driftfleet | Video/Action- First Pirate Transmission

Who: Panem!Bucky
Broadcast: Yes
Action: The Bridge of the Wonderduck
When: Now

[The video opens with a view of Bucky's face, hair short, face scruffy and a steel determination in his expression as though challenging the very fleet to suddenly do something and prove all his paranoid assumptions correct.]

The last time I was on a show for other's entertainment, we were made to fight and kill each other until only one person was left. Supposedly that's not the case here. Yet.

I assume some of you have been making attempts to learn more about this place and the people behind it.

[A pause. 'What do you know' was on the tip of his tongue, but he was the offworlder now. He didn't hold a single damn card in his hand he knew it too well. He hated it. He'd have to change that.]

What do we know?

[Anyone on the ship itself for any reason will find Bucky at the comms station, waiting for responses and seeing exactly how far the system would allow him to hack until the firewalls caught him. Sometimes you had to test the strength of the bars when you were in a cage.]

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[The more she told him, the more clear his confusion mixed with the general suspicion he'd already been feeling.]

The implants served a similar purpose for the offworlders brought to Panem. It tracked them, prevented them from being able to speak their own languages and recorded their memories. They never did any of...that.

Does anything similar happen among the different effects? Like a side-effect? It must be part of some sort of experiment, they have to get something from it other than 'entertainment' or general confusion.

[These kinds of places didn't do these things for nothing, Bucky just couldn't guess what benefit there might be from reverting someone's age or changing them physically if it happened so infrequently.]

Not that I can say so far. Not that are common to all of them. [And she's paid attention.]

If it's an experiment, I can't say what they're trying to learn. That said, it's not just spicing up the program. Sometimes when things like that happen, it seems to be because people are meddling with their augments.

It's also possible that others are meant as distractions or deterrents for other actions.

[Elbows on the table, leaning in, Natasha looks casual. Anyone who couldn't hear her words might think she was flirting, possibly sharing some intimate anecdote. Her words don't match her body language, and close up, there's more tension in her body than her easy posture would normally imply.]

All speculation, but it's hard to say, but I'm not sure this is entertainment. Not all entertainment at least. There was an incident last year... Long story, but we got some intel we could find out more about Atroma. We went after it—and we found some. A lot of it redacted. We also came across a project. Stole it. Something big. I don't have all the details...

We got it back here, and they took it. Thanked us for the contribution.

And they wiped everything we took from the network. There's still a few copies around, uploaded to personal devices not on the network or on hard copy, but it hasn't gotten us far.

Then they wiped a canon out of the business section of the Marsiva and blew our contacts out of the sky.

[So there's that. It's tangential, but important information. She expects he'll understand why it's related, if he's anything like the Barnes she knows.]

Whatever's going on here, it's more than just entertainment.

[His body language is relaxed, angled to her as though open to what she was suggesting but maybe not fully sold on it yet. A couple of people flirting and testing the waters, a comfortable facade.

But what isn't in his body language is the way something in his eyes darkens and turns sharp. Definitely not innocent entertainment. It came too close to what he was used to. What he was expecting to hear that no one else was telling him. Did they not care or not feel comfortable enough to tell him? Maybe they simply hadn't seen enough of the bad out there to know when it came in lighter shades of grey.]

Your contacts were trying to get you information Atroma didn't want known. Maybe whatever intel was redacted. It might seem like nothing right now, but it has to be something. [He'd find a copy of this info somewhere, someone had to have it. It might seem meaningless, but all it needed was some context.]

This sounds very similar to how things were done back home. Nicer, maybe, if only the informants were shot down, but anyone who threatened the Capitol's hold with important information was 'dealt with.'

Did any of your contacts survive?

Edited 2018-05-03 23:45 (UTC)

They like to keep up appearances. And maybe this really is a reality show. Signs point to it starting that way... [Natasha tries not to speculate too much beyond the facts they have. It's problematic enough dealing in limited information.

But his reaction to it tells her all she needs to know; she doesn't regret the choice.]

There's a second fleet. It comes and goes. They're reticent. Can't blame them. I don't know how many of them are still there, but it seems unlikely Atroma got all of them.

No way of saying if they'll reach out again.

And no way of knowing for sure we can trust them. Hasn't always shaken out that they were on our side.

[A pause, then:]

There was another thing.

[It's such a small movement, but someone like Natasha would probably notice it and Bucky couldn't even try to hide it: as she talked about this other fleet, he leaned in a little more, his grip tightened on the glass and whatever darkness had come into his eyes a moment ago fled under a bright enthusiasm. Almost excitement. He almost doesn't even register the 'other thing' part, his mind is racing.]

I need to talk to them. They're...everything you just said is almost word-for-word what offworlders said about District 13. The rebellion. The rebellion I helped start.

[He's clearly distracted as his mind comes up with and discards plan after plan after question he needs to ask this other fleet. But he nearly jolts as his mind reminds him she wasn't done.]

Sorry- what other thing?

So far, they pick when we talk. Figure that's fair; they're in more danger than we are.

[At least it seems to Natasha. Maybe the dangerous are just different.]

After we got that intel, something weird happened. They called it calibrations. Second time it's happened, first time I'd been here for it. Story is normally it only happens once a season.

They brought all of us on the Marsiva, their flagship there. Hard to explain what happens then. Most of the time it's just internment. At night, though, parts of our memory end up shared. There are rooms where other members of the fleet can interact with them.

I can't say for sure it had something to do with punishing us, but the timing is too on the nose not to think the two events were related.

[It was a hard couple of months.]

...what?

[That was uncomfortably close to the dream thing both Thirteen and the Capitol had pulled.

He shook his head.]

No, it had to be related. Back home, they did something similar on both sides of the war. For my side, it was used both for training and testing loyalties. For the other, it was used for propaganda, intel checks and weeding out who were rebels and how much they knew of the rebellion.

It could be a punishment or a test or anything else we just haven't thought of yet. Do you know what happened here before the first set of calibrations?

At the time, it seemed like a punishment. Like they were trying to remind of us our place. Now... [She shrugs. She's not so sure now, but it's still on the table.]

We got new hosts at the same time. There was a short broadcast. They seem to have liquidated the old ones.

[So signs they weren't the only ones being punished.]

As far as I know, there wasn't anything similar before the first round, but you'd have to verify with someone who was there at the time. There are a few of them still around.

That happened a lot back home too. If someone who was supposed to have control over the tributes showed weakness, that maybe they didn't have as much control as they were supposed to, they were executed quietly and replaced.

Sounds like whoever the 'hosts' are definitely isn't the power. There's someone above them.

[But that was hardly surprising either.]

I'll look into it. If I find any more patterns, I'll let you know.

I'd like to hear about it if you do. [She means it, too. They can use more eyes and ears, anyone who might know what it is they're seeing.]

Your conclusions match mind. Whoever's really behind this, they haven't shown their face yet.

Or if they have, they haven't let us know it yet.

Video/Action- First Pirate Transmission

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