2017-09-21: Cool Air
- Log: Cool Air
- Cast: Loren Voss, Elhaym van Houten
- Where: Bledavik - Noble Quarter
- Date: September 21st 2017
- Summary: Loren and Elly discuss events of late in a very importantly air conditioned room. Paranoid theories, the threat level of a certain woman, Guardians, statues, and the best way to use Drifters all get fielded.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
There are probably smaller meeting rooms. It's arguable that somewhere, way out there in the universe, there must certainly be a smaller meeting room, in much the same way that it's certain that somewhere, out there in the universe, there are molecules that have figured out the self-replication trick.
But the thing about these arguable points is: it's still not that much comfort.
...Particularly given the current occupants of this tiny meeting room.
On the plus side, there's airconditioning.
If ever body language told a story, Loren's story is 'I want to get out of this meeting'. Nevertheless, it's still a meeting that he set up, post the observation-oriented expedition they'd conducted in regards to a person of interest who possessed abilities and worryingly, control, she shouldn't have.
"So," he says, and not for the first time in the last minute or so since they got themselves situated in here, the only meeting room not booked for other purposes (he checked) (and it was here or the medical suite, which is NOT private), as he stalls, trying to think about how best to even start discussing this.
The circumstances of their last private conversation don't help, either.
"...What are your thoughts?"
Leadership material, maybe he's not.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly has been quietly luxuriating in the air. It's not just that it's cool and not humid - though these are both extremely desirable traits - it's that it's got that filtered, crisp taste to it that Elly associates with HOME...
And not down on the surface, for all its many pleasures.
"So," she says, in accord, having finally looked down at the notes.
"Well... I have to agree that she's tremendously talented, especially considering that she couldn't have had a very efficient education down here on the surface," Elly says, folding her hands on the table. The cool table. The cool, not damp table.
Looking up to Loren, she says, "Do you know much about Kislev's training programs?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's a relief not to be slowly cooking alive somewhere. This is a truth.
Also a truth, though: the scent/taste of the air conditioning reminds Loren a little too strongly of home. Maybe there's more than a few reasons why this meeting here has inched its way to a start.
"...That's what I thought. She demonstrated strong control in previous encounters as well. Those incisions she made on the rocks were almost perfect."
Technically, they were perfect, in that it seemed that some of the rock had been made to stop existing. But he's not going to give praise to a Lamb.
To her question, he shakes his head. "I don't, but I sincerely doubt they've been training ether users on the side. We would have heard about that. She implied she's been training herself."
Which also, the way he squints his eyes slightly implies, is not a good thing. As far as their mission is concerned. Most rogues give themselves away... or blow themselves up before they become a threat.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"I don't know how much better I could have done," Elly admits. "I mean, without a lot of careful time-taking." It's easy to be precise when you take half an hour to aim!
Her lips purse. "True," she says. "A small program would be able to escape notice, but if they'd done something more formal, we would have gotten wind of it by now..." She leans back in her chair for a moment, blissful, perhaps, that she's not gently leaking sweat.
"So she's a natural. I suppose it's why she's been able to survive so long out there. Have you had much chance to ask her about her history, beyond the obvious details...?"
"At least if she's just practicing by herself, there'd be limitations on her ability." Right? RIGHT? THAT SOUNDED IMPRESSIVE, RIGHT, ELLY, Elly thinks to herself, not in those words.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
That's the part that bothers him. Lily had managed to do that almost casually. Though certainly it reflects only outsize etherical talent for a surface-dweller--
Elly's abilities might be tremendous compared to his own, but, he reminds himself, as if assembling a careful bulwark, she's by no means an exemplar of the abilities that an elite soldier can bring to bear. Elly's still only his age, with about as much training and experience.
"Maybe if it were small," he allows, grudgingly. "They did manage to spring Sado on us." He narrows his eyes, looking almost as if he might frown sourly. "But we still stopped it..."
Maybe nevermind 'might'. He does frown, folding his arms over his chest. Okay, they badly damaged it, probably to the point where it can't be rebuilt. But that had still been a perilous fight, he can't ignore that.
He heaves out a breath. Ugh...
"Only this and that. She's paranoid," he says, finally lifting his head. "I think she believes my story, so if I can leverage that... Her father's Colonel Keil, you know." They might not have personally engaged Kislevi soldiers much, but their briefs at least include information on commanders of note.
Colonel Keil has been a pain, apparently.
"At least there's that." He... agrees with Elly?! "There's limits if she's not learning the proper technique. That's something to investigate further -- where her weak points lie. We may need to retrieve her or neutralize her at some point."
As if she's not a person, just an obstacle.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly, after all, may be a surface dweller herself at some remove. Look at the Devil's red hair on her.
"Mm," she says. "But that's a question of a large machine... that would be different from training a large number of Ether users... I don't think they could have gotten anyone from Lunar to do it, and I believe we've kept track of most powerful individuals. It'd need to be some sort of concealed group of ancient vintage..."
And what are the odds of THAT?
"... Maybe he trained her personally. Do we know much about him, beyond his role in their military?" Elly asks. She rests her chin in her hand as she asks Loren this. It takes away from the gravitas of what she's saying. Severely.
Her eyes turn down at the question of finding Lily's weaknesses.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's certainly possible. Or it could be a point-mutation -- of all the things he begrudges her for, existing among them at this point, her hair color is perhaps hilariously at the bottom of the list. They're both Solarian, which counts for 'enough' by his measure of things.
"...I know that," he says, not without some bite. "In any case, I suppose it could be Shevat involvement," he muses darkly, tapping a finger on the tabletop. "But if it is them, and they're interferring..." He shrugs, all apparently dismissive in counterpoint to the awful twist of his gut at the very thought of open war. A opposed to whatever the reclusive nation is playing at now.
"But even Shevat wouldn't be that blatant."
He considers this question about Keil Sr. apparently, for a moment or two. "It's possible." She may have even implied something like that -- certainly, it would be difficult to keep it to herself if she were in the process of developing such powers. "But I don't think we know much about him other than his role in combat. Intel might know more... What, do you have something in mind?"
He regards her, critically. Why is she bringing it up, now? Absently, he taps a finger on the tabletop. Does she have something in mind, or...
Even that movement stills, the room settling out once again into silence. Only the distant hum of the air conditioning unit continues in the background.
"...You met them too, didn't you." A pause passes before Loren clarifies this with, "The Guardians. I read your report. ...You met them with Keil."
The Guardians. He's... still not certain what, if anything, he should think about them.
"Maybe there's something we can do with that. Is she hunting after the statues?"
He feels like he should... he's not sure what he should do, either. But the weight of the tablet he possesses feels metaphorically heavy.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"I don't think - Well, I mean, I'm not an expert," Elly demurs, "but it doesn't feel like she's with Shevat, no. If she were, I think she'd have been trying to be more approachable towards me... not that she's been rude."
Oh right, she's hanging out with her.
"If they were intervening at all, I expect they'd be looking towards the Lunar arrivals and the Metal Demons. I wonder if Command's taken that into account," Elly muses further, but that's only just sort of kind of near sedition, so she drifts away.
"... I did," she said.
"It was very strange," Elly said. "Between what they said to me, how they spoke to Fei, how they - did that, to Keil... I don't know how to credit any of it. I thought that it must have been some kind of AI - like those shopping assistants in the concourses but for, well, for the Guardians and their defense methodology, and presumably more complex..."
She looks back towards Loren. "She is," she says. "I imagine she feels that she owes them, for... what they saved her from. I suppose I can see her logic, even if they seem very distant. From the reports that other people have had, of the situation..."
Elly looks down at the tabletop now. The air conditioning's drone fills the air.
Elly finally says, "I think they felt insulted."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"...Unless that's what she wants you to think," a somewhat more sour Loren responds, glancing over at her. Still, he sighs, and shakes his head, brow lining faintly as she points out a perhaps more plausible chain of action from Shevat in times like these. Unless they had been covert operations until recently but--
No. Damn, she's probably right. For the second time, he outright frowns, as if at the thought of the presence of the unknown quantities that the Metal Demons and the Lunarians make up.
Or maybe it's just irritation that she deflated his theory, though.
She'd seen the Guardians, too. Or what claimed to be the Guardians. The movement ever so slight, Loren nods, gaze fixed on the table before him, as if it somehow contained the answer to all the questions in the universe. "An AI subroutine, huh... I thought I was experiencing a hallucination, at first. Perhaps from some fumes in the temple." He readjusts his glasses, straightens his posture a touch. "I remember reading something like that being behind the alleged visions so-called prophets would have."
He shakes his head. "I never thought they really existed. Just another surface-dweller religion..."
They'd looked at him, into him, through him. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end even recalling it.
They shouldn't exist, and yet. And yet, it's something he can't explain away, something he can't assign a place to.
Another nod as she goes on about Elly, his own expression distant but likely rather difficult to read, as if he were partially somewhere else. The surface of the earth remains still, though far below the surface is a different place. He leans back again in his seat, arms still crossed over his chest. "...Insulted, huh."
He'd felt rattled.
"Then what do you think? Is she likely to help, or turn her back?"
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"I think those things get a little too intricate at a certain point, don't they?" Elly says, taking Loren seriously despite him being a sour sally with a pouty puss. "That's why I went by Elly, even in disguise. It can give you away if you don't react to someone calling your name, in a situation like these."
The rest of what he says makes Elly frown in thought. She's listening! The fumes thing - it's really a possibility, but - "They were very consistent... I don't know all the details, either. Have you turned in the stone tablet they gave you for analysis?"
Did SHE?
She doesn't specify.
"I think... she'll help them. That's my impression," Elly says, folding her fingers together, "that she's a person who's loyal to those who have done well by her. I don't have a lot of objective evidence to back it up, but between this and a sort of general trend, as far as I can tell, she'd no doubt work to protect those Statues."
"Did you hear anything about some kind of Baskar charm to turn them off?" Elly adds. She heard about this, but it makes no sense to her. What, they're gonna just do... MAGIC at the statues and the problem is solved? Piffle.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"...Sometimes things are complicated," is Loren's slightly defensive response. "Anyway, if someone traces you back based on your name, it's still a blown cover." Maybe more than slightly defensive.
...Crossed arms do suggest a certain state of mind, anyway.
"I think it was..." and here he unfolds an arm to gesture vaguely, as if ceiling-wards, "...real. For some given value of real, anyway," he sniffs, reasserting the role of skeptic. "Something playing at being a god, or the will of Filgaia, or whatever they're calling themselves, maybe."
It's just too bad that his inward self continues to bend away like a reed in the wind, no matter how he nags at it.
The stone tablet. The one he received from them. He should have, but...
The clear thing here would be to lie, or redirect her.
But instead, maybe tellingly, he says nothing.
"..." He lifts a hand, readjusting his glasses. "A dog, then, eager to run to the first to give her a pat on the head."
That's both rude and more than a little hypocritical, Loren.
"At least it makes her easier to predict. I don't suppose you've heard about any potential locations? Though if the Metal Demons are searching and nothing's blown up yet, I guess they just might be hard to find."
This last bit, apparently, is news, though.
"...How is that supposed to work? Come to think of it, how are the statues actually working?"
There, see? Nothing like a little logic to cleanse the irrationality away.
...Almost.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"But I've run into eight other people named Elly, and I haven't even tried," Elly says; "I understand what you mean, though."
A few moments pass.
"I think it was real," Elly then says, her voice softer. Maybe this helps Loren, maybe it makes it worse. "I don't know if everything they said is true. But they seemed - Dam Dariam, the cat one - they seemed to know where we were. Fei asked them things... Dam Dariam didn't have an answer for him, but he understood the question."
Her lips purse down, but... Elly stays herself for now. I shouldn't just try to defend people like that, she tells herself. It gets nothing done. I'll just aggravate him, and he already resents me.
"I haven't, although I imagine I'll be able to share any findings from the Yggdrasil Pirates, if my operation succeeds further," Elly says with a light sigh. "And... Well..."
Elly takes a deep breath of conditioned air.
"If I had to speculate on the mechanism, I'd say that the Guardians' energy is in some sense distributed into these statues in a way that provides them with some advantage or operational efficiency, which is now not nearly worth it, given the shift in the situation in Filgaia," Elly theorizes. "By performing this psychotronic energy flow, or 'charm,' they would be able to undo things, possibly shifting themselves into a different operational mode which the Metal Demons wouldn't be able to disrupt."
Elly gestures down. "Think of it as snakes - you know, the little poisonous ones, not the big squeezing kind - trying to get at you. In our uniforms, especially if we had winter leggings on, it would be pointless on their part. They'd have no way in. So it would be worth it to put on a winter uniform, even in this weather, here in Bledavik, if we were going to have to travel through a nest of poisonous snakes."
A beat passes, and Elly says, "The snakes are Metal Demons in this analogy," just in case that wasn't clear.
"It wouldn't surprise me if it would place their energy or data forms or whatever it is in the Mediums people carry... I gather they were handing them out like prophylactics to the infantry," Elly concludes, with a thoughtful frown.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Admittedly, Elly may have an advantage here.
Loren, for his part, gives her a look.
Aren't they just lucky they're on the same side?
I think it was real.
This one probably rates as a 50-50 helping vs not helping, approximately, judging by the fact that his gaze dips but his shoulders aren't quite as rigidly held as before so... yeah, a draw.
"Probably. ...Whatever they are."
...They'd seen him and looked through him... The room feels again as if it'd dropped several degrees in temperature.
When the conversation moves onwards, it's almost a relief to talk about things like 'the statues' and 'the mechanism'.
"Ah," comes Loren's response, if at a slight remove. He nods. "That makes more sense." There, for the first time since this angle of the conversation had been approached does Loren finally ease into something that could be called relief. Well, for him, a creature naturally of various internal and external stresses.
"...Then, under this model, the Guardians would be some sort of energy-based lifeform that can alter their structure into varying modes as needed. Possibly due to their alignment against a perceived existential threat, they rearranged themselves into a form that limited their ability to act directly in Filgaia. ...That would agree with what the princess said." He pauses. "...In a manner of speaking, anyway," he adds because, well, it is still just silly surface-dweller beliefs.
What do researchers know about the Guardians, he wonders in silence, because if there was a somewhat seditious thought, this might also qualify. If he could speak to his father...
Briefly, his expression hardens, as if something unpleasant was on his mind.
To Elly, he says, "So we're a vector, if this model's right."
A comment paired with a rather flat expression her way at her turn of phrase. Okay, yes, they do, he knows it and she knows it, but...
As if in mild irritation, he fidgets with his glasses.
"...There are certainly enough of them to ensure success."
Silence settles across the room shortly after, the only sound the everpresent hum of the air-conditioning unit.
So the goal's set: the both of them should attempt to learn more from Lily and further evaluate her hazard level... and determine any weaknesses she should possess.
And see what they can work out about the statues. One way or another, there might not be much choice but to get involved, whether simply because there will be conflicts erupting over them, or for perhaps higher sentiments.
The silence is soon interrupted by the door opening. They didn't even knock.
"Voss, the captain wants you in the medical ward ASAP," the older medical division officer says, before making a vague gesture towards the doorway. "Petran. She said she's been trying to contact you..." As if enjoying this, the officer lets the words linger in the air.
Never has someone risen to their feet -- making a last-ditch grab for their tablet -- so quickly.
In other words, shit.
He doesn't even say goodbye to Elly. Though it's arguable whether he would have to begin with.
The older officer meanwhile lingers by the doorway even after Loren makes a hasty departure. He just looks at her for a long, long moment, raises an eyebrow cooly, and then turns to leave himself.
Door most decidedly left ajar and cool air seeping out.