousers so I suppose you know all about my delicate skin.

[ Everyone here is a lit fuse. He worries. ]

Yep. Six times nine.

[Only not.]

Not all that much slash nothing at all. I, uh, asked Erik the same question a couple days ago and he showed me some stuff, but I'm still- [ What he still is he doesn't know. He shrugs, finishes weakly: ] I'm pretty slow at this. It doesn't come very naturally to me.

[ That, at least, River should know. Any time he has fought back, physically, it has been in times of complete desperation, without technique or even particularly conscious thought. He still remembers the way River had moved when she'd been fighting Charlie, her grace and precision and intensity and violence. Ned knows that kind of skill will always be beyond his grasp, but perhaps she can teach him to at least be a bit less hapless and helpless. ]

Except there's still the cameras.

Perhaps our captors have enemies of their own. If they're under attack themselves, our preservation may slip through the cracks.

I'm not sure that's a positive thought, though.

Six times nine different ways to say 'I dunno'?

A machine can run without an operator.

Not when they've already shown interest in starvation.

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voice; day 106, late afternoon

ain't no party like a telepath party

action?

'cause a telepathy party don't stop

Reaction? I think I'm funny.

No I laughsnorted it was great

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weirdly pixelly video with occasional inexplicable green splotches

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huzaahh

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[Video, though she's in her disguise]

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all replies voice on River's end

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