TDM 009: I'M IN LIKE WITH YOU

[erkumods]

TDM 009: I'M IN LIKE WITH YOU

00. Arrival This time, you come out of the water, the Nameless Island's own inherent energy drawing people in. It's like being suspended between realities and abruptly pushed from behind through a rift in dimensions. It may make you sick, or that might be the motion of the ocean, lifting you to the surface and carrying you to shore. Waterlogged and covered in sand, new arrivals will be greeted by robots who welcome them with towels and bracelet devices. The A5 card is already loaded up. Feel free to explore the Island, though there isn’t much to see. Most of the buildings are abandoned and in dire need of repair, and beyond the city lingers a thick fog that obscures much of the wilderness from view. Wander too far into this fog, and you will find yourself mysteriously looping back to where you began, your memories of what you were doing and how you got there erased. With that in mind, it may be wise to stake your claim on a rundown apartment, a tent on the beach, or a bed in the “comfortable” new barracks. Your inventory will be found a day later, wrapped up haphazardly and delivered to each person's makeshift home. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● I. STARGAZER On the first night that new arrivals wash ashore, the moon rises. It's full and beautiful and surrounded by stars. The robots quickly bring old, dusty telescopes out of storage and line them up on the beach to help people get a truly spectacular view. "Look to the heavens! Behold, the chicken, the cat, the owl, the donkey!" It's... the cock, the pussy, the hooters, and the ass. For the rest of the night, characters will become fixated on the specific asset associated with the constellation they've gotten an eyeful of. Whether this leads to some body worship or just casual appreciation is up to you. You can learn about the stars and constellations later this month in some of the rare, non-pornographic books in the library. (More info will go up soon, so please be patient!) ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● II. STIMULATING CONVERSATION An ancient courting ritual has been announced! It involves the give-and-take of candy hearts with slogans printed on them. Of course, since these hearts are being manufactured by robots, their sense of taste is a little... off? Or perhaps off-putting? "You'll do." "5/10." "Acceptable." "Sloppy Seconds." Receiving a negative heart makes one feel insecure, jealous, and submissive. "Be mine." "Nicest ass." "Swell bulge." "They're good lays, Bront." Receiving a positive heart will make one feel confident, boastful, and dominant. Your friendly neighborhood 'bots will give them out to anyone who asks - and maybe even those who don't. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● III. Eat Or Dare The robots have set up a stall by the beach with a banner that reads: Eat Or Dare. They have procured bigger candy hearts than ever before -- fist-sized and larger -- with actions written on them instead of derogatory slogans. "Take a dive." "Lick me." "Get handsy." The name of the game is to follow the instructions or forfeit the challenge by making the evidence disappear into your mouth. Delicious! Those who eat the candy hearts will feel themselves getting giddy and unreasonably invested in the love affairs of others. They will feel compelled to play matchmaker to spread the cheer. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● N A V I G A T I O N

Comments

[zechs_isonfire]

“I’ve been abducted against my will - without any recollection as to how I was washed up onto shore. Just as you,” Zechs told her calmly, nodding his head slightly to her.

Her suspicion, her contempt, that was all to be expected. It was what he’d deserved, really. And he didn’t react defensively - but more as that he expected that hostility.

“... How much have you been told?” he asked. That was the next step, as uncomfortable as the topic was.

[sally_ho]

Unlike some, she didn't trust Zechs not to sink below having pried information out of others washed ashore to learn what they were suffering, to... for whatever reason, gain their trust. He'd weaseled his way into the upper hand in nearly every other stage she'd heard of, and that couldn't all be due to his prowess as a fighter.

So, did she trust he was telling the truth? Not as far as she could throw him.

Still, though, she half held up the arm with the bracelet attached. "Enough." It looked like he was wearing one, too, but that didn't mean anything.

"So how is it?" She couldn't help but ask. "Is this the paradise you hoped for?" If her words held venom, it was only to ensure she had her distance. She didn't know what to make of the Augur, but if Zechs was here, she wouldn't doubt he had some part in this.

[zechs_isonfire]

Zechs would later blame this on the fact that, among the friends he'd somehow made despite his terrible nature, he had fewer reasons to mask his emotions and thoughts. But, he visibly winced.

Before closing off his expression entirely.

"It's certainly one I do not deserve," Zechs told her, straightforward. "For all the requirements we've been given, I've endured and deserve far worse. If I find a method for you and the others to return without harm, I'll share it without delay."

[sally_ho]

There was the modesty. Sally sighed, gaze still leveled at Zechs, but venom temporarily softening. She couldn't help but think of the many, many times Noin had tried to argue this particular point, but if Zechs was so pure and modest and gentlemanly, he wouldn't have chosen to climb ranks and throw an entire planet under the bus to suit him. That modesty seemed self-serving, as far as Sally was concerned, but she'd had to bite her lip then and she was going to have to do so now, too.

Pushing herself up to her feet and snagging her things, she decided here and now to be patient... but careful. This could still be some kind of a test, or a trap, and she still didn't trust that Zechs was either commiserating with the Augur, or wasn't trying to get into its favour.

So, when she joined the blonde and jerked her head down the beach to keep walking, she schooled her voice down to careful aloofness. "How long? The last I had was a message from Noin that you were doing just fine on the terraforming project."

[zechs_isonfire]

Agent Sally Po was a good soldier and Preventer, from what he'd been told. So he would think she'd set aside well-directed anger to solve the immediate problem first. It just made sense. Just as it'd made sense that she still wouldn't trust him.

But he still nodded, accepting the civility for what it was. He wouldn't let an enemy go into a hostile situation unarmed even if she was that, instead of a mistrusting ally.

"Nearly four months now," Zechs told her. "I suspect something amiss is happening temporally. Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell have been here for much longer."

His jaw tensed. "My sister also has appeared two months ago. I am going to guess you didn't believe any of them had been missing."

[sally_ho]

That raised her brows. Sally didn't mean to shoot a glance at the man, but she couldn't help it. The Vice Foreign Minister was as big a name for good as Zechs was for the opposite. That the gundam pilots, too, seemed to have been here for months was alarming, especially as she'd heard no word on their disappearance.

Not that Sally was informed on all the machinations of the agency... but she liked to think she had her ear to the ground well enough that she'd have heard something like this.

So it was some silent trudging through the sand with a man she felt wrong working with under anything but the most dire of circumstances, parsing out how dire this circumstance was to put her here, rather than an immediate volley of questions.

There was one really only one other question, then, that followed from Zechs' information. Awkward, maybe, but important enough to her that she prioritized it over the rest. If the rest were here, she could get more reliable information from them.

"Noin?"

[zechs_isonfire]

"No," Zechs breathed out, quiet but unable to mask all of his relief. Especially as he continued, "Thank god. I would not subject my worst enemies to a place like this. Let alone ..."

He didn't finish the thought. Because his sister was still here. And while the friend he trusted most had been so far spared - that still left ....

"... But Treize Kushrenada has been here for a month. Alive, needless to say. His last moments that he remembers were from the battle two years ago." Zechs said that just as calm and straightforward as anything else, but there's a lot of weight behind his eyes, aimed directly ahead.

[sally_ho]

Noin was spared, but Treize? Sally's expression tightened, and she couldn't help but throw a look up at Zechs. "Damn," she said... but was it in horror, or utter bemusement?

Schooling herself, she shook her head and said, "some time you're going to have to share your ability to keep popping back up with the rest of the class." Yes, that was a dig, and yes, it was meant to hurt.

But the biggest question of all still niggled at her. "Who is the Augur? What do they really want?"

[zechs_isonfire]

However, that quip didn't produce any expression from Zechs whatsoever, as if she hadn't said anything particularly targeted toward him. Instead, he asked, "Isn't it obvious?"

"But the wicked are like the raging sea, that can not rest, whose water foam with the mire & gravel.
So the wicked have no peace, so says God."

Zechs took a long breath in and out. "The Augur appears to be some sort of artificial intelligence, at least on its surface. I do not know if that is a facade, or reality. All that it commands are robots, but they could be puppets to someone we're unaware of."

"And," Zechs added, "as far as I've been able to tell? It's aims are entirely for us to have as much sex as possible, by whatever means necessary. And it will manipulate and control us to that end."

[sally_ho]

She'd been thinking it all along, but 'hell' seemed to have a poetic ring. "Not exactly the end I thought I'd meet," she replied, more as a defense to the notion than out of any sort of camaraderie.

"But... it doesn't sound like you to give up after... what, a couple of months?" Sally gave a low scoff. "You sound beaten." Or like he'd decided to get in league with this soulless intelligence. "Where is it based?" As though she'd already given up on him for anything more useful.

[zechs_isonfire]

“It’s not a fate I had ever pictured for you,” Zechs agreed with her, whether or not she thought this was an apt fate for him.

But then? He finally bristled a little, expression tightening. “I have not given up. Had I not said that I’d find a way back for you, for my sister, for myself and whoever should wish to leave?”

Zechs gave her a serious frown. “I’ll give you the location. While I’ve worked with an engineer and programmer who attempted to get more information from the Augur - and he suffered no ill effect? I’ll still advise you to remain cautious.”

“The Augur can change people. Control people. Have you perform actions you’d never dream of, even to harm others, and curse you with those memories. It has the power to control us, and so far, I have discovered no defense against it.”

[sally_ho]

Sally stopped in her tracks, looking after Zechs with her hands on her hips. It took all her effort of will, but the doctor waged its own war with the soldier. She could still feel contempt and compassion together, could she not? ...For Zechs, or rather Milliardo Peacecraft, though?

"Have you been to a doctor?"

Sally's bedside manner could be deeply empathetic. For Zechs, though, disappointment seemed to be the better prod. She knew just enough about the technology used by the Gundam pilots to suspect that Zechs, too, must have suffered some cerebral snafus. Let alone having been widely believed to burn alive in the meteor shower following the end of the first Eve war. (How he'd been brought back to weasel his way into Lady Une's agency was still beyond her.)

"Not that I don't believe you. But... that sounds dangerous."

[zechs_isonfire]

“... You believe this is due to my history. That I am mentally unstable,” Zechs translated, bluntly.

He gave her a flat look. For a long moment, not really judging, more analyzing.

“I can’t convince you if I am sane, perhaps. But I can say many, many people on this island suffered those effects. Those who are sane, those who are good individuals. The robots here do not discriminate. If you doubt me, please feel free to verify with virtually anyone else. I simply didn’t want to leave you unarmed without knowledge of the dangers.”

[sally_ho]

"Only partly," Sally replied, at least to his assertion about being mentally unstable. She wouldn't lie to him, despite her instinctive sense of revulsion.

"Whether or not it's a shared experience doesn't make it any less worth investigating." The Augur controlled the hospital, which meant resources that were likely guarded. Sally took up walking again, if only because she needed to move. "I never thought I'd see a day where someone learned to weaponize love." Maybe that was too simplistic a break-down. She suspected as much.

Either way, it seemed only fair to talk about it with someone who had taken and tried to break just about every other way to let people live in peace.

[zechs_isonfire]

"Love?" Zechs couldn't help but say in a slightly incredulous tone. "There's many things this weaponizes, but that is not the first thing I'd list."

He shook his head, and told her - "What this weaponizes is your sense of self."

"Certainly," Zechs admitted, "this place will remove your chance to consent when it can. Perhaps you'll feel infatuated with another person. Perhaps you'll feel compelled to do things with a stranger, that you wouldn't do normally."

"But this place also will transform your body - in benign ways, such as modifying your appearance, or biological sex - and in dangerous ways, perhaps literally transforming you into a monster from myth, along with your very personality, so it matches," Zechs told her. "People begin to doubt they can protect others, because there is no method of prevention. People begin to doubt if they can trust themselves, because while changed by the Augur, chances are you are completely unaware you've lost your rational mind. You might not remember you were even human at all."

"And, even if you are unaffected - you'll run into people you knew, and trusted, who have entirely changed - and the only way to help, is to complete the tasks the Augur sets," Zechs told her, "without knowing if they'd consent if they were in their right minds."

"That is what this place weaponizes, Agent," Zechs told her. "Not love."

[sally_ho]

That was a lot to take in, but the ongoing monologue at least was enough to half tune out. She held up a hand, pausing as they walked, and turned towards the man. "You mind?" But she was already doing it, pinching his cheek. That was how this worked, right? Surely she was dreaming. Having a nightmare?

None of this made any other kind of sense, and having Zechs of all people narrating the troubles she was likely to experience ahead... it all sounded very much like a Sally Po kind of nightmare.

[zechs_isonfire]

"Mind wh-" Zechs was about to ask, but she was already pinching his face. He gave her a flat look, but didn't protest or move away. It's not as if she was attacking him, after all. (Which, after everything, might seem warranted anyhow.)

Zechs was quiet as she pinched his face, grimacing a little, but his expression smoothed out when she moved her hand away. "... Satisfied?"

[sally_ho]

"Unfortunately, no." Maybe about 1000 of those later...

But no, she wasn't a schoolyard bully, and Zechs was giving her no reason to be. She was the head of no snake and so, even if he had been the face of utter evil, she felt in her bones a stalling.

But what if he decides to do something again?

She already knew her holster was empty. She didn't trust she could do anything to make him regret another bad decision. Then there was his connections, here or not, that left her wishing she had better clarity on how to treat the moment. Her gut told, be careful, but give him a chance. This is a very different situation, and that left her uncomfortable, because if this were most any other context, Sally would be sure he marched his ass right back into exile. Maybe if Lady Une were here she would have something to say for clarity.

Then again, maybe not, if Treize, too, had somehow been resurrected from dead.

This was too much to take in.

Her expression remained more or less drawn into a faint frown, but she had turned to walk with him again rather than glare at him on the beach. "You might as well tell me how someone lives around here. Not--" she flicked her bracelet-bound wrist, "--this."

"And those mini-dolls, the robots. What about them? Are they ever used like guards?"

[zechs_isonfire]

Zechs breathed out, seeing something complicated play out on her face. Well, he thought. Whatever her thoughts likely were - they were likely unkind, and it would be fair if they were. He didn't expect her to trust him, and wouldn't hold it against her. And so long as she allowed him to answer questions, he'd try to give as much information as he could so she'd have a fair chance to do well here.

He inclined his head. "I don't believe they've been used as guards before - at least, not in the time I've been here. They allow the beasts, monsters, and wild animals of various types to run amok, and don't prevent people - altered by the Augur or otherwise - from attacking each other. They mostly seem here to act as maids, waitstaff, and will dispense food, and aphrodisiacs or other mind-altering substances equally, without distinguishing between them."

For a moment, he considered how to answer the other question. Zechs said, "It depends on the person. Some are treating this as vacation. Others, are basically recreating their homes, complete with vast manors. There are those trying to help other people. Some people are picking up hobbies, or running business such as bars. Others still are training their martial abilities to help protect those here. It's a ... mixed bag."

[sally_ho]

It's like drinking from a water hydrant when all she'd wanted was a trickle. Sally scrapes a knuckle against her chin. "And are those bars anywhere a girl can walk to with soaking boots?"

But she should be grilling him for more. For instance: Monsters? What?!

[zechs_isonfire]

Considering how badly this place could treat a person, Zechs was only attempting to give Sally as much ammunition as possible. He nodded his head. "If you don't mind the walk. That's what I've done, so far - any request made of the Augur in return for its ... requests ... has a chance to be perverted. So I haven't made a gamble to ask for a civilian vehicle yet."

After a moment, he added, "And at such a place, you could ask anyone to corroborate what I'm telling you."

[sally_ho]

Sally quirks her mouth at that. Sir, you've lived your life zipping around in a mobile suit or blasting off into space. She grew up trekking around her home town's mountains without losing breath, even when she wasn't in the military. She doesn't say that, of course.

"You already know I'm going to. So, what are you going by, living here?" Are you Treize's right-hand man, or are you the crazed Milliardo Peacecraft, would-be god of the stars and tyrant of the colonies? Sally is doing her best to remain even-keeled in tone, but despite all of Noin's fond words, he's one of the few she will not even give the illusion of dropping her guard around.

[zechs_isonfire]

“Zechs Merquise,” Zechs told her simply, and just as simply, “Milliardo Peacecraft is dead, and may he remain that way.”

For all of his sins, he felt less ashamed of one name over the other. Zechs Merquise was the name of a soldier and murder from the beginning. There was no family he betrayed there.

He nodded to her. “If you should ever need assistance ... there’s many who would help you here, and I would be one of them.”

Not that he thought she’d ever ask him.

[sally_ho]

She turns and hikes her boots by the strings off one shoulder, clunking them against her thigh. Giving him such a look, she says, "Zechs Merquise, are you propositioning me?"

Let him squirm a little, feel as uncomfortable as she does in taking advice from a two-faced killer. "This place really is hell."

[zechs_isonfire]

Zechs nearly stumbled. "No. That wasn't my intent at all."

He took a moment to compose himself after that, and realized, "Given how this place works, I understand how what I said could be taken in such a way. I apologize. But I am not - I don't -" Zechs felt awkward. "- I only offer that sort of assistance if the other person asks for it explicitly. And I'm willing to help you without any expectations set by the Augur or otherwise, in the same way I would in our own reality. I hope I'm now clear."