driftfleet | Calibration Post 1, "Daytime"

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Calibration Post 1, "Daytime"

[ Not long after the shuffle, there's a ripple of static over the network - loud, sudden, and seemingly with no origin. It's puzzling, but there's no indication that it's going to happen again...

Until a minute later. Another surge of static comes in over the speakers, and then a voice - one some may find familiar, though not necessarily welcome, after all of this time... It's Diamond. Long time no speak, hmm?

Clearly, not all is well. She sounds very far away, for one. For another, she sounds... skeptical, almost alarmed. There may actually be real concern in her voice. ]

Again? Twice in one c--

[ Her sentence is cut short with a strangled gasp, followed by a moment of silence. What follows may be the sound of metal dragged across metal, but it's hard to place. When she speaks again, it's uncharacteristically monotonous. ]

... Bring them in.

[ A blip of lost time passes right after those words, before every passenger mysteriously wakes alone in their own unfamiliar room. The style of decor resembles that of the Marsiva's Hospitality Deck, if any passengers should remember what that's like. It sounds and smells the same as the host ship as well, all clean and chrome, but this set of rooms has only been used once, and for the very same purpose that befalls the fleet contestants now.

As for their hosts, there is no immediate sign of them, though some may recall a series of hideous, half-electronic screams before their memories begin to blur upon arrival...

Welcome back to the Marsiva, dear passengers. It's time for round two of calibrations. ]

[ This mingle will cover all non-calibration room interactions. Please continue to come back to it for the duration of the plot! You are, of course, free to post any other mingles/posts/etc. that you'd like. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh, well. Perhaps you'll have a whole new crew by the end of it.

[And perhaps Rip might have been slowly driven mad; a month of these blasted calibrations, as he's learned they're called.

A month of anyone and everyone potentially crawling through his head.]

You needn't concern yourself, Miss Carter. I've no intention of using anything I've learned against you.

[Whether or not she believes him, Rip has no control over. He expects, however, that to be the end of the matter.]

[ but it's never that easy, is it? intel and intention don't always run hand-in-hand. every interaction is painted by what they've seen -- including this one. there's evidence enough of that fact in that she's contact him at all. had what she'd seen the second time not teased a change of heart, then this conversation wouldn't be happening.

but take, for example, the hidden blade in what he says: a whole new crew. as if he shouldn't already know there's at least one in that number who will never earn banishment.

and it's quite possible that rip never did, either. not really. so! ]

It's possible I may have been a bit premature in my sentencing.

[ -- this is as near to an apology as she'll come, perhaps. at least in words. ]

[Perhaps it's not easy, but it is a choice. And whether or not she believes it--whether or not he always lives up to it--Rip has some manner of principle running through him.

Enough to hope he need never turn any of what he's learned against those whose secrets he now holds.

Yet he doesn't expect much in way of a reply. If anything, she might snap back that she simply couldn't believe it, what with the memories she'd lived without any of their proper context.

(As if that might justify them.)

It's far from what he reads. Unseen, Rip frowns. The message would appear evident in intention--moreso, for the tongue-in-cheek manner of that almost apology.]

I would ask why, but I'd prefer not to discuss it over the communicators. [Meaning if she does want to continue, they would have to meet.]

Then our preferences align in that regard.

[ -- and so they should. but, evidently, peggy's pride wouldn't suffer searching the parts of the marsiva left open to them just so she could muddle her way through a detente. of a sort.

(lord knows they're leagues away from a peace treaty.)

nevertheless, overtures must be made. ]

I gather you're a whiskey drinker. [ provided what she'd spied in his waverider was at all accurate to him. ] The kitchen's got something close to it. Not close enough, mind. But us beggars can't be choosers.

[She's being amicable enough--which leads Rip to again wonder why. No doubt it's connected to her most recent venture into his mind and memories, but even so.

What must she have seen to make her change her mind?]

I do prefer it, yes. [There's only one way to find out. Whatever outcome results, Rip has the opportunity to know, at least from one person, what they discovered about him entirely without his consent.]

I suppose not. [About the drink or the kitchen. It's hardly the most private of places, but perhaps that's better. For them, it can serve as neutral ground.]

I will meet you there shortly.

[ she doesn't offer any further reply. reaching out -- and extending an olive branch, meager though it is -- is movement enough on her part. or so she decides as she waits with her hip leaning against the kitchen counter's edge. she still has her communicator in her hands and turns it, degree by degree, with a kind of nervous energy while she waits.

peggy's got no intention to stay in the kitchen. it is, however, precisely as he suspects: neutral ground. a jumping-off point, where they might quickly decide whether the negotiation is worth pursuing or not. she'd given her word within his mind that the next question she had to ask would be of him. not stolen or gleaned or espied.

the forced sleep cycle must have caught her off guard on the previous night. without the chance to sleep on her pin curls, her trademark style is instead sleek and smooth and naturally straight. peggy has at least managed to pin a section back from her brow.

when rip arrives, he'll find her still standing by the counter. she glances up from her communicator before setting it aside. at her elbow, there's an unlabeled bottle of something whose colour is just a shade off-brand for a decent bourbon. it's still capped. ]

Mister Hunter.

[ she'd been inundated with memories wherein he'd been a captain or recent-captain. even so, she sticks with what's become familiar. ]

Miss Carter.

[He's dressed this time, at least: wearing the outfit he typically seems to favor, sans the duster--although there is one addition. If she looks closely, she'll notice a chain peeking out from the pocket of his vest.

It leads to a watch, tucked carefully away for safekeeping. After everything, he's in no mind to be parted from it.

He looks at her expectantly then. While they both have questions, this is her negotiation to begin--at least in his eyes.]

[ the last time they'd 'spoke', he'd called her peggy. or, rather, an avatar of hers -- the little girl who rightly deserved the diminutive. nevertheless, she's grateful for their return to decorum. and if she notices the chain, she certainly doesn't draw attention to it. for the time being, it's a moot detail. ]

You know, [ a puff of her cheeks. she reaches to grab the bottle, but she doesn't rush to open it. if their first salvos go well, then cracking the lid can wait for when they've settled somewhere more private. ] I think I've lost track of how many versions of you I've seen, now. Is it three? Or maybe four. [ she taps fingers against the bottle's curve as she counts. ] God, I think I could argue that it's been five.

[ it took her some thinking but for all her bluster she'd clearly already settled on that number. ]

With some overlap.

[ -- none too much, she hopes. ]

[If she's going to launch straight into that bit of detail, Rip would regret letting her keep control of the bottle. He already feels like he could sorely use a bit of the burn promised by the color of it's contents.

Off-brand or not.]

Five, is it? You'll have to tell me how you got that high. [Though he says it lightly enough, there's a firmness to the tone. Even knowing she's trespassed through his mind--or because he knows--Rip remains set on not revealing anything more to her than what's strictly necessary.

He will, however, concede her final point.]

I'd assume there must be, if they were all some version of me.

[ her lips part. but -- as fate would have it -- another passenger breezes through the kitchen before she can begin to scold him for stonewalling even now. peggy's fingers choke high on the bottleneck. her temper has already been proven; betraying it now won't help her cause. or his, whatever it might be, though she's beginning to suspect he intends to smart-mouth his way through the conversation.

(it does occur to her that maybe if he's smarting off it's because she's employing no finesse in her approach. worse yet, she's proven herself capable of it; somehow, peggy's decided he no longer warrants that lighter conversational touch.)

she bides her time while the other person, only vaguely familiar, retires from their immediate vicinity and takes a seat at one of the long tables in the style of nearly every mess hall she's ever seen. pushing off the counter, peggy takes one step nearer to rip -- her voice drops in volume. ]

If you are willing to have this conversation, then we'd best do it 'round yours. [ not in her room; of that she is insistent. ] We'll take two bottles, [ peggy grabs for a second from the cupboard left ajar, ] if we must.

[That aborted comment has Rip glancing towards the other person briefly. Whoever they are, perhaps Rip should thank them. The look on Peggy's face had hardly been a pleasant one, though Rip cannot deny he likely deserved it to some degree. As stubborn and willful as she is, no doubt it's taken quite a bit of fortitude to lay down as much of an olive branch as she has.

And only to be met with his continued refusal to cooperate.

She steps closer, lowers her voice and suggests they go elsewhere--his room, once more. That, at least, is easy enough to agree to, right along with the notion that they might need more than just the one bottle before all this is done.

He would do her the favor of taking the first, at least. It'd be rather rude to leave her to carry both.]

After you.

[It's habit more than anything else; whatever else she's seen, Rip does have some measure of manners. He follows after, quickly catching up to walk at her side, until they once more reach the door with his name on it.

He doesn't speak again until they're inside, that door closed behind him--though when he does, it's without looking at her.]

I don't remember what goes on when other people are in my mind. [The answer to her earliest question maybe further serve to explain his continued reluctance, and the low bite of anger he feels near constantly now.] Only that they've been there, such as you were.

[ she relinquishes one bottle with relative ease. and before they leave, she pinches a pair of dreadful plastic tumblers between her fingertips -- convinced the drink will taste worse if had out of anything but glass. but as she'd said: beggars can't be choosers.

striding a few steps ahead of him comes naturally to her. beyond that, she keeps him on her left. it isn't a question ego so much as habit -- there's something soothing found in old protocol. peggy might as well be back in her bottle-green uniform for that's the sort of armour she wraps around herself now. precise; practical; professional. it's just about the only thing that might manage to keep the worst of her temper at bay.

this is a step backward; she knows it. nearly two years in the fleet, and she's managed to mollify most of her reactions. but this dense and clustered series of events has flensed her raw. beyond what she'd seen of him and what he'd seen of her, she'd also seen enough of others to lift her hackles like a dog under threat.

and yet, once inside his room, she tries very hard to appear calm. peggy holds out a cup for rip and wastes no time in prying some space-age ersatz cork out of the bottle. ]

Twice, no less. [ and she's still surprised by it. ] I can say that the second time 'round saw your funny little AI self a touch troubled by your fall from grace.

[ -- if she speaks in wry, hyperbolic ways then it's only to protect the both of them from having to shuffle too close to the truth. its best blanketed in alternating layers of both over- and under-statement. ]

[His own bottle is set aside for the moment, safely in reach if it does turn out they drink their way through the first. And indeed they might, as unwise as it would likely be. Though Peggy outwardly shows little sign of being flustered, Rip has learned--has seen just how good she is at measuring what she shows.

Hardly any surprise, given that she had once been a spy.

He takes the cup offered, waits for Peggy to get the first bottle open, and cooperatively holds his out when she seems ready to pour. In the interim, she offers up something about his mindscape he's yet to learn, sparking a touch of surprise from him.]

My AI-self? [Well. That's rather unexpected--although perhaps not in the full scope of things. After all, he hardly imagines Peggy pictures herself as the little girl he'd met within her memories.

And if he had been the AI--then perhaps it makes sense, that concern of which she speaks. AIs, after all, are meant to serve and protect their captains.]

I think you'd have to agree that it wasn't a conversation that ended well. [Nor one that left Rip exactly optimistic for how his immediate future might play out.]

No, indeed.

[ she pours a generous measure into his cup. and then, taking a step back, pours an equal measure for herself. the bottle is (for the time being) left to stand alone on the metal chest at the foot of the bed. perhaps it's ill-advised to knock back drinks with a man whose very motives you question; however, she takes some small comfort in knowing rip never got to see the memory where peggy's brother praised her ability to hold her whiskey.

the drink itself is similar to every other almost-whiskey she's found in the fleet's travels: slightly unsatisfying and carrying an odd under-flavour of lime, of all things. but spirits are spirits and she's prepared to settle.

she raises her cup in a mock toast. ]

Arriving a second time might have been a coincidence, but you -- him -- made it quite clear the intention was to repair a bridge or two. [ ... ] Are you that upset about being punted off the Starstruck?

[ well, that accounts for one of the five versions. ]

[A mock toast he mirrors in short order. Though it may be far from preferable, Rip hasn't been able to indulge in much by the way of liquor since his arrival to the fleet.

And some situations simply call for it, besides.

Besides, the sip (and the accompanying frown--is that lime?) offers Rip a moment to mull over Peggy's question regarding the Starstruck and his potential place on it. Likely it's already been made clear to her that Rip is reluctant to reveal much of anything by way of personal detail. Moreso, perhaps, now that he's aware of an apparently chatty AI representation of himself lurking about in his head.

But his reticence won't get them anywhere in the end. So he takes a slow breath in, measuring his words while his gaze lingers on the amber liquid in his glass.]

There is little about the incident you viewed that doesn't upset me on some level, Miss Carter. [From origin to aftermath, and certainly all the things that came in between.] To be suddenly confronted with another consequence of those actions--ones which I will not pretend to justify or defend, for the record--

[He pauses. Rip doesn't and cannot know what she's seen--but Peggy's clever. She can likely guess.]

To have them cost me another place aboard a ship, even rightfully so? Yes. It bothers me.

[ she twirls the glass. its contents spin. it's hard to say what drives her to wait and take her sip after he takes his. nevertheless, she offers a grimace of her own. there's little pleasant about this pale imitation. it burns on the way down but it doesn't come with all the other sly perks of a good whiskey. barring, perhaps, the inevitable inebriation.

but that's still a ways off yet for peggy carter. ]

Again and again, I've been thinking about that day we met on the asteroid. [ they'd spoken before, but they'd not met. ] I told you pieces of a story about a colleague who'd had his very mind stolen from him. Locked away. Silly me, I'd thought your curiousity had been just that: curiousity, maudlin and morbid.

[ peggy shakes her head. ]

You were worried. Possibly even frightened.

[ it's not an accusation -- or rather, it's not offered as one. not when she can remember what his fear feels like spreading through her veins. peggy clears her throat and takes another drink. ]

Rather than justify or defend those actions, Mister Hunter, you could try explaining them.

[ in his own words, now, instead of his own feelings. ]

[Worry is easy enough to acquiesce to, but frightened? Perhaps that's a touch too honest of an admission, and Rip is careful to give no visible reply after she suggests it. He has felt the sharp spikes of fear over the course of the past year, driven into him while his mind languished as Phil Gasmer, the innocent victim who knew nothing of true fear or pain except as they existed within the framework of imagination.

Until he'd fallen into the hands of a very real evil.

She presses on, and it's for the best. Though he still would much rather not, Rip realizes there's no choice. Perhaps Peggy is not owed the explanation, but—it's necessary. There's a framework for what he had done; without it, she's merely left with that impression of Rip at his absolute worst, reveling in it like it was some moment of glory.]

In my universe, there exists a relic called the Spear of Destiny; it was the lance used to pierce the side of Christ at his Crucifixion. [He speaks this as fact; whatever religion Peggy may ascribe to, in Rip's world, these events happened.] And because it was soaked in that blood, the Spear in turn could be used to rewrite reality itself. To violate every law of natural order, and recreate the world as the wielder wished to see it.

[He pauses then, and drinks. Though he means not to tell her as much, that very thing had apparently happened in one timeline—one that had, thankfully, been rewritten, though at high cost.]

[ story time, is it?

perhaps she ought to have anticipated something nearer a meticulous retelling. or otherwise she ought to appreciate the distancing technique inherent to rip beginning his explanation with something so legendary that it beggars belief. if this is to be one of those conversations, then peggy sees fit to take a seat on the metal chest -- crossing her legs and leaning back against the foot of the bed. this seems like the sort of conversation one has while seated, no matter how little she cares for the imbalance created by him still on his feet.

once, peggy had been passably dutiful in her faith. st-martin-in-the-fields had been a proper anglican school. its cramped and private chapel is the setting best associated with the act and ritual of religion. but after she'd left middle-sixth and after she'd enlisted and after michael had died...? her faith wasn't so much abandoned as it became an old habit to be conceded. gradually and incrementally to the point where she'd never be able to mark the moment she'd stopped believing.

but that had been back home. since then, she's met men claiming to be gods. steve's regaled her with slivers of stories about asgard as first recited by thor. what was once laughable has since become swallowed fact.

what's more important, now, is that peggy picks up on the difference he didn't have to spell out: ] Rewrite reality? That's a touch heavier than merely mucking with the sanctity of history.

[ rip's words; not hers. but she feels compelled to signal to him that she's at least trying to understand the difference between the two: reality and history. better to touch on that to even approach the question of christ's blood. ]

Oh, indeed.

[Although Rip doesn't sit, he leans back against one of the sparse walls provided in the room. Seems he's just as comfortable like that, his weight divided between his back and his feet. It allows him to tuck a hand into his pocket, the other, of course, still holding his glass, and moving through the air with small gestures as he continues on. She seems to have picked up on the important point, and that's good enough for Rip.]

It's why, when I and a particular group of operatives came into possession of it, we attempted to destroy it. Through great effort we managed to break it into four pieces--and as there were four of us, it was decided we each would become a protector of one fragment.

[A secret which could be told to no one; even the Time Masters hadn't known where the fragments could be found in history. Just what Rip reported: that the Spear itself had been destroyed.

And Eobard Thawne used that report to ask questions even the protectors of time had not.]

Merely separating them in terms of location wasn't sufficient, however; not for an object of that much power. So I took each of the other three to a different period in history--and because none of them knew where the other two had gone, I was the only one who knew when the fragments could be found, across thousands of years of time.

[ for all the fight yet remaining inside her, peggy doesn't make a show of it. the crossed legs and the canted chin are a thin veil pulled across an alert mind. every word is taken in stride, turned, and examined. rip says 'fragment' and she remembers a piece of wood that went untouched within his mental minefield.

rip says he was the only one who knew and she remembers the tied-down tension and terror felt at a knife tip. thoughtful, and in the wake of another swig, her tongue digs into the back of her own mouth -- feeling through the landscape of her molars.

only -- only! ]

But the American didn't. [ know. ] The you who wasn't you.

[ two of five, then. they grow like checkpoints from the conversation's ground. the context of that interrogation had been suspiciously absent -- and it may very well have been an entirely unrelated trauma. but peggy would rather grasp for connections than stare at otherwise disparate nodes. ]

[He nods slowly, pulls a long drink from his glass a beat later. He's prepared, at least, for this--Peggy has asked him already about a missing tooth, and he can only presume the memory she saw in the wake of such a question.

It's one he can recall keenly, even now.]

As I mentioned before, I lost my true memories. My identity was essentially rewritten to fit within a certain period of time. [Some combination of directly touching the time drive and using it as a means of travel. In truth, Rip had been damn lucky to even survive the experience at all.

Regardless of what came out of it.]

A group of men were after the Spear, and they knew that I, as I properly existed, could lead them to the fragments. They managed to kidnap me, only--it wasn't me. It was Phil Gasmer.

[A film student with only the barest traces of those truths still lingering in his mind. He can recall, even now, the hours spent pouring over pages of a script, refining every detail so it would match what he saw in his own imagination.

Rip huffs softly to himself; looking back, it all feels rather surreal--except it isn't. It happened, and the problems of a young man looking to graduate were hardly the worst of what he faced.]

No matter how much he pleaded, they would not believe him ignorant of the information they were after. Removing that tooth was only the last of their efforts.

[ and here is where the details begin to bleed in earnest. for all peggy knows 'a group of men' might as well be synonymous with the council alluded to in rip's memory of the oculus. it could all be one problem wrapped around the same chestnut. or, alternatively, it could be a brace of problems with rip being the only real string tying them together.

it doesn't matter. rip is the only conundrum she needs to solve. he can keep the rest of his life to himself -- her goal try, hard and earnest, to scrounge up a fraction of that tolerance and patience she'd cultivated for bucky barnes. if she can access just a bit then maybe, maybe, she can find a way to see rip something other than a threat.

and in the interest of continuing to cultivate that patience, peggy just about manages not to inform him that phil gasmer is a laughable name. but, at least, she can proceed under the possible belief that his reaction under interrogation had been (paradoxically) both genuine and ersatz. there's a comfort in that, considering she'd begun to question which accent was the real one. ]

I don't need every detail. [ she gives her glass a shake -- it's got about a mouthful remaining, now. might as well absolve him from saying too much. ] It's the bit about shooting the woman -- Sara Lance, was it? That's what concerns me. Was that you getting your identity 'rewritten' again?

[ she thinks not. but she aims to drive to the heart of her worries. ]

[Well. Even if she had, in a way, at least Rip could say it isn't his name.

Still, he glances up when she points out he need not say so much. Perhaps he has gotten a bit lost in the telling, yet this all leads to a point. Each piece is part of a greater whole, and if she wants to know the full span of why--

Then there's no avoiding the truth of so many of his mistakes.

The question she asks only to press forward gets a nod Peggy doesn't expect. Rip's muscles tense in way they had not before, even as they hinted at all Phil had gone through. Perhaps that loss of memory allows Rip to separate himself from the identity somehow.

But what comes next--that had undeniably been him.]

There's a bit of technology in my time that allows ones memories to be preserved, much like you would a computer file. [Much like the files they'd stolen from Dreadhorse, in fact.] I don't know if you saw, but the markings on the tooth indicated where one such drive could be found with my memories--my true ones.

[Of Rip Hunter, Time Master, Captain of the Waverider.

Like Peggy, he finishes off the last of his drink--too fast, perhaps. He swallows thickly, then leans his head back against the wall behind him while he feels the burn make it's way down his throat.]

They altered them. Not just my memories, but my personality. The man you saw, the man who nearly murdered one of the people he respects most throughout all of time.

Me.

That--was me. Without any of the grounding morality or principles or belief that humanity and time are both worth protecting.

[ even only a year ago, still within the fleet, this explanation would have strained credulity. but peggy's dug her fingers into bits of code, now. she's altered and tweaked and changed and perhaps it's been nothing even fractionally so complex as a person but the understanding stays the same.

(it's an understanding crutched along by the memory of one doctor fenhoff. he would slide his ring on his fingers and demand focus from his victims, editing their dreams and desires off-cuff. the power he'd possessed should have been dispensed with more carefully. but that's another problem for another time. and today isn't about peggy's guilt.)

rip lauds the woman as someone he respects. one of the second set of memories speaks better to it -- crumpled and uncertain, he'd put his trust in her. it's why she'd been willing to open these 'negotiations' of a sort. it's why she'd decided something didn't add up. ]

That was you. [ she nods. she's not in the game of plying people with false comfort. she's not the person who will ever turn around and suggest it wasn't him. that gasmer fellow, maybe, but -- then again, peggy can't be certain of any of it. it's all so foreign except for the thin parallels she manages to draw. ] But it wasn't all of you. Am I getting that right?

[The silence drags on for longer than it perhaps should: nearly a minute with Rip looking upwards at the cold and impersonal ceiling, rather than the person seeking to understand what he had been in the moment she envisioned--felt, as she had said, before she dismissed Rip from service of her ship.

It would be simpler--not easier, but simpler--to give her an affirmative answer. But as he considers it, lets the possibility of that response roll on his tongue, he knows it to be false.]

I knew who she was when I shot her. [He pushes off the wall. That he approaches Peggy is merely a coincidence; what Rip is after is the bottle she sits beside. It gives him something to do with his hands, a promise of whatever relief might be found in its contents--and always, a place to draw his focus that isn't Peggy's expectant gaze.] And what she represented. Out of all the Legends, Sara Lance embodies the strength to overcome any adversity, to do what is right even at great personal costs--but she also has remained compassionate, and even kind, in spite of a rather terrible personal history.

[A story that is not his to tell, in the end, but perhaps his praise might be enough.]

There is perhaps no one I'd come to trust more--and in turn, killing her, as I thought I had done, was the ultimate proof of being free of every sense of duty or restriction. Of being a puppet to some cause, even when it meant losing everything I loved in the world.

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