BABY WE WERE BORN TO RUN

[maskormods]

WHO: EVERYONE
WHERE: THE STREETS OF THE CITY
WHEN: Duration of the event
WHAT: PRISONER TRANSPORT/RESCUE
WARNINGS: Violence and language likely
OOC NOTES: This is a starter log to help kick off the event. Feel free to use or post your own!

The transport process isn’t a fun one. Captured Metas are outfitted with power-nullifying handcuffs and collars, chained into the back of a heavily armored prison transport vehicle. Normally there’s a huge procession that goes alone with this: more back up vehicles, overhead support, government loyal metals in every vehicle. But this rush of new arrivals has pushed the system to its limits- there’s never been a need to accommodate more than a specific number of known Metas. It has the guards in the vehicles on edge, jumpy as they try to navigate through the City without the usual back up. And it’s a strain the resistance is more than ready to push to the breaking point.

In addition to transporting new arrivals to their reprogramming, there are the already-present Meta prisoners that must still be shuffled around, causing a mix of old and new in the vehicles. And irresistible targets for liberation for the resistance groups. When the transport is hit, which will the new Metas side with? Your captors you may still be able to gain a comfortable life working with? Or the rebellion fighting their way into the vehicle?

Comments

[fettchquest]

“No.”

The prisoner is making too much noise. That’s all. The words themselves are meaningless. Fett walks towards him again, hand moving to his blaster a second time. A stun round in the center of the man's chest at this range should put him out cold for a while.

“I just have limits to my patience.”

[fettchquest]

[...Huh. Maybe the kid really isn’t getting enough air. The things he’s saying certainly sound delusional enough to be the result of an oxygen-starved brain.

Finally, he stands and steps away from the boy, returning to his original position in the transport.]

Keep breathing, [he orders, dismissive.] You’ll think more clearly.

[germhating_hypochondriac]

[Eddie follows the instructions for a few moments, gathering enough air to speak again.]

C'mon, dude. Do you see Darth Vader or Jabba the hut anywhere? 

[He has to get through him to somehow.]

Look out the window.  Does it look like we're going anywhere near the empire?

[fettchquest]

[Fett doesn’t even turn to look at him.]

The point of hiring a bounty hunter, [he says evenly.] Is that people like Darth Vader don’t have to show up.

[He’s not sure what either of their presences have to do with the situation anyway. Does the boy think Fett will abandon his duties just because his employer isn’t looking over his shoulder?

He’s even less impressed by his next point.]

It looks like we’re on a civilized planet. So, yes.

[germhating_hypochondriac]

No one hired you for that. 

[They might have, but Eddie hasn't been there long enough to know about the resistance and runaway metas.  He speaks slower and calmer, hoping to get his breathing under control.  It's easier with space between him and Fett.]

You didn't hunt us.  We showed up through a porter and got arrested by wack jobs. 

[He shifts as best he can, trying to get more comfortable.] 

What planet?  C'mon, a bounty hunter would at least know the name of the planet he's on.

[fettchquest]

[The boy certainly is presumptuous, to think he knows how and why Fett had come to be here. Does he think he can make Fett doubt his own memories through sheer force of will? Perhaps he’s heard too many stories about Jedi and their mind tricks…

The question gets a bemused glance. He isn't following the boy's logic. Why wouldn’t Fett know the name of the planet he’s on?]

Denon.

[Obviously.]

[germhating_hypochondriac]

[Eddie tries his best to make a game show buzzer sound, which results in a coughing fit and more wheezing.  Even in his cuffs, he tries to cover into his shoulder. Always worried about germs.  When he recovers, he shakes his head.]

Wrong.  It's Earth.

[A fucked up version, but he figured they still called it Earth.]

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

Jacob shakes his head. He is not laughing.

"Every day you spend working for this is a day you're sending other people to go through the exact same thing you went through," he says quietly. "Can you really just keep living with that? Because the Jonathan I knew couldn't."

He'd refused to go along with evil before. Jacob has to believe he can do it again.

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

Jacob stares at her silently for a moment, just making sure he heard that right. Then he finds himself a wall to lean against, because suddenly some of the tension just left his body.

"You mean it's... over?" He asks. "You beat Atropos? The world is safe?"

Saying the words feels alien in his mouth, like he's trying to speak a foreign language for the first time. He has to chuckle at it.

"That's incredible, Lucina. I... I don't know what to say. Except that I'm proud of you."

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

"Haven't we?" Jacob leans back on the bench, tries to cross his own arms, then gets a rude reminder that yes, he is still handcuffed. He huffs instead and places his hands in his lap.

"Then maybe you can explain how I know who you are, Luther," he challenges, hoping that this angle will provoke curiosity rather than violence. "Or about your family, like Allison and Diego. Trust me, we've met."

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

"Finding a place would be great," Jacob says, looking around them for signs of approaching helicopters or armoured cars or jetpack troops or whatever hostile reinforcements look like in this universe. "I've got no idea how to navigate this place. Didn't exactly have a chance to find a map before they stuffed me in a van."

He scowls for a moment.

"But I did catch that this is called The City. Just that. Like the place that Atropos destroyed."

It's the imPort equivalent of waking up in Atlantis - a mythical lost city famed for the disaster that befell it. Part of him is still hoping it's a particularly bad dream.

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

"Maybe." Jacob shrugs, resigned to Porter Bullshit. "Or maybe I just knew a different version of Manabu. Like another draft of the same file. Does it matter?"

He almost places a comforting hand on Manabu's shoulder, then thinks better of it. He settles for using his Earnest Voice instead.

"The important thing is that I know you're a good man," he says. "We trained together, saved lives together. It tore me up when you got Ported out."

[drivesadesk]

He sighs and looks away.

"What other choice is there? Let you go, where you'd just get captured and dragged back by other enforcers, and in the mean time I get dragged down and go back to..."

He trails off. He can't go back there again. He's terrified of what they'd do to him if he ends up needing to be reprogrammed again. He looks back at Jacob, panic clear in his voice.

"I can't go back there."

[fauxmarth]

"Don't be proud of me," she cries quickly, almost laughing. "It wasn't me. It was Aegis. Everyone! Everyone fought together, struggled together..." That enthusiasm crests and wanes, her expression getting somber. Without thinking, her hand goes to the hilt of her sword. Not Falchion -- Aurora. A different blade entirely.

"And many of us...had to give up a lot to see it through to the end." She dips her head. "It's...partly why I'm glad you weren't there. To have to lose something."

[siriusly]

Manabu's eyes dart right away to that hand, regardless of intention. He's a learned man! Even guys out here just pouring compliments on you can forget themselves and punch you into the next calendar week...repeatedly.

He shifts in place, his hand resting on the back of his neck as he chews on all of this. Training and saving lives seems pretty par for the course, but is this guy for real? Another him out there? Doing the same stuff? Getting walloped? Is there no Manabu Yuuki who isn't getting razzed by fate?

"M-maybe it wouldn't be too weird to think that kind of stuff got...decked clean out of my memory," he admits, sheepish. "I mean, considering this...punching problem I got."

Scout snorts.

"But I guess it's good that at least you don't know me as some pain in the ass, right?"

[khajidont]

"The place Ruka is from. She's here too. We just need to meet up - but we need to do it subtly. They know her here."

That alone is enough to send a frisson of fear through him. He doesn't know what they'd do to her. More than that, he has an idea of some things they could do to her, and if they do, he doesn't think he'd be able to control what he does next. He looks around them, still fretful.

"Khaji will be able to get a map for us. Whatever's on the internet, anyway. But if this really is the City, then -- that means I was here too."

[monosaccharide]

"You're the government's only Gem, Per." Bubblegum shoves herself out from under the vehicle and looks around for a weapon, her mind working quickly.

What she needs is a distraction, and what Peridot needs is a weapon. She takes her crown off and hurls it towards the Gem and the prisoner as hard as she can. Come on, metal bender. Let's see what you can do with gold.

[obediences]

Those two names are like a lightning jolt to Luther's brain, his nervous system: they immediately yank him up to sit up even straighter in his seat, looking at the stranger more closely. With a fair bit of suspicion now, because in this entire goddamned universe, Allison is the only one who knows Diego's name. Or she was the only one.

His family is a knife under his ribs: his main vulnerability, the one Achilles' heel that's always festered, that he hasn't known how to guard himself about. He's especially out-of-practice in the City.

"That's impossible," he says slowly, carefully. "Where did you come from?"