[Eiru, Pyracan] Displaced Demonstration – Investigation

[Razorback]

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Lyddmull Trocaire Medical Center <Eiru> 08:59 PM
In Character Diagnostic Unit 06 September 2650
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Hosting a place for a patient to lay or space for a gurney, this room houses all sorts of neat machines to see what might be wrong. The room itself seems to be part machine with the walls fairly covered with them. A small side room hosts a plethora of computer equipment and monitors to allow the engineers to see what the machines uncover.
This room can be tagged. See +tag/help for commands.
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Contents:
Exits:
<O> Out

Seated in an examination room by himself, Lyddmull is slumped over a desk with a monitor on it, replaying a Vollistan working through the mess left in Deputy Akela’s mind over and over again. Asleep.

From one of the other rooms, where she’d apparently been shoved overnight by one (or likely a lot more) of the nurses, Al staggers, looking rumpled and bleary. She slouches over to where Lyddmull is also sleeping, and mumbles a couple of “Hey. Hey honey. Hey. Hey darlin’,” making sure he’s at least moderately awake before she plants a kiss below his left ear.

The Seamel wakens with only a hint of a start. He stretches his eyes open wide a few times as he stretches his shoulders with a series of crunching sounds. “Ah, good …” he glances up at the chrono on the wall, “… evening. I must have fallen asleep.” He rubs his eyes a few times. “I returned from Earth a few hours ago and decided to go over all this again before speaking to you,” he says.

“I fell sleep too… not discountin’ somebody hittin’ me with a tranq,” Al drawls, pausing to go over to the sink and wash her hands, face, and rinse out her mouth. “Earth? Whut’d you go to Earth for?”

“Well,” Lyddmull says, still shaking the sleep out of his head, “I thought that since it had happened there too, they might have some insights into what was going on. They had an interesting theory, which the doctor here has confirmed a likely root cause.”

Alhambra pulls a chair across the floor with a quiet scrape and sinks into it. “…hey, that’s a good idear,” she muses. “You so smart. I din’t even think about talkin’ to people on other planets. So… whut’s this brain magic jiggamaree doin? I don’t understand half the shit that doc says.”

“Well,” Lyddmull says, grinning sheepishly, “I just received something of a crash course on galactic history which I understood little of myself. What do you know about the Parallax?”

“They’s assholes,” Al replies, with absolute earnest positivity.

“Well, I suppose,” Lyddmull replies with a chuckle, “And that seems to be part of the problem. Many of the worlds under the rule of the Parallax tend to agree with your … estimation. It would seem that among other things, the Nall use certain psionic races under their sway, the Vollistans included, as telepathic interrogators of a sort. They can not only pull memories from the minds of the interrogated individual, but also plant new ones. Powerful individuals can even alter personalities for a time.”

Alhambra rumbles thoughtfully. “Yeah, that part I heard about. Well, the interrogatin’. I din’t ask for details. But… why in the shit would the Nall want people to be extra pissed off about them on other planets?”

“Why indeed,” Lyddmull replies, “Though the San Angeles police officials I spoke to did not seem to think that the Nall themselves had anything to do with it. It has been known for some time that there was unrest in the Parallax. The Grimlahdi recently made some sort of move on their masters, it stands to reason that this may be another such attempt.”

“Uhhh, I still don’t get it. None of these places is even remotely close to Parallax territory, neither are any of us showin’ ANY inclination as far as I know to be friendly to the goddanged suitcases. Why not set this off on, y’know, worlds where they might actually be a problem?” Al asks, brow furrowing in extra confused thought.

“I have been thinking about that,” Lyddmull says with a nod, “And the San Angeles police seem baffled as well. But it brought me to mind of some of the things Shadow-touched would do on occasion. They had not the power to overthrow the soldiery of the Empire. The combined might of the Imperial Blades and the Houses would have crushed them. Sometimes, people would forget their plight. And inevitably, some mage, misguided though he or she might be, would think it necessary to remind us.”

Alhambra’s brow furrows some more. “Uh, yeah I ain’t forgot that the Nall is assholes… not a whole hell of a lot I can do about it. I can’t really imagine liking them any -less-,” she drawls. “Fuck’re we supposed to do? I ain’t givin’ up my townsfolk to go protestin’ Nall, especially if it means they’re settin’ shit on fire and tryin’ to bite people.”

“Desperate people do not always think rationally,” Lyddmull says with a shrug, “Did you have no one in your world who would do apparently insane things to bring attention to their cause?”

“Yeah, alla the dang time, but I don’t recall it ever doin’ anything other’n getting innocent folks hurt and then gettin’ their dumbasses thrown in jail,” Alhambra drawls with a heavy shouldered shrug.

“Yes,” Lyddmull says with a chuckle, though he nods in agreement, “And so it must be with those who perpetrated this act.” His mirth disappears quickly, glancing over at the monitor. “The doctor says that Deputy Akela is himself again, and resting,” he says, “Thank the Light for that.”

Alhambra perks up. “Oh, good. At least people is wakin’ up. That’s slightly less of a worry. Not that I want it to happen again, folks could get killed.” She mutters the last bit more soberly. “Folks -have- been killed. But I mean how the shit can you track psionic whatsamajiggers? It’s not like it’s a computer.”

“No,” Lyddmull agrees, leaning back in his chair for a moment, “But each of the affected individuals would have to have been in proximity of our perpetrator, or perpetrators. It would at least narrow things down.”

“Nkay, so basically whut we have to do is wait for everybody to feel better and then ask them where they’ve been in the bits before the incident,” Alhambra drawls, getting unsteadily to her feet and heading to the door with a “Be right back, gonna go find us some coffee an’ somethin’ to eat.”

The Seamel nearly rises as he sees Alhambra’s shakiness, a hand reaching out should she fall, but remains where he is once she seems to be able to manage. “You need to rest, my Lady,” he says quietly, “Or you will be in no shape to deal with this.”

“Baby, I need to eat somethin’, an’ I… think I had a nap. An’ if you’re doin’ work, I sure as hell ain’t going home. So. If you want me to take a break, you got to take a break, I reckon.” Al stops to lean on the doorjamb of the exam room.

“Your people cannot see you falling off of your feet,” Lyddmull replies, rising himself now and crossing the room, “Whereas my doing so would mean quite little.” He holds up a hand though, in case she should protest further, “However, if you will not rest until I do, than I will do so.”

“If you say so, my people see me do a lot of shit, but I’ll take a break if you take a break,” Alhambra drawls. “So you wanna go home or whut?”

“I cannot sleep well in a hospital bed,” the Seamel admits, somewhat sheepishly, “Flamesprite is just outside and would get us home quickly enough.”

Alhambra is already heading sleepily towards the door. “Okay if you wanna be old fashioned, after we eat, you can sleep on my couch. An’ if you don’t care we can both sleep on the couch.”

“Now when have I not been old-fashioned,” Lyddmull replies with a faint chuckle as he follows the Sheriff.

Some hours later …

Alhambra is mostly quiet during the walk to the hospital; before entering, she raises her hat and Rikki disappears under it without a word (or a squeak) between them. She takes a slow, deep breath, and clomps towards the secured ward in which the ‘protestors’ are being housed. After giving the chart display a critical once-over, she heads for the cluster of beds nearest the door which hold her stricken deputies.

Akela is currently the only one awake. He is in restraints but seems far more himelf than he was the last time Alhambra saw him. “Sheriff,” he gruffs, trying to sit up before he remembers the restraints, “I’m sorry, I didn’t … I mean, I couldn’t …”

The Seamel steps in behind Alhambra, nearly filling the doorway with his bronze-clad form. He remains silent, his brow furrowed in concern.

“S’all right, I ain’t gonna kick your ass today, son,” Al drawls gently, grabbing a chair, dragging it over, and turning it around so she can sit down. “How’s about we start with the last thing you can remember before everything went crazypants, and we’ll go from there?” She pulls out her PDA, squints at it, turns it around a few times, and then holds it up to her hat, where Rikki pokes out, extracts the stylus for her, and then hands it over. She scribbles a few test notes before looking up, clearly ready to go.

“I was in the Bazaar, I think,” the Pyracani says, his canines visible as he grimaces, “Taking statements from the incident with the thief. Everything went foggy for a while then, until I was helping to set up the barricade.”

Lyddmull still says nothing allowing the Sheriff to do her job, though his hand rests on the hilt of his sword, more out of old habit than anything else.

“Hokay, that’s a thing,” Al soothes, carefully taking notes. She pauses, thoughtfully. “…shit, I wonder if that Hek kid wasn’t totally out of his tree suggesting that there could be a connection. Okay, so you was in the Bazaar, and you do not recall leavin’ the Bazaar before everything went weird, is that correct?”

“I don’t think so,” the Pyracani says, his ears leaning back in confusion, “Well, I remember a whole lot of other stuff that I don’t remember before. It’s very strange.”

An upraised eyebrow is the only reaction from the horseman.

Alhambra scratches her eyebrow with the stylus and continues taking notes. “Um, it was suggested that like, somebody put stuff in your head to make you think you was somebody else, is that kinda whut you mean? Like… somebody else’s, um. Memories, maybe? Christ on a bike I am not the person to be analyzing this shit.”

“Well, the barricade,” Akela says, grimacing, “It wasn’t here, it was somewhere else. It was underground in some kind of cavern. Tunnels in the walls and what not. Some Nall walked up to the barricade and tried to get us to shut it down, so I jumped him….. Sorry.”

Lyddmull chuckles mirthlessly at that, leaning on the doorjamb for the moment.

Alhambra also chuckles, shaking her head. “Man even in people’s hallucinatin’ I’m getting mistaken for a dude. Okay so that kind of meshes with whut we was told, you guys thinkin you was somewhere and somebody else, and that everybody else was Nall. Well, I can forgive you for giving me a bruised ass if you can… realize that you got took down by three interns from the large animal vet’s office.” Pause. “An’ all of them was -girls-.”

“Of course they were,” Akela replies, wrinkling his nose irritably, “I remember the Nall soldiers taking me away. Oh …. something else was weird… I think I had four arms.”

That get’s Lyddmull’s attention. “You had what?” he asks.

Alhambra writes this down. “Okay, that’s a thing. So we’ve got Nall, and we’ve got folks with four arms. Who do we know who’s got four arms?”

“Yoridini, sometimes,” Akela replies with a muted shrug, still in restraints.

“I have seen Odarites on occasion,” Lyddmull says, pursing his brow, “They have four arms.”

“Nkay, I’ll write this up and send it to dispatch an’ they can get us a list of all the races whut have four arms. This is good, this is good, man. Okay. You gettin’ tired, ’cause if you gettin’ tired we can stop,” Al says, furiously scribbling notes. “Annd, then we can have the eggheads cross-reference it with folks having a hard time with Nall.” She looks at her notes. “…still don’t explain why they came -here-, I mean I can see MAYBE around the Earth and Mars area, ’cause of that jabber about the Consortium havin’ a Nall embassy or some shit, but we are so not inclined to such, uh… well let’s call it diplomacy and leave it.”

The Pyracani nods, laying back and falling silent for now.

“It happened on Demaria too,” Lyddmull points out, “They do not have dealings with the Nall either.”

Alhambra rumbles thoughtfully, continuing to take notes. “Well, half an ounce of sense is better’n no sense at all. Deputy, get some rest, there’ll be plenty of time to unravel shit once everybody’s less scrambled.” She stands up, murmuring quietly, “I don’t know whether I’m happy or sad that folks seem to be remembering their ends of this… Feels as if it’d be like to give them nightmares or something.”

“It probably will,” Lyddmull says with a nod, “They were given a glimpse into the lives of tortured souls who are desperate enough to have done this.” He shakes his head, stepping back out of the doorway.

“Hokay, I’ma go get this to the station, see whut we can piece together. Don’t go gallavantin’ around the universe without me, hear?” Al says to Lyddmull, tipping her hat to the resting deputy before also heading out the door.

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