(may event) sudden recall

[officialnotice]

Hello, dearest Pinecones, and welcome to our May event! This month's happening is a little more... psychological than investigatory, but it should still provide plenty for characters to think about and discuss nervously amongst themselves in the relative 'privacy' of their own homes. Enjoy the reprieve, citizens of Wayward Pines, because after this it's about to get a lot more dangerous in our sleepy little town.




SUDDEN RECALL


MEMORY EVENT: Sudden Recall
EVENT DATE: May 15th - 19th

Wayward Pines has seen its fair share of showers this month, but on the 15th the clouds have for the most part drifted across the southern cliffs and allowed the sun to lend a little spring warmth to the day — a great day to hear from your government officials about how our recovery from last month's flood is progressing. Instead of taking to the podium, residents will be able to catch the address on the phone network's seldom-used channel 0, where it rings in like a particularly incessant phone call until somebody picks up to hear it.

It's odd, though. This is no scripted message asking for your vote in the next election (whenever that's ever gonna happen)... It delivers the expected information, but under the bare modicum of political professionalism, the delivery is erratic, scattered, almost a little dazed. And as you listen — or maybe a bit later, when you're doing the laundry, or meeting a friend for a drink — it hits you. A vision... Could it even be a memory?

It's not from your life before, but it doesn't fit into the cozy memories of life in Wayward Pines, either. But it feels real, maybe all the more so for the way it blurs on the far edge of coherency, so unlike your crisp, vivid memories of either one of your supposed lives.

However, a few things might still stick out in your mind: Your surroundings, clean and clinical. The chill of metal against your bare back, cutting through a little of the fog in your head. A bustle of men and women around you, like a churning tide of movement you couldn't keep up with if you tried. Their voices a steady drone of clipped conversation around you, but the words slipped by you like sand through your fingers. They might have been dressed in white, or maybe the glare from the flourescents had you temporarily blinded. And they were touching you, you remember the occasional touch of a hand or just a few fingers. At the time, you likely struggled to connect the fact that it was you they were touching.

If you woke up with injuries in the hospital, you probably remember them here too, and they were downright debilitating in this memory. Either way, you remember being painfully stiff and sore — having difficulty even moving your neck to groggily take in these surroundings. If you managed it and looked to your side, you saw a door with a viewing window in the top that opened every so often. The room beyond the door was low-lit and hard to make out, full of indiscernible movement and large, dim shapes.

Then, finally, you managed to scrape together the coherency to parse some of the chatter around you. "— are clear. Haptic tests are clear." Then, a pinch just inside your elbow. "Proceeding to —" And then unconsciousness claimed you once more.

OUT OF CHARACTER

THE BREAKDOWN

Just a few notes on this one:

This event is, as always, entirely opt-in. Though all residents are expected to listen to the message, it won't necessarily trigger any memory at all in your character. Maybe it simply strikes them as unusual instead. We encourage players who do opt in to decide how much your character remembers from the details given above, since not everyone will necessarily have the same experience! Maybe they remember some parts, but not others. The memories may be as vivid as described, or maybe they're even hazier. That said, all characters who regain the memory will have universally heard the dialogue quoted at the end.

There will be both an audio network post and a catch-all log going up for this event on the 15th for your convenience.

Comments

[ouzel]

Well. That's fortuitous, isn't it? Cassian glances at Nyx - who replies with "We intend to help you out in turn." - and then nods before turning his attention back towards the Mayor.

"Thank you; I mean that, honestly." Cassian smiles. He doesn't know how well Poe and Steve's plan is going to be executed, but he has some hope for the recon aspect on his own end now. "In the name of not being caught out, as it were, roughly how much time do we have before Big Brother resumes watching?"

What? There's a lot of books in his house!

[officialnotice]

Townsend's brow knits, and he scoots his chair back away from his desk, standing up to bend and peer hard out the window into the rising dusk.

Without rising or looking back at the men, he gestures for someone, anyone really, to join him at the window. When someone does, he points to a spot in the distance where two men linger on a rooftop.

"When those two drop, that's your cue to vacate." A glance to whoever's joined him, then back to the men on the rooftop. Making sure he's following Townsend's gaze. That's the best answer he's got, to 'how long'.

Then he heads back over to sink down in his chair. One of them can keep an eye out, they're the ones who aren't supposed to be here.

"Not much you can do to help me," he says. He doesn't sound too upset about that. Like he's long since accepted it, and it's wasting precious time to try. "Why not cut to the heart of it? Tell me what you broke all the way in here to ask me."

[ouzel]

Nyx is the one who goes to the window, after a brief exchange of glances; makes the most sense to keep Crowe on lookout, and a minimal amount of faces present. Cassian could kick himself for not considering that there would be a rooftop lookout somewhere in town, and later he'll ask if Nyx can pinpoint roughly where they were standing. Maybe he needs to start a survey of rooftop access points.

Things to consider.

"We were hoping you could shed light on a few things, namely: how are people being brought here, how are the dead reanimated, and how long has this been going on? Also, what you would ask in our position. And what's happening on the other side of the wall." That last one Cassian tacks on because it's important to get some context as to what they'd expect if, well. If the wall came down, or were breached in some way.

[officialnotice]

"The d-..." He sits up in his chair, hands on the armrests almost as if to stand again, but instead he fixes sharp eyes on Cassian. "Bringing back the dead? Who? Where did you —"

But then his lips press together, and he shakes his head. "Your questions, not mine." And he thinks a moment, reeling back to the first question. "I don't entirely know how we show up here. It's always the hospital, and before that..." Eyes drop to his desk, brow furrowed. "I... I remember something. A lab, and some doctors, but none of the ones workin' in the hospital here. I didn't remember it before, I think I heard something that shook it loose. Didn't know what to do with it, so I tried to pass it on to you lot. See if you'd make any more of it than I could."

He swallows, then keeps going. "I've seen 'em work some medical marvels down in the ER, but never bring someone back once they're gone. That one's news to me. If I'm being honest, I can't say I entirely believe it." Which he's sure is understandable enough, all things considered.

"I can say that I woke up in that hospital, hell, three and a half years ago now. I've lived here damn near my whole life — least, I think I have." An exhale of something like a dry laugh. "After this long, it all blurs a little." Reality. This town. Any of it, honestly.

But what would he ask? That's an odd one. One he wasn't expecting, and he tries not to waste many precious seconds thinking on it, though his words come a little slow with lingering thought. "The Sheriff, he's not a bad guy. Three and a half hears, I've known the guy. And yet he seems like the one who holds whatever the hell this is together at all the seams. I've asked him why, here in my office — hell, I've asked over drinks in his living room. He won't say a single damn word to me. If all this —" A generic handwave toward the window where Nyx stands. "— is the acceptable alternative, how bad's the version where we all find out?"

By the end of it, he's talking more quickly, more because this is something that keeps him up at night and these two are the first he's been able to breathe a word of it to.

"I'd ask —" He opens a desk drawer, pulls something out, and sets three rifle bullets on the desk. "— what the hell they're giving me these for. Saying I'll know when it's time to use them, like a single damn thing that'll ever march into my office calls for an ACR."

Mayor Townsend seems to realize he's getting more fired up even than the folks here searching for answers, because he checks it now, relaxing back into his seat.

"All my news from outside comes through Danny. I—... I think I had a wife out there, but years I've been trying to call, trying to remember the numbers in the right order. It's always a stranger on the other line, a wrong number. One of 'em said she moved, but described her all wrong when I pressed for more. Not sure why he'd lie to me." It's gone ruminative, and he lifts his eyes to Cassian now for a proper answer. "Can't fathom a guess on what's out there. I've never been to the wall, myself. Taking leave's a whole lot harder these days."

[sirnyxalot]

"You should believe it. Cause you're looking at people who lived it." Nyx looks away from the window long enough to answer and see what he brings out, which makes him frown thoughtfully.

"Has the wall always been there?" Because Cassian presumes it has but now he has to ask. Also he's gonna take a look at the bullet and toss one to Nyx to look at too.

Are these bullets anything like the one they pulled out of the body in March?

[officialnotice]

The bullets are indeed like the one they pulled out of the body in March. Those were from a different make of rifle — these are on the smaller side, as far as rifle rounds go, and the one found in the body was a bit larger. Much like the other bullet, these all have tiny slits at the tip, but the bullet they found had already been spent.

The wall question seems to catch him off guard. "Yeah," he says. "As long as I can remember."

He's not touching the 'talking to dead people' part, it seems. Might be wise — they don't have much time for semantics.