ph_logs | This is a Foul-Tasting Medicine

This is a Foul-Tasting Medicine | OTA

Who: Agent Carolina (

cyansoldier) & You.
What: Carolina adjusts poorly to Caboose's sudden absence. Among other things.
When: Early May.
Where: Around town.
Warning(s): Brief mention of dead deer, gun usage.

( Strike up the tinderbox / Why should I be good if you're not? )

I won't turn around or the penny drops.

She hasn't seen Caboose in days. Not since she'd squatted in his ramshackle porch on Crane's Ridge summit, shoulder to shoulder. When morning peeled through the trees, they walked together. Her, in silence. Him, remarking on whatever interesting thing he saw. Bugs, mostly.

She doesn't think twice about his absence—at first. Caboose, like a large and excitable dog, tracks what most interests him. Animals, people, machines if there are any. She'll find him. It's fine. Don't worry about it.

She searches for him at the Ranch. Said he'd wanted cows.

She searches for him in the woods. Plenty to distract him there.

She searches for him in town. Maybe someone's seen him. Big and tall, curly hair. Probably said something stupid.

As a last resort, Carolina stalks to Town Hall. She's on edge. She pushes through the door like it's just attacked her. Michael J. Caboose. I need to find him. Can you tell me his address? An odd look from the desk. I know him. It's important. Please.

He's gone. People come and go, ma'am.

She leaves angry and humiliated. Feels sick. It doesn't make any sense. Why would he leave? To-ge-ther, he said in his broken tones. What an idiot. She's an idiot for believing she could trust him— trust anyone to hold tender a shred of her feelings. Comfort like newly shattered glass stuck in her hands and face and chest.

She doesn't need him.

She should be training.

Won't stop now / Won't slack off. [OTA]

She moves like a shark. No moment of peace. No chance to rest.

Carolina picks through produce like a soldier in the midst of a deadly stealth mission, peering over her shoulder every fifth step for signs of danger and looks so suspicious that she's confronted about stealing.

She jogs at the outskirts of the residential areas (avoiding Connecticut while also keeping the possibility of seeing her squarely at the front of her brain). Slides in the dark nooks between buildings to catch her breath and spit. Sometimes she lingers with her arm and forehead butted up against the wall. Numb. Staring at nothing. Feeling her lungs swell and deflate with the effort she puts into moving, moving, moving.

Most days she can be found marching to the Oak & Iron with a deer slung around her shoulders, its horned head bobbing limply. She tries to feel good about it. She'll get a few pieces of Brass and the people will have venison to enjoy. She tries, and feels empty.

From her farmhouse are the usual sounds of gunshots and split wood. Maybe you find her cleaning her Colt Revolving Shotgun, perhaps the only thing she's really grown to care about in this place. Tread carefully. She's trained to shoot on sight.

This dance / Is like a weapon. [Wildcard]

_{( Have something else in mind? Shoot! )}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Carolina hums a muted agreement. "It wouldn't make sense. Wyoming survived. He was fine. If she wanted his AI then, she would have taken it." An obvious lie on the part of their Director. Create danger and panic to inspire action. Results. Wyoming always was a loyal dog. She isn't one to talk.

"Couldn't she have found it late? I mean, she isn't the type to mull things over like that. If she knew you had valuable information during the time she killed you, she wouldn't have gone through with it. Maybe she didn't know where to look."

York. Her face sours. If she had another stone at her disposal she would have kicked it even harder.

She misses him, that idiot.

"He was sympathetic. He never liked the way things worked, even if he didn't make it obvious."

Couldn't she have found it late.

Stupidly obvious a thought, in hindsight. Surprising from Carolina, in a way, in how much lenience it gives the shadow of a woman that hangs over them both, but reasonable truth can cut through a lot of noise. No matter how much you hate someone, sometimes you still understand how they work.

"...I left the tags in her locker. There wasn't anywhere else."

Tags abandoned in an unused locker. It had always been a longshot, but there had been no other option and when Texas came charging in, ready to shoot her dead, it was so easy to imagine that she had known but not cared.

...does it even make a difference?

When you can think for yourself, obeying orders is just as much a choice as disobeying them.

"I told her everything I could in that message. I figured if she realised what she was she'd act. Maybe I was right. Maybe I just had shitty timing."

Can't think about this. Can't dwell on it. Can't think about the words your friend, Connie falling on ears that had already heard her choking on her own blood.

What else does she need to know? Focus. Fuck's sake.

"Where did they go, after their stunt ended badly?"

"...She never used that locker, CT. When's the last time you remember her using the locker rooms for anything?" Never. She didn't need them. Had no items to call her own. No body to shower beneath her armor, maybe. The thought makes her sick. A woman— a real, human woman stolen from some base or having volunteered blindly to become entirely other. Or an armored puppet.

Another mystery she'd rather go unsolved.

"They scattered— all of them. It's hard to know where. Washington worked as Recovery for a time. Florida was killed first, by— Jesus," a sick laugh. "By aspirin."

She paces.

"York— ...York was shot by Wyoming. Wyoming died later. North got taken about by Mai— The Meta and South was killed by Washington. He didn't trust her. I don't blame him. After that things went quiet for a little."

Tore each other apart.

Animals.

"Washington killed The Meta later with his group of Sim soldiers. They're who helped us look for the Director."

She scoffs and slaps a hand to her head. "Help— they were all idiots. Useless in the end, practically dead weight. They did nothing. Epsilon and I did all the work and still it amounted to nothing."

Edited 2025-05-09 20:39 (UTC)

"I know—" she clenches her teeth and breathes through her nose. "I knew that. But there were no other options. It's not as if he let her just walk around. And I only had so much time."

A hail mary in the final hours of her time on the ship. A desperate play that didn't pay off. Stupid, so goddamned stupid and naive to ever think it would work. As if there had been even a lick of hope left for her in the end, as if leaving was ever going to do more than buy time.

Now it's her that wants to get up and pace, but she remains rooted to the spot in spite of the urge, fiddling anxiously.

Florida, dead—that's reassuring, in a sick sort of way, Wyoming too—their loyalty to the Director made them threats, if she ever made it home. The team tearing itself to pieces is the opposite. Everyone dead at the hand of another. And who knows how many of the others, the other squads.

Did you even think once about the rest of them? she wants to ask, but like so many times before, she has to pick and choose what questions that are worth the risk and time.

"And Tex? Do you think she was powering the versions that you fought, or did something else happen to her? Where did she go?"

"No. Those drones might have looked like Texas, but they weren't her. She was destroyed by an EMP. We have Washington to thank for that. As for the others... I don't know. They're probably still kicking around in the storage facility, waiting for Wash and his people to show up. If they make it that far."

If they even bother looking.

"We kind of left on a bad note."

EMP. That's smart. He always was resourceful, could always look at a situation and see the way through. Add that to all the lectures on making sure not to use his unit too close to AI-operating agents and you had the perfect recipe for that particular revenge plot to form.

"What kind of a bad note? And— where did you even get Epsilon? That was the name set aside for the memory fragment. Did they assign it? Who..." was left after the assignments already decided before she'd left?

North was always going to get Trust, Theta, sat pretty at number five on the board. That left Wash, Maine, and South, but Maine had already had his AI and South was never going to get one—the Director would have kept assigning them to Beta with the excuse of better compatibility before he ever gave South her due. Which meant after Carolina got her two, then...

"...Wash. That's why he finally turned on the program. Isn't it? He got the memories. He couldn't deny it anymore."

"Wash decided he wasn't up for the task anymore. I needed him on lock duty and he— along with the rest of his idiots— refused. Epsilon— Church, that's what his friends know him as— he tore into them. Well, it turned into an altercation and they all bailed. I shouldn't be surprised that he sided with them. I thought maybe, maybe he'd want to see this through just as much as I did. I was wrong."

Whatever. She doesn't need him, nor does she need his band of misfits to get the job done.

"We found him in storage. I thought if we had his memories, we might have a better chance at finding the Director. And I was right. We did find him, only Washington wasn't there to finish the job." Her frown morphs into a full-fledged glower. "So much for turning."

"Not following your lead isn't the same thing as favouring the Director, Carolina."

More pieces to put together. Church—so Epsilon was going by the name from his memories. Or... perhaps more complicated than that. How would Epsilon have even met simulation troopers? Trace it back. Texas attacked the ship, but didn't kill the Director, didn't kill anybody by the sounds of it, so she had to be after something. Alpha, maybe? But if she was out and about after that, she can't have got what she was looking for.

So... what. They put Alpha somewhere? Somewhere no one would think to look for him. A simulation base, maybe, that would explain the sim troopers being involved at all, even if that still leaves some connective tissue missing.

What the fuck happened back there...

"What was even the plan? They all act as a distraction whilst you, what? Charge on ahead and say your piece?"

"After what he's done, to all of us, I'd take any opportunity to see he gets what he deserves. Any. I don't care how dangerous, how reckless, how stupid it is. He should have been there, CT." Her voice fissures. "Who's going to protect Church now? He has no one. He's right back where he started— with the Director. Alone, no backup, because Washington thought he'd be better equipped to screw around with a bunch of fake soldiers."

She's starting to feel like a firearm shot in quick succession. Hot.

"I plan to do a whole lot more than say my piece. I'm going to kill him. I don't care how so long as he's dead."

Edited 2025-05-12 19:49 (UTC)

And there it is.

Not a surprise, exactly. In hindsight, what other goal would Carolina have? It's not about justice for her, not in the legal sense—it's not about putting the man in front of a jury and watching them condemn him to live out his days in a cushy cell, always at risk of suddenly becoming useful to ONI someday down the line and being dragged out into the shadows to work again. Organisations like them have never been ashamed to use dangerous people for their own ends.

It was always going to be more personal for Carolina. Always been more about revenge. About putting an end to it at any cost.

"...and then what, Carolina? You kill him and then... what?"

The question is an affront. A bullet between the eyes. Her synapses tear apart and leave her brain firing anger in every direction.

No, not anger. It's rage surging through her sinews. The same rage that turned snow to slush as she dragged herself to safety, grappling hook having done its job in saving her from the deadly fall but not enough to spare her joint popping from its socket. Her cry, stifled between teeth and indiscernible from the sound of hooks piercing ice—

Carolina makes an aborted noise and chases a hand through her bangs.

"Unbelievable. You seriously think anyone on top is going to hold him accountable? You think he won't try and slip away again? That's if he hasn't gotten away already. Fortunately for our Director," like poison rolling up her throat, "Everyone who might want him dead is dead. He'll know we were onto him. He'll take Epsilon and he'll hide so that no one can find him."

Importantly, she hasn't answered CT's question.

And so her charm wrings it from her.

"I can have a life that's mine." She stabs a finger against her own chest. "But not until he's dead."

"You think I would've done everything I did if I didn't think someone at the UNSC would listen? Maybe they wouldn't care about what he did to us, but if there's one thing they do care about it's their dogs chewing through their damn leashes. He violated the Cole Protocol, Carolina! He had us fighting another UNSC outfit while telling us they were Insurrection! And ONI does not like it when someone starts getting too big for their boots and disobeying them!"

She can't have much time left. Should've done this somewhere she had a damn clock in sight, but inside is too tight. If things got physical, it'd be a mess. Has to make do. Has to hope she's asked enough, got enough answers, by the time it times out.

"Do you really think that just killing him will be enough to stop the investigation dead? Do you really think the UNSC won't just come for the next person in line? None of us are innocent in their eyes. You kill him and run off and they'll never stop chasing you down. Is that the kind of life you want? Is that a life at all?"

"I know what he did!" Carolina howls. "I don't need you to rehash the facts! I know how the world works, CT. For months I listened to the others being picked off. You know what ONI did during that time? Lied. Talked a big game about how they were going to put Leonard Church to justice and when they realized he'd lost their precious toys, they stopped caring. And if they did care, it obviously wasn't enough. He'd been hiding for years when we found him, with no action taken against him for what he did."

In the corners of her powder keg mind, she hears Epsilon telling her:

Cool it, Carolina.

She can't.

"If they chase me down, so be it. Killing him will have been worth the trouble."

"They didn't have the data to find him! You think anything I left behind got anywhere near them after I died? Texas had my tags and Santos—" she laughs, a little bit hysteric, "going by the way that damned stage performance ended I think he might have just— run off with my armour. Abandoned the plan entirely."

Because why would he get any less useless after he got her killed, apparently. Oh, no, he couldn't even do right by her in death. So much for caring about her even as Keaton's sibling.

She's on her feet, now. Doesn't even remember when she moved. Isn't even going toward Carolina. Just standing there, itching to pace, gesturing frustratedly.

"Living on the run is not a life worth living and I'm sure you know that just as well as I do. Are you even thinking an inch beyond yourself? What about the other agents? The ones from the lower squads? You think they'll be let off the hook? Or don't they matter? Are their ranks too low to even register?"

Carolina stands ramrod straight. She won't move, won't make any gestures that might be perceived as violent, won't give CT a reason to think her an imminent threat. She threads her arms and fits her fists under her pits to keep still. Like she's giving Connecticut the space to flail without realizing it. Trying to keep peace wherein they both want to react— not exclusively to each other but in response to their own kineticism. If they pace together, they may very well run into each other.

Her jaw goes slack. Harder to keep still. Move move move.

Cool it.

"Don't. Do not do that. Am I supposed to mourn every fallen soldier in every UNSC squad? Cry over their bodies and wait to be killed myself? What use is that to anyone? They joined PFL and they're suffering the consequences just like the rest of us. And if they're smart they'll ditch the armor and disappear before anyone bothers coming after them."

Another pull to her tongue. A feeling she doesn't like at the back of her esophagus.

"No, I haven't thought beyond myself."

Stop.

"And no, they won't be let off the hook. A majority will die— by ONI or by scavengers looking to make change."

Stop.

Carolina's brows crease.

"They don't matter. None of us have ever mattered."

Not for the first time, CT wonders if she's gone too far. Let her tongue sharpen to too violent a point. Bad enough the first time, alone in the forest letting the shock of seeing Carolina again take over, worse here, with the magic pulling at Carolina's words like a lure.

But her mouth's already moving faster than her brain.

"Not all of us joined because we were looking for career advancement, boss. For some of us it was the program or prison. You know what got me the offer? Exposing a UNSC supplier for sending my colonial army shitty equipment that got people killed! Because who cares about the outer colonists fighting the Insurrection, right? Who cares if we're haemorrhaging lives in the backlines of the war, just tourniquet the wound and let the limb fall off! You know how many of our charges were like that? Complete non-issues, things that should never have landed us in prison in the first place. Massachusetts saved the lives of zir entire ship but because ze messed with an AI, ze had to go to jail and then ze had to die because the program saw zir as a threat. And I bet none of you even noticed ze was gone! Because you're right—"

She throws her hands up.

"None of us mattered. But some of us mattered even less than others. Those— sim troopers, so many died in the simulations and I felt like I was going crazy when I was the only one that even questioned it! The Triplets vanished and everyone just believed the lie that they'd dropped out, as if anyone with charges was going to just leave willingly. Command had multiple agents killed for the crime of being too low on that fucking leaderboard and none of you cared! None of you! I'm not asking you to mourn every soldier in the goddamned space command, but would it kill you to spare a damn thought for everyone else who didn't hit the single digits?! Every goddamn day I walk around feeling guilty for not noticing sooner, for not doing enough to stop it, for every goddamn life that the program ended, and you're hung up on revenge!"

She's breathing heavy. Feels sick. It's not fair, she knows it isn't. Carolina wasn't the only one in the squad who fell into these patterns. But Carolina's the only one that's here. Where else does the rage have to go?

Carolina's throat goes dry. She takes the wordy onslaught like she takes most unpleasant-yet-necessary things— unwaveringly. Chin raised. Eyes locked onto CT's face like a honing beacon, fixating on new scars and old ones, on lines chiseled by age and exhaustion, until her peripheral vision goes blurry and she sees only the soldier in front of her.

It's as if the entire yard stills. The tree at the far end of CT's lawn makes no sound in the wind. The birds within it undergo an immediate petrification. Total, yielding stillness in lapse of taking flight.

All noise comes from her.

CT's ragged breath.

CT's shirt creasing where she throws her arms up toward the sky.

CT's teeth gnashing. Feet driving hard into the ground to keep herself from collapsing.

The fire brandished by Carolina's mind extinguishes. She takes a step forward.

And after a long silence, "Of course I feel guilty. What happened to you, to York, to Maine— everyone— I live with that every day. I will never forgive myself for failing to protect you. Sigma was my AI and I gave him to Maine. More than that, I failed to keep a close enough eye on him to see that he was hurting. Now he's gone and that's on me. Me. The Meta killed North, and South died as a result, and that's my fault. York tried to make me see reason. I shut him out and now he's dead. If Washington decides to find me, he'll see my dead body on the ground and know he's the only one left. I don't want that for him."

Pause.

"And I'm sorry you lost people too, CT."

Salt prickles at her eyes and CT turns her head away from Carolina so sharply she almost gives herself whiplash trying to hide it. Can't be crying in front of her, shouldn't be so close to crying at all. Can't, shouldn't, won't. Won't won't won't.

Don't think about going to meet Mass, only for Virginia to tell her ze had died on assignment (a fake assignment, a set-up, a cold-blooded murder). Don't think about the Triplets, about how she hadn't even realised they were gone until it was far too late. Don't think about all the other agents she barely knew but still feels responsible for letting die because she was too complacent, too willing to wear the same blinders as everyone else for too long. Don't think about South. Don't think about Rat. Don't think about home.

She presses her fist against her lips and tries to breathe.

...at least she doesn't have to doubt the honesty of Carolina's admissions, feelings, in this final stretch as the magic approaches its conclusion. Not that she knows what to do with it.

"...I-I never wanted it to end in just... more blood."

Carolina almost makes the mistake of telling CT she can cry, conscious of the hypocrite she'd turn herself into. Hadn't let herself feel anything short of concentrated fervor while in the presence of her teammates. Hadn't let herself cry until after she hauled her body through the snow into a narrow cavern. There, she held her limp arm and let loose the ugly, angry, animal wailing so rarely permissible to feminine-aligned soldiers.

She got away; her only thought then. Texas got away.

It's hard, not being a leader but feeling the call to action. Connecticut's death was her responsibility and although she'll never be able to live with herself because of it, not once did Carolina think of her as anything less than a teammate. Traitorous, yes. But a teammate, even in death.

"I know," She says, steady as words can be. Another step forward.

Then, firmly— like stating fact or issuing orders, "It wasn't your fault, CT. None of it. I know saying that doesn't get rid of the guilt, but I need you to know— it wasn't your fault."

She doesn't need to be spell-bound to say as much.

It wasn't your fault, Connie, comes Wash's voice, echoing around her skull. He'd been talking about the failure of the mission at the Ferryman space station, to which she, Wash, York and Carolina herself had been assigned. It had only been days since she found out about the Triplets, days since sitting in the viewing bay talking to Carolina about the Insurrection and missions gone wrong.

It was her fault, the mission failure. Not the fact that the Leader hadn't been there, that it was Rat broadcasting a decoy signal, but the fact that she'd been so tired and stressed that she got clumsy. Fell through the vent over the target terminal and gave away their position.

She could've got some data, salvaged something, but she'd heard the Director's voice in the back of her mind reminding her that there was no such thing as a partial success, only failure, and she simply couldn't bring herself to care.

Wash had meant well. You've always been hard on yourself, Connie. A friend, worrying about her. A friend who didn't know just how bad things were. Who didn't realise that his words were falling on ears still blocked by the guilt of not realising, of letting months go by before she truly questioned the Triplets' disappearance.

Easy for you to say. You didn't drop the ball.

There's no saying that to Carolina, is there. But knowing what not to say doesn't make it any easier to know what to say.

"...no, it was his fault. I know that." And she does, on some level. It was the Director's fault, all of it. He set everything up exactly so. "But knowing that doesn't help anything."

Downcast eyes and solemn agreement.

"It doesn't."

She doesn't know what's supposed to help anymore. At times help feels so like a trap that she wonders when she'd first fallen into it to make it so. During what instance did those iron jaws first clamp down on her leg, teaching her that asking and receiving help was wrong. Made her weak. It wasn't her mother who taught her that— never her mother. So, who?

Connecticut's right. His fault.

"That's why I'm going after him. And when I find him, I can't let him out of my sight. No ONI, no UNSC involvement. They'll only complicate things. He needs to pay for what he's done now. I'll deal with whatever consequences come after."

"...you need a better plan than that. If you can get them the data, maybe... maybe they'll clear any charges on the rest of you."

She'd always hoped that if she got to the UNSC, whether through Santos's boss and his subcommittee or through the UNSC Judge Advocate or some alternate rout... they'd been struggling to find an avenue that worked, where the lines of communication weren't so full of scrutiny that there was no guarantee the data would make it where it needed to go.

It was still her plan, before realising the future marched on without her. Get back, leave Santos behind, take the risk and just get the data to someone.

"You'd have to be careful about it, probably have to make sure they don't realise you have Epsilon on you, but it should be possible. Theoretically."

Carolina jams her tongue against her row of molars, thinking, feeling out their ridges, and no less on edge by the idea of her plans coaxed out from under her.

To broaden Justice's scope beyond her familial vendetta will be a good thing, she has to tell herself. The people who worked closest with her father— the Counselor and those directly beneath him— will suffer for what they've done. Laws will be made, pardons administered, a life that's both her own and feasibly livable—

She can't stomach it. Not unless she's the one who—

"So I'll find him, secure the data I need, and kill him afterwards. Bring whatever it is to ONI or the UNSC and let them deal with the residuum. I'll have done them a solid by taking him out. And they won't have any idea I've still got Epsilon. I'll show up with my hands raised."

Edited 2025-05-15 13:53 (UTC)

"Epsilon should be able to point you in the right direction, if he really did get all the memories. I don't think the Director realises just how much data an AI like the Alpha would shed in a full memory dump."

Alpha was their ship AI, their tactical AI, their... everything, really. He was the system. A data dump had to include everything she found and more. Maybe Santos was useless, maybe she left her tags to a woman she still doesn't understand, but Epsilon had to be a record of everything.

...she's still not sure how to use any of this knowledge for herself. Impossible to, really, when she doesn't know how their return home will even work. It's frustrating.

"Or maybe he does. If the Director finds Epsilon where I left him, we're screwed. He'll destroy him or make it impossible to find him again and we won't have any evidence to present. I basically delivered him straight to his doorstep—" Jesus, she's a fucking idiot.

Carolina permits herself to shake out her hands once before taking a seat on CT's old bench. Her elbows brace against her knees.

"Maybe Wash did come. That will have saved us some trouble."

Us. She doesn't mean to say it, and yet it finds its way out into the air.

Silence. Her shoulders rise and fall in a deep sigh.

"...Your message. Your tags. They worked, you know. He and I— we found them. It's the only reason Epsilon and I made it as far as we did."

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