themnemosyne | SEC_Z_Massani to ALL

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SEC_Z_Massani to ALL

Zaeed with Ship Security here.

I'm in the process of rounding up all bracelets for the prior crew. Apparently L3TH3 doesn't have the ability to handle some of the processing and needs human hands on it. I have the list of the last crew cycle's IDs. Please remand any bracelets currently in storage to me and we'll make sure they've all been reset. L3TH3 has handed over access to me to make sure it gets done.

Be aware that I have an exact record of the 28 crew members, excluding the Cap and one member of Operations. If I don't have 29 factory reset bracelets in 48-72 hours, I'll be tearing this place apart to the bulkheads to get them. We've already had one incident because we weren't informed of the oversight. I don't intend this security flaw to happen again.

On a related note: Security logs from 20 years ago leave one crew member in Operations unaccounted for. Aether T34 was a member of the Ops team. I'll be investigating the disappearance further. Any information is appreciated.

I'd appreciate a check in at your leisure so both Security and Medical have records of your identities. Take your time with it.

[He was being a little vague, but there were only, what, 12 of them? 13? He didn't need to be too vague. They just needed to make sure this was addressed. Honestly, he hadn't imagined anyone would do something quite so crazy as stealing a former command officer's bracelet for the stunt pulled, so he was just going to start being paranoid again.

Seemed a good idea.]

If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Hangar at the Security Offices, resetting these blasted things. That'll be all.

(OOC: Action tags are available if you want in the Security Offices in the Hangar.)

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[Responding did technically happen, in that Rin sent a simple response to the message, an 'acknowledged' with no other information attached. They also sent it halfway down the lift, so it was only a few scant minutes after that message that Rin stepped into the security office. They skirted far away from the brig entrance on their way in, and came to a halt just inside the door, looking over at Zaeed and the task he'd currently set himself at.]

I need to see the Security feeds.

['Hi Zaeed, hello, how's the leash deactivation going, do you have a minute? Can I ask you something potentially dangerous?' Nope, just Rin being Rin. They emptied the space in their brain where pleasantries used to be stored, apparently. At least they didn't invade Zaeed's space along with the request or try to go for any of the surveillance equipment.]

Edited (tense fix) 2024-11-10 00:43 (UTC)

[He'd make a note and file away everything he could. In due course, he was going to get all twenty-eight and decommission them as long as he could pull it off. It left the captain and missing mech.

But, for now, here they were. And he was asking for a favor, mmm?]

Hah. Just like that? Which ones would that be? There's a lot of feeds, you know.

[Now they step forward, arms crossed - they've gotten over trying to stick their hands into their nonexistent pockets for now, which would be their other preference for signaling intent to look but not touch.]

How close can you get to the Bridge? Clearance-wise. I want to check something.

[He seemed just fine with the no touchy option.]

I can't get the feed inside, or aywhere that we could potentially get a look inside. L3TH3 doesn't want us to see whatever's in there.

Up to that point, I can get some feeds from around the entries, though there's restrictions on a lot around it. Why?

[For approximately 3.4 seconds Rin is silent, staring down the screens in front of Zaeed and the bracelets scattered before him. The 28 crew members the pile represents, and the threat still hanging onto their hand.]

I'd like to verify the Captain's status.

[Their crossed arms tighten.]

Verifying via cameras is the only safe way to do that, despite the restrictions involved. This is... preliminary evaluation.

I'd like to do it too. L3TH3's never let us have access to that info, even when he was talking. Truth told, we don't know if he's ever been alive in the time we're up. Could've died a year ago, and the programming went to shit because there was no fucking captain, so it came up with something that made sense.

[He growled.]

I'll put in an inquiry to L3TH3, see if we can requisition a video feed to make sure he's alive. To avoid paranoia getting the others.

[Rin shakes their head in a negatory gesture, then gestures towards the panel in front of Zaeed, their attention still fixed on that.]

I'm considering something more direct.

[Wow this would feel so much better to say if they were sure L3TH3 wasn't listening in one way or another. They're just going to have to count on Zaeed remembering that conversation in Aeroponics and L3TH3 being bad at implication.]

Am I going to have to worry about this one?

[He's giving you a look, Rin. but he's asking because you're doing him the favor of actually asking about this instead of, ya know, just running off to kill the captain.]

I won't break anything.

[That's not the concern, though, is it. Rin just gestures to the screen, instead, where the camera displays are usually kept.]

The cameras exist on the bridge, they're just access-locked. So it's a matter of determining the proper access paths to confirm the data from L3TH3. If she throws a fit, I go into the cells or something. Big deal.

[They shrug, clearly not bothered by the idea. Give them some movies and they'll be good. It'll be paradise. Except for the restricted movement and needing their food brought to them instead of being able to handle that privately, but they won't think about that until they have to.]

Alright. I think I see where you're going there. I don't know if Commander Aurello even had access to the bridge cameras, at least not towards the end. That access, like the main gate into the Bridge, has been locked off. What Wolfwood did, besides being damned stupid, was affect a subsystem he had access to in Ops. The security cameras on the bridge itself's a direct access.

But. If you're feeling stupid. Are you suggesting that you turn in old Atom Aurello's badge to me after risking your neck to see if you can sneak a peak?

I bet I can do it from here. They have to be networked. A security camera you can only access from A-Level would be fucking stupid. And L3TH3 said it was command accessible.

[Rin's eyes are sharp, and focused. They actually look at Zaeed, meeting his gaze for one single second, before looking away again. It's that important, no matter how uncomfortable this makes them - proving this one point isn't going to solve all their problems, but they need a base point to establish whether L3TH3 is telling them the truth about something. On a more personal level, if Rin is going to start testing the boundaries of the system, they're going to have to cross a few lines. And unlike Wolfwood, this plan really can't affect anyone but them.

... And Zaeed, if the ship decides he's complicit, but - that's why they're here, aren't they.]

Are you saying no?

What I'm saying is that we can say you were the one turning in old Atom's badge to me. You and I picked up half the badges in the first place. You just happened to access the cameras while you had a chance, before you turned it in for destruction. Catch my drift?

[He checked to make sure there wasn't a camera on them and slapped the bracelet into his hand.]

L3TH3 expects them destroyed, though. So do what you're going to do fast so we follow through with the order.

[He wanted to make sure the captain was alive, even if he was some weird flesh pile of god knows what.]

... Right.

[Rin closed their hand around the bracelet, letting it drop to their side. They didn't have pockets on their bodysuit to tuck it into, so instead they just had to slip the status bracelet around their own wrist, where it would hopefully be unobtrusive enough.

They were blank there for a moment, processing surprise. Their argument was well-reasoned, but somewhere in the back of their head Rin still expected not to be listened to. It's surprisingly nice to be taken seriously.

Now they just have to not fuck it up.]

You'll have the bracelet by your deadline.

I'll be holding you to it, or I'm going to put you in the cell right across the hall from Wolfwood so you two can snarl at each other all day and keep each other company.

[...because that seemed like a good way to punish them both.]

[Rin doesn't verbally react to that, but the expression on their face before they smooth it out again should give Zaeed all the answer he needs to that - they'd absolutely hate it.

They take a few steps back towards the door, already poking through their CL-10 in what is evidently a quick switch to Work Mode, when they pause and look back to Zaeed.]

Want to see what I get?

...
...
...

[This was a bad idea. he was expecting something of a Lovecraftian horror scale of terror. That the captain had been transformed into an immobile terror that made you wish for...]

Yes.

[Better to know than not.]

[If Zaeed thought he was going to get any more confirmation than a nod, he's wrong - Rin's been given a time limit, and they're already mentally dedicating their processing space to that task ahead. (And, in the background, to a couple contingency plans. They don't exactly want to get shot again. Confirming with Zaeed for plausible deniability was a good first step but he isn't the only one on Security and Rin has no read on how trigger-happy those others are just yet.)

So - a casual nod, as Rin leaves the room and makes straight for the nearest Security terminal, instead. Maybe it would make sense to give it a couple hours, but they're of the opinion that it's best to get these things over with. So they connect their CL-10 to the terminal, tap the former Security Officer Araullo's leash, and start hunting for Bridge cameras.]

[ After a few minutes of searching, the camera feed sputters to life, very briefly displaying the Bridge.

It is barely recognizable.

The captain’s chair, once a symbol of authority, has become a grotesque throne. Orion Drake is slumped within it, his form fused to the synthetic leather and metal. Pustules of raw, pulsing tissue has consumed the armrests, tendrils of sinew snaking into the chair’s seams. The overhead lighting casts sharp shadows on the carnage, highlighting the oily sheen of congealed fluids coating the floor.

Orion himself is a horror beyond comprehension. His torso is no longer symmetrical, as one side had ballooned into a mass of tumorous growths, while the other has withered, skin stretched taut over brittle bones. Patches of his uniform cling to his body, soaked through with ichor and sweat, but most of his flesh is bare. Pinkish strands tangle with fibrous matter that looks half muscle, half something else entirely. His left arm is a gnarled ruin, split open like overripe fruit, the bone exposed but glistening, as if trying and failing to grow more tissue to replace itself.

His head jerks slightly, barely able to lift under its own weight. The left side of his face has swelled up and a milky eye twitches in its socket. His right eye is intact but reddened, its pupil contracting unnaturally as if registering some alien agony. Tendrils of flesh has sprouted around his neck, writhing weakly, glistening with viscous fluid as if seeking something to latch onto.

The worst is his abdomen. It has ruptured, spilling entrails that doesn't appear entirely human. Organs slither, moving with a life of their own, glimmering with an unnatural sheen. Amid this chaos, new limbs has begun to form - claws and spindly appendages bursting from his ribcage. In the far corner, a disembodied hand - still wearing its regulation glove - twitches faintly in the slurry of tissue pooling across the floor.

The only place clear of flesh is around L3TH3's mainframe, diligently cleaned by a rusted, half-broken bot.

...then the screen goes dark just as quickly, 'ACCESS DENIED' showing on the screen in L3TH3's signature colors. ]

Unauthorized access. Security alerted.

[Zaeed got the alert and sent a message to all the relevant personnel. 'I've got this. Someone probably tried using the band while they still could. I took responsibility for destroying these things.' He CC'd L3TH3 to cover his ass and made his way towards the command terminal for security at a dead run.

Did he know what just happened? Yeah, he had a good idea. However, if L3TH3 wasn't immediately chastising him, he was also the one who'd been given this task and there were appearances to be kept. So he stormed there, hoping that a certain someone had the sense to make a copy if they could and get out of there, leaving the band behind. As he ran, he growled in a message to L3TH3.]

I've got this, but do you know what was accessed?

[Rin better not have accessed more than the logs.]

A camera has been accessed by CSEC_P_Araullo's CAL-1.0-PE command bracelet. The CAL-1.0-PE's were supposed to be deactivated, so my systems shut it down.

The access came from security terminal 45.

Right. We'll have Araullo's command bracelet accounted for. Day's end at the latest. With any luck the damned thing's still at Terminal 45.

As I said. I put out the call to grab the last of them. His was on the list.

[As fortune would have it, the other command bracelets were already accounted for and deactivated. Ya know, to avoid this happening again.]

At least it's a camera this time, not life support.

Affirmative. In the light of this breach, all access to the Bridge cameras has now been deleted and will only be reinstated by division command.

A note has been put in the files about Security's failure to deactivate all the command bracelets before a second incident.

I will leave the arrest and proper punishment to Security.

[ It's the closest to being snippy she can be, honestly. ]

[Luckily (if that's even the word for it) Rin did in fact set to screen-record their findings. The point of this is to provide evidence that the Captain is alive, and maybe send Medical some information on his condition so that they can start analyzing it to figure out some kind of proper antibody. Being able to show people is the important part, and since Rin doesn't exactly have a camera in their eyes, they'll need to get the footage another way.

It's for the best, because Rin's first viewing of the footage is completely stalled by the reality of the situation on the bridge. Even with their mods, there's a 1.5 second window where they can't parse the image on the screen. Then they resolve the shape of it into something intelligible, and everything is, abruptly, worse.

It's the [ACCESS DENIED] that jerks them out of it. They leave the terminal and the bracelet, walking stiffly but surely. They don't go towards the Security offices, but they only make it as far as the Hangar before they find a corner and pull up that footage again, watching it - again. Then again. Then again. There's... a lot to take in.]

[From the corner, there were heavy footfalls. Zaeed made his way to the position and grabbed the bracelet as soon as he could. Once he had it, he confirmed the identity and sent a swift report to L3TH3.]

Record of failure noted. We'll deal with that when the next chance for Division to take a look at our collective fuckups comes along. Go ahead and attach my name specifically for failure to snag the last command bracelet in time. I took the task on my own damned self.

Confirmed, Pagaduan Araullo's bracelet in custody. Security authorization lock on bridge security cameras noted. I'll inform the rest of security later. Perp isn't here. I'm setting priority on destroying this bracelet. Other command bracelets are already destroyed. I can look into the culprit after.

Confirm priority?

Confirmed. SEC_Z_Massani has been noted as responsible for the situation.

Confirmed. Priority is deactivating the bracelet. Culprit can be later be traced to the location via their own CAL-1.0-PE.

Carry on, Mr. Massani.

[Whatever carrying on Zaeed does with the CAL-10-PE bracelets, he won't have to wait for too long to find out about the results of this very mysterious unauthorized hacking attempt that he of course knew nothing about. A few hours later, Rin sends a simple ping, with nothing more than the words Science labs. Nothing attached, no footage or any other indications.]

[He'd make a mental note to give Rin a warning before he ultimately forward the security information on whose wristband had been near the terminal when the wrong access was given. He strongly suspected this would be a mark against Rin and a record for future infractions, but there'd been no harm. He doubted it'd go further. L3TH3 was bound by protocols.

However, they'd cross that bridge if/when it came up. When he got the message, he made a mental note not to report the finding as being before that time stamp and made his way over to the Science Labs, having a look around either for Rin or something like a data storage device.]

[They'll cross that bridge when they come to it - it's a good philosophy to hold onto right now, with everything.

Rin, for their part, hasn't left this to something so easy as a simple data storage device lying on a counter. They might like to, but there's... a lot about this that they're still analyzing.

In a literal sense. Part of that clip is still playing on their screen, when Zaeed pokes his head into their particular section of the lab - not the advanced computation setup they're currently taking over, but one of the many random sections that sits empty around them. The playback pauses when Zaeed enters, and Rin looks over at him, silent but expectant.]

... right, so I'm fucking glad I made sure this was before lunch, not afterwards.

[That was his first assessment as he thumped in from behind and stared over his shoulder. Good god... He was surprisingly good at keeping himself from going mad, but this was ... it was something. It was like something out of a really cheesy old horror movie, only real.]

I'd say a bullet to the head would be a kindness, but I'm not sure that'd fucking work. The hell is he now?

[The footage reaches the end and repeats again, an auto-loop of horror. Rin doesn't jerk away, thanks to Zaeed making his arrival pretty obvious. Instead they continue staring at the footage.]

... Alien contamination. Guess they can't all be like Elheen.

[They've settled for stiff matter-of-factness on this one, now that they've had time to shove down the horror.]

... L3TH3's servers have to be over there. [The area being kept clear by the cleaning bot.]

At least some of the server banks pivotal to the ship and the AI, yes.

[He stepped up, watching the full thing playing out before moving to stand to the side. He didn't need to keep staring at it. It was ... a lot. Taking a few breaths, he managed to get his mental state into a 'drink it away tomorrow' mindset.]

It's a mutation of one. I'd definitely say he got the worst of it, compared to the others. They died fast, but he's been like that for twenty years?!?

[The playback blessedly stops, for now. Instead Rin starts pulling it apart, clipping out and focusing in on sections. At the moment it's those servers and the bot working near them, so no need to think about... the rest of the room.]

... I don't see how it can work. Maybe the doctors can.

[There's a thread of doubt in there.]

Explains the 100% mortality rate.

I don't think they have a damned clue. Hilbert's fucking fascinated by it, so trust me. He hasn't reached any sort of answer yet. Especially since this is what the 'cure' did to it when it mutated.

[Fuck.]

God-damned menace. Like nothing back home.

[Rin remains silent for a few moments, not denying Zaeed's point, which is sometimes as good as one can get with them. They're busy zooming in on individual frames, trying and failing to get granular detail out of the footage in ways that the camera feed simply won't allow for.]

You got a security alert about it, right?

[The unauthorized access, they mean, but without actually providing context who knows?]

Yeah. L3TH3 knows which terminal you used. It's going to know if I falsify any damned records, so it'll find out it's you one way or another. I'll need to report it in.

Chances are L3TH3 isn't actually fucking stupid. It'll figure out I let it slide. I'll let you know if anything other than demerits gets involved. [He snorted.]

Nothing that blasted thing can really do without locking us all up at this rate.

Fine. I can do data analysis from anywhere.

[Ignoring that one of the possible outcomes is revoking their access to any ship systems, temporarily... it'll be fine. They're not anticipating the threat of personal retaliation from the Captain right now, though after the status update they might. That's in the future. For the present, Rin is occupied with trying to figure out everything they can about the Bridge.]

She already won't give me access to shit, so not like that'll change.

She's got weird ideas about what we need to have access to.

[He would reflect later that, had she been willing and he willing, they could have distributed some pieces of information that would have avoided this whole conversation. He'd feel bad about the invasion of privacy, but... glad to know that the man's presence wasn't being falsified.

He didn't think the captain understood how nervous they were about L3TH3's process of deciding what they needed.]

For one, I damned well think we need to cut this whole "classified" shit. We're all the ship has.

Even on a crew of thirty it doesn't seem useful unless there's a high degree of mistrust. Which there shouldn't be. They didn't wake up to an emergency situation.

[Rin goes silent, pausing the steady crawl through the footage corners.]

I've seen a lot of horror movies that start like this.

I've seen my share too. None of them end well. The AI keeping secrets is fine right up until the secret ends up being lethal for all of us.

[He snorted and shook his head.]

But without the command badges, not sure if we can figure out what that is in advance, when it comes.

Maybe we can talk the Captain into authorizing it.

[Since they've established that he's real, and all! And... well. They haven't established how sound of mind the man is as far as Rin's aware, but getting the man to rubber stamp things they propose doesn't require much input from him.]

Next time she sends an update. Seems like she runs those by him. Sometimes.

[He was silent on the last one, but... it's better than nothing, right?]

My impression... and this assumes that everything's up and up and I think... [He grunted, hating this inability to be sure of himself.]

I don't think the AI is intentionally deceiving us. So, if he's not replying, he's not lucid. Which, considering twenty god-damned years like that, is hard to fault if he's alone the whole time with just the AI for "company." When he's lucid, they run it by him, yeah.

How much control he has right now, open to debate, but he might authorize it.

Probably better if you do that.

[They're blunt about it - they're many things, but 'good with people' is a descriptor that most people wouldn't apply to them after about five minutes in their presence.]

I've had a decent conversation with the man once. Might be able to convince him. But we need to be damned clear what we're asking him, so next time it's possible we get it right.

We'll see if he's up to it.

[Rin nodded, staring at their screen.]

I don't know what else to do about his situation.

[It's an unbidden admission, and entirely begrudging. The thought just kind of - spilled out, before they thought better of opening their mouth. Almost as soon as it's out in the open, they clench their jaw again.]

... Never mind.

It's... not something we can damned well fix on our own unless we find some miracle. Try not to let it settle in.

Those thoughts'll drive you mad.

Right.

[More a mutter than any proper answer. Rin rallies again after a moment, resuming their work.]

If this turns up anything else interesting, I'll forward the relevant details to you.

I won't hold my breath, but we've got time. Just let me know. For now... I'm going to keep up my patrols. [He grunted, trying to get some thoughts out of his mind.]

See you around.

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SEC_Z_Massani to ALL

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CW: So much body horror and gore I'm sorry

(No worries)

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