Open Log

[musicdied]

Who: Yelena Belova and anyone
When: Mid-August up to just before the event
Where: ADI housing and the surrounding neighbourhood, the railyard
Summary: Getting the lay of the land, and investigating the phantom crash.
Warnings: fire, destruction of home, mention of insects, mention of potential death and corpses, paranoia


ADI Housing - C2

It's a solid few hours between when Yelena is first deposited in one of the maintenance ducts in ADI headquarters, and when she turns up at the apartment - shared, she's been warned, and while that's less than ideal, she's dealt with less privacy before - she's been assigned to. This once, she takes no pains to be silent, though neither is she overly loud.

If there's no one immediately in evidence in the common area of the apartment, she'll set about exploring, committing the layout and location of various useful items to memory. If one of the apartment's other residents is in evidence, or else when they make an appearance, she greets them with a small smile and a, "Hello. I think we're to be roommates."

(And, ok, maybe only half of the other residents of the apartment will think she's harmless for even a second, but half is better than none.)

ADI Housing - General

After she's acquainted - or reacquainted - herself with her roommates and washed the cobwebs and dust from her hair, Yelena sets out to acquaint herself with the grounds of the housing complex and the area just beyond. The first evening, she's concerned mainly with the major landmarks: the apartment blocks, the fitness and laundry facilities, the gate and the bus stops, the nearby grocery store. The next few evenings, she can be found wandering the grounds and the nearby neighbourhood with less apparent intent - just stretching her legs, if asked. (Just cataloging the surveillance equipment; she's seen high-security facilities with far fewer cameras.)

Over the course of the first two weeks she's there, she establishes something of a routine, alternating running and swimming in the early mornings, visiting the gym at night. Occasionally, after curfew, she might be found up on the roof of one of the buildings. It's not against the rules - she's checked.

Railyard - August 21-24

It doesn't take any convincing to get Yelena down to the railyard after the crash that has, apparently, gone unnoticed or ignored by the majority of the town. Including, apparently, the people who work in that selfsame railyard. After the third repetition of "I just started here", she abandons questioning to those less physically adventurous in favour of inspecting the rusting tracks and decaying train car. She slips in through the half-fused door, the beam of her heavily-weighted flashlight bobbing as she scrambles over detritus best left unidentified, and struggles not to cough at the haze of dust and ash in the air. That the burnt-out hulk is ancient is clear enough. So too is the fact that it was once a sleeper car, and she supposes it's fortunate that some long-ago rescue crew has already removed the bodies, even if no one's bothered to haul the car away.

(Or would it not have been here yesterday, if anyone had taken it into their heads to explore the railyard without the impetus of the crash?)

She runs a finger carefully along the lip of the washbasin, then turns her attention to the walls, squinting at the ruined posters. After a moment, she pulls her phone out of her pocket, and starts recording. Most of posters and playbills are destroyed beyond any use, but some few might yield more information on closer inspection, somewhere that feels less like a tomb and doesn't force her to take shallow breaths.

It doesn't take long for the theme to become apparent even in the few posters that remain.

Something - maybe the creak of fire-and-rot weakened flooring, maybe the scuttling or chittering of disturbed vermin, maybe just a shift in the air - alerts her to another person's presence, and she glances sharply over. She relaxes only a little when she spies another person, and not anything particularly sinister.

"It's strange, isn't it?" she says. "This still being here."

Wildcard

Hit me with something, or pm me/pp me at quantumvelvet if you have an idea you want to chat about.

Comments

Roomy? Roomey? Roomie?!

[bossyboiler]

Kate is surprised to find the door unlocked but perhaps that just means that Winter is home. Wait. She pauses before entering even though she's already turned the doorknob. Would Winter leave the door unlocked? No. That doesn't seem to be something he would do. It is a little feeling that he is more overly cautious than she is that maybe borders on paranoia. And maybe he's been through some things but it's not her place to ask.

She lets out a sigh and cautiously opens the door, her head peering inside before the rest of her follows. Kate is carrying a reusable shopping bag from a nearby grocery store. What's for dinner? Pasta.

When she sees her new roommate, Kate is surprised. It shows on her face. Her eyebrows rise slightly and it takes her a moment to respond. "Oh." Yelena is far better outcome than she expected. A new roommate is better than finding the place ransacked and robbed of what little they had. "Hello."

Kate steps the rest of the way in and heads to the kitchen area of their shared space. "I'm Kate." She flashes her a sympathetic smile. "Did you just arrive?" Arriving is rough especially if one is unlucky enough to arrive in one of the ducts or locked supply closets. Kate has been here one month and she still finds it rough.

[musicdied]

Yelena turns slightly to keep Kate in view as she moves deeper into the apartment, leaning back and bracing herself with her hands on the back of the couch to make it seem casual. Friendly, even. She's just facing the person she's speaking to, nothing strange about that.

"Yelena," she replies. "I've been here..." She takes a quick glance at the clock on the microwave. "Six hours. Maybe a little less. Not enough time to warn you to expect someone new, I guess."

The corners of her mouth tug down in a slight, apologetic grimace. That much, at least, is genuine - she certainly wouldn't appreciate a stranger in her space without any warning.

[bossyboiler]

"No, no warning." Despite working at ADI, there had been no warning of a new roommate. Yelena is not unwelcome but a heads up would have been nice if only to prevent any more awkwardness. "But these are three bedrooms units and they are providing them to us." She shrugs her shoulders a little bit. It makes sense that they would fill them up. It is a shame the way that they are getting filled up, however.

Kate sits her bag of groceries on the counter. "It's nice to meet you Yelena, I wish the circumstances were better." Then she takes out a bag of artichokes and a lemon. She washes her hands and fetches a glass bowl which is filled with cold water and placed on the counter. "I hope you're hungry." She goes about as if Yelena is not a threat because Kate doesn't feel that she is. She has no reason to expect otherwise.

She starts by washing the artichokes and lemons. Organic or not, Kate is too germophobic to not wash them before using them. Has Yelena paid attention to the people inside grocery stores? Some of them are gross and they may have touched the vegetables. She can't have that. What does that say about her? That she's a clean freak? That she takes care with cooking food? That she tries harder than is necessary? "I usually make dinner around here." Though it is a couple of hours until dinner, it doesn't hurt to do the prep work now, especially with the artichokes.

From there, Kate takes out a knife. It is very sharp and is one of the few investments she's made since arriving, a couple of good knives. "Do you have any allergies I should know about?"

[musicdied]

Yelena recognizes a routine when she sees one. It's not one she's familiar with - meals had been something of an industrial affair for most of her life, and then a mix of takeout and whatever she felt like throwing together once she had the freedom to choose for herself - but it's almost soothing to watch.

(She evaluates the knife when it comes out. She can't not. Some habits are carved in bone deep.)

"No allergies," she says. "Do you have a rota for chores? Or just whoever sees something that needs to be done does it?"

[bossyboiler]

Kate slices a lemon and squeezes one half into the bowl of water. She then sets to work on peeling and prepping the artichokes. It is a lot of slicing and dicing and then putting them into the bowl of water to keep the pieces from browning before she can use them. Besides, the lemon will get the dish a touch of acidity to round out the flavors.

"Pretty much if you see something that needs to be done, just go ahead. We're all pretty self sufficient here." There is more cutting of the artichoke. Kate tosses out the fuzzy innards before going onto the next one. While holding the artichoke with one hand, Kate keeps her fingers curved and out of the way to prevent accidentally cutting herself. She doesn't cut it too quickly but she does cut it like she knows what she's doing and has had a lot of practice.

"What do you think of ADI so far?"

[musicdied]

"They need to clean their vents more often," Yelena replies, lips twisting in a wry grimace. "And they seem to very much want new talent. I'm withholding judgment on other things until it has been more than a day."

Or rather, until she has a read on how her new roommate might take suspicion directed at their employer.

"What sort of work do you do for them?"

Railyard

[worthallthis]

"Is it." He doesn't seem surprised by her being startled. He'd made that noise intentionally, because he's realized startling his team is probably not a great idea. Especially when one of them is a very capable assassin, like him.

He just continues swinging up inside to look around, metal hand hanging onto the door. "It is not in the way. People are busy. If it harms no one, why move it."

[musicdied]

"It only harms no one because everyone seems to look around it. They don't come in." She stomps the heal of one boot on the floor in illustration. It groans alarmingly.

"They cleared away all the other pieces. If this was a carnival train, it would need more cars to carry everything. There's no room for lions here. It would need an engine to pull it. Why clear away everything else, and leave this one piece for so long that everyone forgets how it got here?"

Something scuttles across the listing floor of the train carriage, and this time when her foot comes down, it's quieter, but with intent.

[worthallthis]

Okay, she has a point. He hadn't considered there needing to be more cars. He mostly avoids the train yard-- the sound of the trains on their tracks hits something old and deep and terrifying that he no longer remembers-- and the only reason he's here is because he saw Yelena coming this way, so he doesn't actively know much about this wreck in general.

He stays by the door, where the floor is sturdier. He's aware he's a lot heavier than Yelena. "I don't know," he admits in answer. "Maybe it's more magic." Ugh, magic.

[musicdied]

"Ugh, magic," is Yelena's immediate response, in unknowing echo of his thoughts. But given the suspiciously blind eye the railyard employees seem to be turning to the derelict car, and given the absolute lack of emergency response to the phantom crash...

"You're probably right. It has to make them not notice somehow. Or not care. Maybe it doesn't work on us because we're already a little strange for being from somewhere else. Or we haven't been here long enough to slip under the spell."

[worthallthis]

That makes him pause, suddenly even more wary of this whole place. "Perhaps we should leave," he suggests carefully after a long moment. He doesn't want his teammate under any spell, thank you very much. But he doesn't want to overstep, either.

[musicdied]

Yelena shakes her head. "I want to at least get pictures of the rest of this thing, so we can examine them more closely at home."

There's a moment's pause as she surveys the decaying pile of rust and misery, before she adds, almost reluctantly, "The last strange thing I saw here was gone when I went back.
I don't want to miss things with this one."

ADI Housing - Rooftop

[twistedbones]

As much of a rule-follower as he is for ADI in general, Binx did not bother to check whether the roof was off-limits. They'll tell him if they really mind him being up here, he's decided. It's quiet, and relatively cool at night, and he still isn't used to being cooped up in a bedroom all night.

He lifts his head when he hears the roof access door open - lucky them, whoever they are, to have thumbs and get up here without having to scale a wall. He yawns when he sees the newcomer and settles his head back down on his paws to watch and see what she does.

[musicdied]

It's true, she doesn't have to scale walls. She does it for practice, and perhaps for the rush of endorphins. Fortunately, he's caught her on a lazy night, disinclined to play cat burglar when she can just walk up a couple flights of stairs.

She lets the door fall shut behind her and steps away from its small enclosure, grasping one wrist in the opposite hand and stretching her arms up above her head. She scans the rooftop as she stretches, and her gaze skips over Binx and stutters back as she registers the shape of a black cat against the dull haze of moonlight above and streetlight below. She utters a low huff of laughter, and drops her arms back to her sides, murmuring something that is distinctly not English, but still manages to convey the tone of hello, kitty.

"Do the enforcers know you come here?" she wonders aloud, clearly not expecting anything by way of response. A stray cat taking advantage of the rule against pets to claim the entire complex as territory is certainly a more immediately obvious assumption than fellow ADI conscript.

oh no! sorry I god-moded about the access door; I wasn't thinking about her skills

[twistedbones]

To be fair, he'd be inclined to do exactly that if he were a stray - and has already chased off a few tomcats who got the idea. He flicks his tail idly, considering the greeting and the eternal question of whether to speak. He'd gone so long without talking to people; it had been better that way, but...things are different here.

"I don't believe they do," he replies, making his decision.

no worries! I was just poking fun at her a bit.

[musicdied]

She recoils, blinking in surprise, then narrows her eyes and peers more closely at the patch of roof surrounding the cat. There's no equipment that she can see, and there's certainly no one else visible on the roof who might be playing at ventriloquism. Something small enough she's missed in the dark, maybe?

That has to be it, right? And yet, this is a very strange choice of places to play a prank. She can't imagine many people come to hang out on the roof, of all places. Not when there's a pool to visit, and the grounds, and the terraces and balconies attached to each of the apartments.

On the other hand, a talking cat?

"Is this a joke?"

[twistedbones]

"I wish," replies Binx. He sighs, wondering just what he'd expected. So many people have taken it so shockingly well that he's gotten spoiled by it. He's told so many people, though, that he figures he already knows what questions she'll have for him.

"Yes, I'm a talking cat; no, I was not always a talking cat; yes, it's magic. And yes, I do come up here often. It's nice."

ADI Housing - After Hours

[essenceofdeadlybeasts]

It wasn't easy getting past the security to get back into the ADI Housing after hours. And yet that's exactly what Zhao was doing this night. He had done it a couple of times now--one of which he was caught but the majority of which he had successfully made it back inside without anyone noticing. 11pm was just entirely too early for a gangster like himself to be stuck in a small apartment for the rest of the night much less going to bed.

Getting in trouble for disobeying the rules wasn't anything new to him, naturally. He'd had the same issue with his father back in the day. Except his father had been way scarier than any ADI personnel. After all, the old man had been Chinese mafia, the leader of the gang no less, and super strict with his own son and junior gang member. But Zhao had toughed it out then and he'd do the same here. Still, it was nice not to be caught and not have his pay docked for it.

So he hopped over the fence with an ease born of martial arts mastery and street-wise agility, timing it perfectly to avoid both the guards and any electronic surveillance in the area. What he didn't count on was someone who wasn't a guard spying him from an advantage point like the rooftop or wherever they were hanging out for the night. Once he was past the largest 'danger' spots, he didn't exactly try all that hard either; he thought he was home free as he approached the C block building to get to his room this late, late night.

[musicdied]

Yelena isn't precisely watching the perimeter for intruders, but the flash of motion catches her eye, and when she turns her head to follow it, she spots the man vaulting the fence. Her eyebrows lift slightly, and she settles in to watch his progress like it's something interesting on TV - a little bit of entertainment on an otherwise dull night.

It's clear that he knows how to move, and that he knows where the blind spots are. She's marked those herself in her mental map of the apartment complex. It's almost impressive.

Until he gets past the tightest ring of control.

And okay, maybe it's not what most people would consider sloppy. And maybe it's unfair to dock points in her mental evaluation for not accounting for a rooftop vantage point when most people aren't going to come up to the roof, ever. And if he'd been heading for A or B blocks, she'd probably keep her silence.

But he heads for her building, and so when he passes beneath her rooftop perch, she utters a low whistle to catch his attention.

"Five points. You started strong, but you didn't stick the landing."

[essenceofdeadlybeasts]

He paused at the whistle and listened to the words, a slow lopsided smile creeping across his face as he did so. He glanced up to spot her on the rooftop.

"I stuck the landing perfectly. I got back in, didn't I?" He tilted his head slightly to one side and kept up his little smirk. "You're not gonna report me, are ya? I'm already here, no fuss, no muss. Ain't hurting anybody."

She was right about one thing: he hadn't expected someone like her to catch sight of him. Once he was back at the dorm buildings there wasn't much reason for the guards to say anything. Just out for a little fresh air. He'd get back inside, no trouble, not even gonna wake anyone with his traverse back inside. Ah, well. Guess he had to account for the residents, too, from now on. Someone might actually tattle-tale on him if he ran into the wrong person. Hopefully she wasn't one of those types.

ROOFTOP

[inlieuofadad]

Gil has taken to coming up here himself when he needs to think. Or when he just needs a breath of fresh air and to escape buildings full of people that are thirty years or more his junior.

It figures that tonight, at just past midnight, when he can't sleep and is cranky about it, there's someone else on the roof when he gets there. He pauses in the doorway.

"This a 'not enough roof for the both of us' situation, or are interlopers allowed?"

She might be a baby, but he tries to be polite.

[musicdied]

The faint creak of the door opening alerts her to someone's presence, and she tips her head back and to the side to get a glimpse of the person approaching. Not someone she's spoken to, and older than most of the otherworlders she's encountered so far.

She considers him for a moment, then utters a quiet huff of something that could be laughter. "I don't feel like battling for territory today. You can stay."

oof i'm sorry this took so long, life Happened

[inlieuofadad]

He makes his own softly amused noise at that. Accent sounds Russian, which is interesting. Most of the people he's met from worlds like his own have been, weirdly, American or British.

Gil tucks his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and wanders his way to the railing, making sure not to encroach on her space. It's not an 'I don't want my ass handed to me' thing as it is a 'I'm a significantly older adult male and don't want to seem like a creep' thing.

"Been here long? Roof or ADI, I'll take either one."

no worries!

[musicdied]

She tracks his passage towards the railing, making absent note of the way he moves. The careful distance is as appreciated as it is interesting, a level of awareness that’s not altogether common.

Or maybe that’s the company she keeps.

“I didn’t think anyone who stays here has been here long,” she says. “But I have been at ADI a little over a week. You don’t sound quite so new.”

[inlieuofadad]

"Not quite, no. Been an adjustment though. Magic, demons, end of the world stuff--not so much a thing where I'm from."

He looks at her, curious. "How about you?"