voidmissions | [M15] ENEMY: UNKNOWN

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[M15] ENEMY: UNKNOWN - THE INTERVIEW

On opening their eyes, Voidtreckers will feel a sense of disorientation, a dizziness to their vision and inside their head. Both clear quickly, letting them remember where they came from: in the midst of a mission, some unknown entity jumping them, and then —

They're here. Wherever here is.
They stand in an empty room. The lighting of the room stings their eyes after how dark the rest of the station has been. The walls, ceiling and floor are all bright white, tiles. There is no visible door, no windows.

After the disorientation comes fear. The hairs on the back of their neck stand up. For those with danger sense, these senses are going haywire, even though any other abilities are still not working. The feeling can be pushed down, it is similar to the air of expectation at the start of a horror film, the anticipation of fear rather than being in a truly dangerous situation. It might be that they have been on the train long enough to have felt it before.

Heavy footsteps sound, it is almost impossible to tell where they are coming from as the echo through the empty space. The feeling of dread grows until part of the far wall slides open with a mechanical hiss.

Filling the doorway are two huge figures, around seven foot tall and bulky. They are in large metal suits, almost like power armour, black with highlights of gold. They wear a mask that covers their whole face. It is impossible to see the figure inside at all. Their breathing comes through heavy and raspy and when they walk their footsteps are heavy. The door closes behind them and their presence makes the room feel smaller. One of them scans a green light over the voidtrecker.

"Do not be alarmed. Under sections ninety six of Inter-dimensional law and on behalf of the Void Ministry we have intercepted Voidcraft designation Voidtrecker Express as part of ongoing investigations. You have been taking part in a simulated excercise to gauge your skill and strength. No harm shall come to you or your crew, you are protected by inter dimensional law. You have been chosen for questioning and we ask that you comply. You have the right to refuse our interview but we have the right to hold you until our investigation is complete or one week in standard void time has passed, whichever is longest. Complying with us will ensure our investigation is more efficient."

The inspector talking pauses here, as if giving the voidtrecker time to take in that information.

"Do you accept our interview?"

ENEMY: UNKNOWN

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Then we await your answer to our request."

And they will, standing in silence.

Edited 2021-10-13 08:21 (UTC)

The silence stretched out to the point of awkwardness, if any of the three of them were inclined toward awkwardness. Jingyi's tail twitched in a low curling sway back and forth, hovering above floor level.

Eventually, with a sigh that spoke to how much it pained him to have to take a higher road than these faceless cretins, he more or less answered. "This is so stupid... I'm Lan Zhi, courtesy name Jingyi, of Gusu Lan. I'm twenty-one years old according to my homeworld. I've been on train for what, a little more than a half dozen weeks of train time. Seven? Eight?"

He shrugged, keeping his arms crossed.

"Somewhere around that. What are your names?"

"You may refer to us as-"

The one speaking stops, and the other speaks. "Yī."

"Èr," the first then says. "In accordance to your language, for your comfort, if this is sufficient. Customs and behaviour of your world are unknown, and cannot be followed. We are investigating recent disturbances in the void, and reports of suspicious activity surrounding the voidcraft Voidtrecker Express."

"Lan Zhi, courtesy name Jingyi. Which would you prefer to be called?" asks Yī.

Ah, and he has an answer, which has the line of his shoulders relaxing even if he continues to frown. Hearing all this had been some messed up test of skill and now suspicious activity, yeah, who would have thought?

"Thank you, Yi-qianbei, Er-qianbei," he says. He can be gracious when provided an answer to something he asked, and their statement of intent is also answering part of what he'd asked earlier. Reasonableness was possible, one way or another.

His fur stands some on end when his name is completely parroted back to him, partly because while he'd gone for full formal as a sort of look I can play nice what about you gesture, it was disturbing to hear his childhood name. "Lan Jingyi," he says, not hiding his full body shudder to shake off the sound of anyone calling him Lan Zhi. "By custom it would be most proper."

A pause.

"Unless we were particularly close, and then you'd probably be calling me San Lan." Third Lan, such as it was.

"Lan Jingyi," is repeated by Er, as a means of recognition for what is proper.

"Lan Jingyi," also repeats Yi, but then goes on: "Can you or do you have knowledge of the system designation of your home planet?"

Edited 2021-10-13 09:30 (UTC)

Having them both echo his name back at him is an interesting experience, but at least they're all on a named basis now. The willingness to use terms, be they numbers or otherwise, is helpful, though he can't answer their larger question about numbers.

"I barely remember the ones for the last few systems. I don't think I ever knew mine."

Nor that his planet had a name, nor that it was in a void active system, but that doesn't matter before the world-ending truth of whatever devoured systems such as what Chaos survived. Jingyi didn't have as much on hand immediate information about it, but he'd heard on ICP and in passing what others had run into.

"Speaking about systems... Have either of you heard about gigantic world-destroying shapes that appear in a system and unmake it? Wipe it out of history, and the present, and existence in people's memory?"

"We have been given a report on a false system created on the basis of such events. This is part of our investigation. Any information you have on this event or any other related events would be appreciated."

It's Yi who speaks, though Er does nod after the other is done, as if in agreement, adding:

"Do not leave anything out."

"Uh."

He holds up a hand.

"You seriously didn't want to pull me out to talk to if that's your goal... I mean, are we talking about the illusion Diagad? The one Chaos created? It had to be stable for what, two weeks or something, before it started unravelling, and that was my first mission, it was confusing. The last day I wasn't even fighting, I was anchoring to get people back to their home systems."

Not the most coherent presentation of events, but he makes himself stop, and sigh.

"What I get out of it from what others said they witnessed is kind of like that, Chaos was going from system to system for a while trying to regain people they'd lost, then they made a whole city on a world to pretend Diagad had never been destroyed. The people in the city, they all thought they were from Diagad, all of us included, only we started remembering we weren't. Things fell apart, and then when I was anchoring I heard Chaos made the same kinds of shapes that destroyed their system appear as another illusion, but I only saw it in glimpses. Too many people to evacuate for me to stop and stare."

"The entity that created this system influenced your minds to believe you were a part of this city. Do you have reason to believe the illusion shared was true?"

It's Yi who speaks, then Er who elaborates: "Reports on the entity known as Chaos suggest they were unstable."

To the question about a shared illusion... "The way their energy felt. They desperately wanted their home and people back."

Before saying anything else that crosses over personal and second hand experience, he responds to the instability report.

"They're named Chaos and you think, oh, maybe they're not stable?" He snorts, flicking his fingers. "As far as I could tell, they were young, grieving, and terrifyingly too powerful to ignore. They killed people through neglect and grief, but does that make it okay? Of course not. Apparently everyone who fought with them while the rest of us evacuated people off world got them to admit they'd been wrong to hurt others in their grief and to stop, but like I said, I was anchoring. People bringing me those who needed evacuating could only say so much each handoff. Exhaustion afterwards made conversing hard."

Even remembering back, he feels that same exhaustion. He frowns at Yi and Er.

"Have you anchored before? Do you understand what that's like?"

"We are aware of anchoring and the toll taken. Many suffer side effects of different natures." There's a pause, and then the other - Yi - is the one who then speaks, when the two share a look.

"Is there anyone who requires medical assistance from this anchoring, or any other Void-related illnesses?"

"There may be. I don't believe I do."

No claims made about the rest. His tail, which has continued it's low key agitation, slows further still. Takes a deeper breath.

"Everyone who disappeared before me, Ansem, Kitty, Jake, Danny, Essek, Masumi, Xenohart, Rich, Ken," he pauses, tailtip lashing as he continues, "Tidus, Inigo, Hang... Lan Wangji. They're unharmed? You had them do these interviews too if they agreed? Nothing else? "

"Correct," they both reply, before Er continues solely. "Our objective is to interview passengers of the voidcraft designated Voidtrecker Express, and the events of the false system. We have received reports that many, if not all, passengers on the Voidtrecker Express did not consent to being brought on board."

"And our questioning," speaks the other, "is to compile a report. The simulated exercise is to gauge the skill of those part of the Voidtrecker Express, and to bring the rogue voidcraft to this station. No harm will come to anyone onboard. Once our interview is done, you will join them."

He's not exactly reassured, because he'll need to see these people to feel relieved. Still, it gives a focal point, and...

"What's going to happen to the Voidtrecker Express? You're not going to hurt it, are you? Or imprison it?"

"Decisions will be made by a committee on how to move forward with the information gathered by our investigation," they reply. "What is your preferred outcome for the voidcraft?"

"That you guys help it figure out where its crew went after they tried to go back to before their home system got destroyed by the same stuff that destroyed Chaos's. That your ministry stop whatever's doing that! I'm not happy no one asked me to do any of this, or to end up traveling the Void unknowing, but I can understand desperation and grief, and there's a giant looming danger eradicating systems and countless lives regardless of them being Void active or whatever your group calls it. Are your seniors taking system destruction seriously? Because it's literally writing entire worlds out of reality. Only it's not perfect," he says, back to crossing his arms over his chest. "Because things that get out of a system being annihilated still remember. Like Chaos. Like the Voidtrecker Express. Like its crew, before they went missing."

Jingyi, now offended by the very concept of some unknown that's wiping out systems. Because if that comes to his system, to any of the systems of people he knows? There won't be survivors. There won't be anything at all, and staring up at Yi and Er, he hopes to hell they can understand that.

The train is annoying, but it's his annoyance to complain about. There's a far larger problem he's been not... getting, exactly, he doesn't fully understand, but the train spoke, there were those memories to read or view, and it's all messy. Something is seriously wrong, and they're only a symptom of it, not the cause, unlikely to be the cure.

Edited (sobs in phone typing) 2021-10-13 21:08 (UTC)

The pair do not speak as Lan Jingyi vents his frustrations, standing as they do, motionless in their paired presence. Waiting for his silence, but waiting a few seconds after, to allow an appropriate silence to know that he won't continue, and to give his words space. A sense of calm blankets the area, but does not force its way into Jingyi's being. But it is felt, present.

"Worlds are being wiped out by shapes, and people are being dislocated." They're an echo of what Lan Jingyi has shared, Yi waiting on confirmation. "What else do you know about this anomaly, or the voidcraft Voidtrecker Express's history with this event outside the details you just shared?"

"Its original crew went back before the destruction of its system, but are now lost," Er repeats.

He feels the calm, but doesn't seem soothed by it anymore than he seems genuinely primed to attack. He's frustrated, but not unduly, in his opinion.

He's not being aggressive, for what that's worth.

"Sky blocking out, gigantic shapes, yeah. And that's the sum of it. Look, you took Inigo, did you ask him? Or Tidus? They've both been here longer than I have," both contained after an interview and on the train, "They might know more about the aborted mission the abducted crew had, or meeting someone who said their home system was also taken out by whatever these things are."

A further pause, because this is less a clear memory, and more the voice of a woman heard when they were back on train, after Chaos.

"Did... someone contact your group? Saying they'd been in contact with any of us?"

"We have spoken with those two individuals. We are aware your travel with the Void is new, but we are asking everyone knowledge first and second hand, to build a better case. There has been mention of an aborted mission."

They speak calmly, factually - but there is an understanding, if some acknowledgement to explain the reasoning behind their questioning. It's Er who speaks first, and then Yi.

"We have received messages and reports on the Voidtrecker Express. It is believed one or a group on board the train have left distressing messages asking for help. We are also aware of your roles in the fabricated system. People died-"

"--but many more were saved," finishes Er.

"Our investigation so far tells us none willing tethered to the Void," continues Yi. "But you give aid to systems in need, and you show further concern for the safety of the Void. This is...noted."

There is a delivery to the end that's paused, but expresses appreciation; less clear in the tone, but it wafts about the room, felt as the calm had been previous.

To some degree, all this feeling by presence is a bit bizarre. On the upside, the positive emotion now settles his tail into stillness. It's only right to help those who need help, but there's also another truth: helping people in ways they want and can work with, as the Sali had asked, is more valuable than assuming they knew the right way to help on their own.

In that sense, maybe this contact with an outreach from the shadows could inform both ways.

"We didn't choose this. We don't have a way to guarantee the tether or whatever, we don't have a way to voluntarily go home. You... do either of you know what could cause people to be granted temporary tethers to a voidcraft? Do you know where people go when that tether no longer binds them?"

He doesn't think they do, really, but to at least try asking... he uncrosses his arms, letting them rest at his sides.

"We didn't choose to be here, but we're not callous. Our Voidtrecker Express," theirs, because it's his to complain and be angry at, not the organisation these people are part of, not if they're existing gratitude for their collective help right now, "Has said before it needs heroes, 'cause it isn't one. Something like that? It finds systems in distress, and it needs heroes to help those systems, because it can't do it itself. Like with that false one, so more people didn't die. But it can't explain that well, and it doesn't speak often, and one of the only things it's asked us is to help find it's earlier crew."

He pauses for a long moment, thinking, before he gestures to Yi and Er.

"You ask questions to find truths, right? Then here's a question for a truth. The Voidtrecker Express is real. It's always been real. Trace whatever legends you find still exist, and know they're true at heart. So how, and why, can this one train of the Void be remembered, when its home isn't? What gives it the strength to keep going, when everyone it cares for was taken away somehow? It has the recordings of its former crew. Before and after the event that unmade their home, I've heard the difference. The bigger issue isn't that the Voidtrecker Express is rogue, but why you think it is, and what caused that. If your seniors don't understand that? Then the lives already being lost will truly be blood on their hands. If these things aren't stopped, one by one, everything will disappear into silence, and your investigation has to say this is reported, that systems go dark like dreams you forget when you wake. This ministry isn't ignorant, if it even was before. So why don't they do something about that," he says, gesturing towards one blank wall, "Instead of one train that's trying to fight on even when none of them believe its got a reason? It's not like you started this saying you can help people go home, you don't know any of our systems, and neither do we. What if they don't even exist anymore? How the hell can we know?"

Worry at the heart. Worry at big things and smaller things and politics that focus on the wrong, self contained problems, instead of the larger, sprawling ones. Back home, unity against that thought process had helped. Out here, would anything?

Neither of the pair move or interrupt, or show any signs of wanting to interrupt Lan Jingyi. They allow him to pour out his frustration, his plea and desperation. Standing as two mirror opposites to one another, blackened visor invisible to anything that happens beyond it.

When he's done, there's a few seconds of silence. Then, it's Yi who speaks first.

"We can do a scan to determine your system designation, and find out the state of your system. Do you consent?"

"It will be a basic overview of the system," Er points out. "It will determine if there is a match in our records. Non-Void active worlds have a system designation."

He breathes in, then out, and rubs one hand over his horn.

"If it hasn't been wiped out, yeah, it has a designation I guess. Will you make the same offer to the rest of the people on the Voidtrecker Express?"

The heads of the two turn in direction of one another, as if conversing on some unseen point. But there is nothing but silence, until they both turn again to Jingyi.

"We will not be following when you join the Voidtrecker Express again. But we can see about allowing individuals to be scanned and matched to the system designation database before passengers return to the voidcraft."

"The rest of your crew on board the station will arrive here eventually," Yi says.

"As for your accusations, until recently, no records existed of anomalies of shapes in the sky and worlds disappearing, beyond unsubstantiated claims of the latter," Er says.

"There are rumours. There are falsehoods," continues Yi. "Stories are fabricated. Excluding illness and frauds, time in the Void can have side-effects to memories. Void storms commonly inflict altered memories to passengers. We have been told the Voidtrecker Express has been caught in one while with members of the current crew."

"This is why we investigate," picks up Er again. "To find out what is true and false. We received messages of the voidcraft Voidtrecker Express unlawfully tethering individuals. We have received the report on the individual you call Chaos. Your voidcraft is an anomaly to us. If it will work with us, then more data and investigation into its purpose can be explored."

"The craft can be corrupted," speaks Yi.

"Or there can be truth in what's been shared," finishes Er.

There's a beat before Yi picks up again. "We will investigate what we learn, and what happens next is decided by a committee part of the Ministry. Contact may be sent out to the Voidtrecker Express at a later date. Do you have any reason to believe this will bring harm to its passengers?"

First the silence, then his turn due to holding silent and listening. Yi and Er are telling him things that make sense, and things that don't, and all of them are ones they're making clear, if not unkindly, that they're out of his hands. Which this whole thing has been, in the sense of where he's physically placed and why he's not back home but instead on a Void traveling train or on a station in space dressed up as a test for them. It's still frustrating, but patently unfair things are part of life, so he doesn't lament that aspect.

But he is right, he thinks to himself. They dismissed everything before as rumours. Tales. Lies spun at firesides, if anyone who traveled the Void had much use still for firesides.

The Voidtrecker Express is different, and he doesn't know why, specifically. He's heard it was in legends, he's read those accounts of memories in the library, he's seen the recordings. Those three things didn't add up to the same thing, but he wonders, dourly, if having a proper report and investigation will be more than a footnote in the story being written even now. He has to hope it will. Yi and Er at least appear to be listening, and that's more than they might have done otherwise.

"I don't believe the Voidtrecker Express will willingly harm us beyond its whole abduction nonsense. No way it's otherwise acted has shown that. I've been abducted before, and you technically did it again right now. You feel the difference when someone doesn't care about you living or dying."

Usually one was also literally bound up and knew in his personal experience, but that was neither here nor there.

"If your seniors on this committee end up wanting there to be signed contracts, whatever, paperwork is paperwork. Ask us if we want to stay on or leave. Even if that's not a fair choice for everyone."

Too many conflicting truths for the people he knows, and he doesn't even know everyone. Over a hundred people, how could he?

"Though... okay, none of us came from our systems to board the train. With the way the Void works, can the train visit our systems right after we're taken away? Since we never, I don't know, we never had a time we were already there on the train." It's the avoidance of the conflict the original crew seemed to have, in his limited understanding. He holds up his hands, forming a rough sphere between the span of his fingers and his palms. "And the ones of us who aren't living still back home, can we secure their life away from the Voidtrecker Express?"

Silence to stretch for a moment. It's an awkward balance for him, as part of a clan who largely engages in laying spirits to rest, in ensuring the dead move on into reincarnation when they can, and that they simply cease causing harm if not. Tidus isn't that way; nothing about him is malevolent. Xue Yang is something else, but he can't be unbiased there, not learning what he has, and not knowing what he's already known. As for others, people dead in their worlds but alive here, isn't it the same conundrum? Should he wish for their rest? Should he wish for their second, unexpected lives to be supported until those wind down too, not on whim of a train or a tethering, but some other aspect of the larger universes?

His hands fall away from each other again, and he sighs. Even his tail dips down, brow furrowing.

"Look, treat the Voidtrecker Express as an ally and not an enemy, I think it'll work with you. If everyone I cared about was taken away from me all at once, I would do everything I could to find a way to get them back. Especially if the people around me tell me they never existed, that I shouldn't exist, and they're baffled that I do, and they want me to do what they say instead of listening to what I'm saying. If they offered to work with me, I'd consider it. You've got more resources than one train alone."

He doesn't like it, feels twisted about it in his stomach, but there are reasons he complains to the train near daily, broken up by missions alone. Jingyi doesn't skip out on telling people, trains or otherwise, exactly how he's feeling. As poor Yi and Er have been learning this whole interview.

"Which is why pretending I don't understand what can drive the train to be this kind of jackass would be lying. Pretending I'm happy about it would also be a lie. And I don't think I was on the train for whatever a Void storm thing is, by the way, that was before I got here? For whatever that's worth." Divorced from how he feels, there's a whole host of other concerns, which brings him back to the offer the two investigators had made.

"If Yi-qianbei and Er-qianbei can arrange for scanning the willing for our home system names or whatever, please. You have my gratitude." He cups his fingers around each other, offering them both a bow. "I want to know they're okay. If they're not..."

He pauses, shakes his head as he straightens.

"They'll be okay. Then we'll know what they're called. At least in terms of your numbers."

His brow furrows, and he holds up a hand, dark eyes fixing on the masks of the investigators once again. Something about numbers, and associations, and ways things can be read or marked.

"Wait, that system number or whatever it is. When a voidcraft is built, is there any signature of what system built it? Like an artist signing their work. Are they built in the systems they come from?"

If there's any indication that the Inspectors are about to speak, it is not seen - perhaps, Jingyi doesn't give much time for the pair to, as he bounces from one thought to another, questions and requests in-between. His voice is the sole one, until finally - with the hand raised, and more importantly, the few seconds more of silence that give indication that Jingyi is this time ready - an opportunity to do so is granted.

"Most voidcrafts are built in their system unless outsourced to one nearby." It's Er who speaks. "Each craft has a registry number with the ministry."

"Attempts to obtain the registry number of the voidcraft Voidtrecker Express have failed," explains Yi. "It is believed to be masking its number, as attempts to establish communication with the craft have been ignored."

[M15] ENEMY: UNKNOWN - THE INTERVIEW

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