[open] Toto, I don't think we're on Hedenex anymore....

[bluesuit_handy]

It's been so good to stretch his legs again after so long cooped up on the ship. Andrew loves traveling, of course, and he loves spending time with James and the dogs, but his tolerance for monotonous space journeys is diminishing rather than growing. Their first journey out from Earth was the longest, of course, since they had to reach a jump node before they could travel from world to world in a matter of weeks rather than months, but somehow just a week stuck in a space the size of a largish flat is almost unbearable to him now. If he had to do that longer journey again, he might go mad.

Despite his enthusiasm, there's only so much running about (much of it literal) he can do before he tires out. Hedenex is a friendly sort of planet, with more than a few things to do and see, but just now he's tucked back up in bed in the spaceship he shares with James, their dogs curled up nearby as if watching to make sure he doesn't go off again without them when he wakes up.

His sleep is troubled by dreams that are less bad, necessarily, than they are weird. He's in the midst of grudgingly assembling a floral arrangement under the watchful eye of a robot servant belonging to a version of the Master he hasn't seen in centuries when a chill wind suddenly blows through the beach house where he and Abraham Lincoln have been imprisoned together. He shivers in both the dream and in reality, shifting uncomfortably on the hard red surface of the bleachers that make up the roof of the Times Square TKTS booth. He's wrapped up surprisingly well for someone who was just taken away from his cozy bed and blankets, as he tends to layer up even when he goes to bed, but a fleece onesie with a hoodie over the top half and socks on under the enclosed feet is still not enough. At least he'll look dashing in that yellow ducky-themed print?

Comments

[wildmage_daine]

Daine stuffs her hands in her pockets and looks curiously at Andrew, wondering if he's going to ask about Romac or go off on a completely different tangent. If he does, she might try to steer him back on course (she's learned her lesson), otherwise, she'll keep quiet and listen.

[bluesuit_handy]

"How long's it been active?" he asks. Look, he's sort of on topic! "The rift, I mean. It sounded like you have people coming through all the time -- is that why Romac sprang up, or did they just pick up rift duty after the fact?"

[rebelnpc]

"Oh, quite a few years now. It's difficult to say when it started exactly, as it's grown over time, become more and more active. We're having a peak in activity this weekend," she explains, leading them into a huge storage area, filled with shelves and boxes. "Romac was created as a reaction. Or perhaps I should say over-reaction."

"Howard, do you have some clothes for our new arrival?" she asks to the person working there, who happens to be an antropomorphic duck. He gives Andrew a scrutinising look, grunts, then moodily stalks off down an aisle.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine smiles politely at Howard, even though she finds him just a bit eerie, what with him looking so much like a duck but not feeling like one in her mind. She checks for any spark of wild magic as he leaves, and is a bit unsettled to see nothing. "Huh," she mutters under her breath.

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew smiles at Howard, only mildly surprised to see such a person. "So it's typical for it to pull from different worlds?" he asks Blythe when the other rebel departs without a word. He bounces on the balls of his feet, despite the pain.

"So what is it Romac actually does?" he asks innocently. "I mean you, obviously, you've got the rebellion thing going on -- but what is it you're rebelling against?"

[rebelnpc]

"Different world, different times, different realities. We've had people from all kinds of parallell Earths," she answers with a nod.

She sighs heavily when Andrew asks about Romac. "They're trying to establish a dictatorship. At least that's what it feels like. Every rifty they get their hands on is processed and kept an eye on. If they deem you too dangerous or hostile, you get locked up, or disappear. Oh, in some cases it's been justified. But it's a corrupt and prejudiced system, and while I certainly don't think everyone who works for them is evil or anything like that... It's shady business on a grand scale."

[wildmage_daine]

"I'd probably end up in one of their cages," Daine says, scowling. Folk here have been surprisingly accepting of her magic, but it hasn't escaped her notice that she's one of the (probably) few rifties who could leave the island without too much difficulty if she wanted to. She doesn't, because the rift is here and she wants to be near it in case it either decides to take her home or spits out someone she knows. But she could, and she shudders to think of the lengths Romac might go to in order to make certain she didn't.

[bluesuit_handy]

"Parallel Earths..." repeats Andrew thoughtfully. That would explain why there's a rift in the middle of Manhattan, smack where he remembers no such a thing. It also means he's less and less likely to find James again by returning to Hedenex -- not that it was very likely to begin with, given his lack of spaceship.

He gives a little start and peers at Daine. "Cages?" he asks, the mental image less jail cell and more zoo exhibit. He shakes his head, blinking away the image. "How dangerous is too dangerous?" he asks Blythe, concerned.

[rebelnpc]

"Hard to say," she answers. "Oncontrollable, likely to cause murder and mayhem, or worse, media attention." It's clear she means worse for Romac. The rebels would delight in some publicity, though preferably of the positive kind.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine's mental image is more zoo than jail, too; she's far more familiar with the former than the latter. She might not be dangerous unless pressed--and she blushes a little as she remembers what she did in Carthak--but she could be, and she's not easy to control, either.

[bluesuit_handy]

"Media attention pointing to Romac, or just pointing to the rift?" asks Andrew curiously. "How much do people know, anyway? Big hole in space-time spewing out aliens, I'm sure someone's noticed outside of the government."

[rebelnpc]

"Oh, the locals are not entirely unfamiliar with it," Blythe admits. "They know weird things happen, but that's New York for you. The big important stuff gets covered up, of course. And any sort of media attention towards the rift gets shut down immediately. There's always rumours, but there's also explanations for everything, and in the end the majority of it gets entirely dismissed."

[wildmage_daine]

To Daine, this sounds like a good thing. She'd rather keep a low profile, and the hidden base had left her with the impression that the rebels wanted that, too. Something about Blythe's tone, though, suggests that she doesn't quite agree.

"But that's a good thing, surely?" she cuts in, confused.

[bluesuit_handy]

"I'm guessing that depends on your perspective," says Andrew thoughtfully. "If your enemies control the media, they stop the public wanting to help you. Am I right?"

He's always been a big fan of letting people know the truth...and has realized that an awful lot of people aren't.

[rebelnpc]

"Indeed," Blythe answers. "Those who don't fit in as readily as you two are forced to live in hiding, and the mistreatment of anyone who comes through the rift goes unacknowledged. I'm not saying you should start a parade to get noticed, because obviously it's not that simple. But one of our long-term goals is that Rift immigrants can be allowed to intergrate properly with society."

"If we do try to gain attention, we are immediately painted as a threat." She sighs heavily. Blythe's seen the majority of the rift related developments, and it's an uphill battle. "Then there's the fact that every once in a while something that actually is a threat comes through the rift, and ordinary people just aren't prepared, because they don't know about it. There's been quite a few deaths labelled as freak accidents and such in the past few years."

[wildmage_daine]

Daine frowns a little at the notion that she's fitting in 'readily,' but then again, at least she looks human. Maybe that's all Blythe means.

"I s'pose that makes sense," she says, wondering what would have happened to Andrew if she hadn't just so happened to be nearby when he came through the rift--or what would have happened to her if Yuri hadn't been there. If none of the locals really know what's going on, none of them would have been inclined to help, she'd guess--especially since the locals seem disinclined to notice anything.

[bluesuit_handy]

"But the locals can't be completely ignorant," argues Andrew, wrinkling his nose at Blythe. "At least some of them have to have noticed that aliens keep dropping out of the sky, especially if you're getting non-humanoids -- or at least non-human-looking humanoids."

He scratches his head thoughtfully, making his hair stick out in even more odd directions than it already was. "What have you tried?"