driftfleet | Chapter Twelve [Video]

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Chapter Twelve [Video]

Who: Richard Castle and you
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Windrose, if desired
When: February 11th

[When Castle flicks on the video, he's projecting a veneer of calm... very badly, because one can hear an edge of panic in his voice.]

Ha, ha, ha! I don't mean to alarm anybody, but I bought myself one of those spiffy augment upgrades. I picked fire, because who doesn't want to be red hot, am I right? But, enhh... [He holds up his left palm, which has a small but persistent flame on the center.] I can't seem to turn it off. Does anybody here have experience with fire powers? And should it really be this powerful when I've only bought the first level...?

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... yeah, now that you mention it, all of us who've been here for a while do. Even if we've been separated from home for a long time, we've made connections here. [He can take a wild guess that she's referring to Winn in particular.] Some that are deep.

[Definitely Winn. Others too. Kurt. Her crew. The Tourist crew. Other mutants. Other friends.] Yeah. I don't mind the separated part so much for me. It's the losing this that gets scary. [And considering the things she's faced in life for this to scare her is saying something.]

And if we do find a way to escape Atroma, well... it makes the question of whether or not we'd go home a bit less clear-cut, too. I'm not the same person I was when I left... if I'm even still alive, which is still up in the air.

[She nods, remembering that discussion.] I wish I knew how it all worked and how to cheat the system. I spent so long in MarinaNova trying to figure that out and never getting anywhere unless it was to more questions. Saying "anything is possible" feels true and extremely unhelpful.

And that's the problem, isn't it? Even now, with the... [He hesitates, never knowing who might be listening in, and says carefully:] Even if we have some glimmer of hope for escape, we have to be discreet, which is hard when we're allegedly being watched. It's like they've planned for every possible contingency.

The augment is a killer trump card. But even the most impenetrable places get broken into and even the mightiest fall eventually.

Mmhmm. If they really have been going at this for a while, I doubt that nobody has ever found a way to outsmart them. And they're not perfect. They'll show a crack we can exploit. Some sort of loophole we can pull on.