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ph_logs2025-05-08 08:53 am
cyansoldier) wrote in ph_logs2025-05-08 08:53 am
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.
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! )
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! )
no subject
"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?"
no subject
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."
no subject
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?
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
"...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."
no subject
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."
no subject
"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.
no subject
"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."
no subject
"...what?"
Again, a detail that just doesn't compute. First, Texas finding the damn things at all. Now, apparently, they made their way all the way to Carolina's hands even after the AI died.
CT's hand flies automatically to her chest, where the version of the tags bought and gifted to her by Gaeta hang beneath her shirt.
"How—?"
no subject
She straightens up a little.
"Wash found them in a crashed Pelican. Texas was on board. We didn't find her, obviously— it'd gone down years ago. But she must have... held onto them until then. I asked Epsilon if he could search its data and he could. When he came out, he said he'd remembered everything. Knew where to find the Director. That's how we got there, CT. Without those tags, we might have spent the next ten years searching with no leads."
no subject
Her fist closes around the metal through the fabric of her shirt. Her brow furrows into tight wrinkles. She has to turn and move, walk, cross from the paving stones to the grass where she stalls, suddenly.
Absurdly, she feels like crying again. She can't tell if it's relief or frustration, if the revelation that it wasn't all for nothing is a blessing or a curse.
She couldn't finish the job herself. Doesn't know if she's ever going to get chance. It's a good thing that the tags made it to someone intent to do something about it, even years too late. It is.
So why does this all make her feel so dizzy?
When she speaks, her voice is thick. "...the off-site storage facilities. They didn't— didn't protect their financial and infrastructural records as tightly as they should've. They always think that stuff's unimportant."
no subject
CT teeters a little where she stands in the yard, shoulders pulled taught against ears and fingers cloying for what seems like anything. Easy to forget how overwhelming Project Freelancer's downfall must be when heard in a singular stream of confession. Carolina's head hangs between her shoulders for a moment, staring at her own feet grounded against the pavement.
"Listen... I know this is probably a lot to take in," She starts, not knowing what will come next. Whether she should offer CT time to digest it all or if doing so would be a slight against her mental fortitude.
Soldiers are always so damn stubborn.
She abandons the thought in favor of newly strengthened resolve, a plan— although a loose one— starting to create motion.
"You have good insight, CT. You could help us."
no subject
CT shakes her head, not in protest so much as in uncertainty. "We don't even know if that's an option, Carolina. For all we know we go back to two totally separate versions of our reality and if we don't, I... I don't know where I'll even be by the date you're from."
Even knowing all this, even knowing when and where Carolina reappears, how does the time between work? Does she have to lay low, not do anything that could throw the timeline off? Could she stand that? Would that even work?
She imagines it has to. One of them can't re-write the other's universe to the point the state they came from wouldn't even exist, surely. God, this makes her head hurt.
no subject
This new, unexpected element unnerves her more than anything. A roadblock she has no idea how to hurdle, if it can be cleared at all. Cannot pull from even her most illogical experiences with AI and timeline bullshit to turn the incomprehensible into digestible. To think 'we're screwed' is a weakness she won't allow herself. No, there's always a way. Always something.
Carolina is standing again. She can't recall when it happened, only how her weight drops down into her heels and ankles.
"You have connections here, can't you ask someone?"
no subject
CT splays a hand hopelessly toward the sky. "I don't think any of us know yet. There's too many variables. Until you arrived I thought I knew, I figured we just... continued on from our deaths as if they hadn't happened in the first place. And maybe that is what happens, I don't know, but if it is then you being from further ahead means... something."
She just can't be sure what that something is. Not until this plays out. She supposes she could try and talk to the goddesses but she never has felt quite at ease with the idea.
no subject
Carolina just... stares at her. Stares for longer than perhaps is warranted. If she could just make it make sense than maybe she wouldn't feel so pointlessly confused, could plan accordingly, but as it stands now—
A slow 'okay...' to set herself back on track.
"Let's say it's voluntary— when we go back, where it is we're placed. If I go to yours and there's a possibility I run into myself, I have a feeling I'd be breaking some kind of cosmic law. I could kill her and take her place, maybe, but I can't say I'm really jumping for joy at the idea of having to do that. And even if I was able to take her place, and you were in your place, do you really think we'd be able to change anything?"
She inhales.
"If you come to mine, it means you wouldn't have died at all. I don't know what consequences that will have but it would mean going up against the Director when he's weak. We wouldn't have to worry about anyone else breathing down our neck. For the most part. We can find Wash, the others and pick back up where I left off."
The more selfish of two ideas, she's aware.
Or.
"Or... We find what evidence we need while the others are still alive. You already made it that far, it'd be easy. If we could get some of them on our side..."
no subject
CT pinches the bridge of her nose and breathes, murmuring quite come ons and thinks and fucks. "Even then, the mechanics of it all... if we choose yours, when are we put back? If I get put back in the escape pod... the version of you in my time won't know the things you know now. She wouldn't be this you, she'd be— the you of however many years ago. This you would be years in my future, anything I changed would just... create another timeline. Probably."
Ugh, she hates all these unexplored avenues of science. She knows there's some principles of time dilation and its effects that have to be accounted for in Slipspace, but this is something else.
"If I get put back in your time... then I-I don't know, I suppose that would be easier. Either I'd get to skip the intervening years and get some new memories to fill in the blank or I'd just... be there with you. Like I wasn't there for those years in the first place."
no subject
"If we land in mine it'll be at the storage facility. I assume the Director will have left, which means we wouldn't have to worry about his army of Texs'. He wouldn't leave technology like that behind, even if they hadn't turned out like he wanted them to. They're still AI— I think. Although they seemed like the dumb kind. I don't know what they were. Drones. They didn't think they just attacked."
And attacked.
And attacked.
Crushed bone and broke skin.
She wonders, darkly, if her body's still there. If the Director stopped by to pay his respects to his only daughter. Probably not.
"New memories of what? I assumed we'd... I don't know... Retain our memories from here. You don't think we'll forget everything, do you? I'll just—" A humorless laugh, "—wake up to you back from the dead? What a nice surprise."
No, really. A nice surprise.
no subject
"No, no, we'd remember here. I'm almost certain of that." Can't be completely certain, but no, she's sure enough of that. There'd be no point in bringing them all here if they'd only forget it at the end. "But if the timeline changes to match both our survivals, but I only turn up in your present, there'd be... a gap, in that timeline. You know? The years I was alive but wasn't there, it'd have to fill those in. Maybe. Like I said, it's that or I just... step back into a world where I actually died and only survived the long way round."
It's a question of if it changes the entire timeline around them or just transplants the outlier back without trying to fix the discrepancy.
This is going to give her a headache.
no subject
She makes a long, gnashed-toothed ughhh! sound and feels the irresistible urge to punch something. Satiates anger by bringing the heel of her palm down hard against the bench-arm, with very little pay off. The wood splinters against the force and in a noise that sounds like a soldier's arm breaking, so too does the end of the arm. It clatters pathetically against the ground.
She flies to standing.
"So we sit here like we've been sitting here, with no idea when or how we'll get back, if it even works at all, until all the townspeople gather together to play community demon exorcism! How fun. How productive. I'm really excited for this new chapter of our lives. We could be here for years, CT. We'll be lucky if time stands still back home. And whenever this hellscape decides to spit us out where we belong, everything will have probably already ended! The Director will have holed himself away until he keels over and dies, or someone will have gotten to him first." Before me. "And who knows what will happen to Wash. Or Epsilon. They'll probably end up dead if they aren't already and I'll have no one to blame but myself.
"Every day I spent here feels like a wasted opportunity! I don't know how you do it, but I can't!"
Then throws herself back down into sitting.
"I— I can't."
Carolina glances down at the busted piece of wood, only now realizing what she's done.
"I'm sorry."
no subject
The crack snaps CT's spine rod-straight and jolts her back a step more than even Carolina's sudden motion, heart pounding reflexively until she exhales and forces herself to calm down. It's just the bench. It's just the stupid fucking bench.
"I don't— I don't care about the bench, Carolina, that thing's been on death's door since I got the house," she says, waving it off before rubbing her face again. Headache. Definitely a headache. "I don't like being stuck here not able to do anything either, you know? Maybe I've learned to deal with it after being here a— year, at this point—"
God, it really has been a year.
"—but I've been itching to finish this since I got here! I spend every spare minute looking over my damn notes on the barrier problem trying to see what I'm missing! And sometimes I still feel stir crazy! But it's this, or giving up, and I'm not giving up!" She throws her hands out, gestures wildly. "And we can't, we can't, fix any of this on our own! It never works. Going it alone never works, we've both learned that the hard way and we still— we still keep trying. We still keep trying."
She sinks down to the grass, head in her hands.
(no subject)
(no subject)
Wrap soon?
yes!