2023-05-23: Late Night, Hope's Light
- Cast: Christina MacKenzie, Banagher Links
- Where: The Ra Mari II
- Date: U.C. 0097 05 23
- Summary: Two Haros cause a ruckus in the Ra Mari II, so late at night as to be early in the morning. Banagher goes to investigate...
<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posted.
Ra Mari II, 0300h relative to Standard Cycle Time.
Deck/Compartment: Portside Hangar 6B; Occupant: The Oberge [Registry: Christina MacKenzie via Johannesburg Trade Commission]
Registrant assessment:
Ratio sleep per unit awake in past 48 hours: 0.167.
Heartrate: Elevated
Toxicology assessment: Unknown compound, Unknown compound, Restricted Medical compound, and IP3-dysregulating neurostimulant ("caffeine").
Local Haro Disposition: "Concerned, Concerned!"
Bright lights shone from the viewports of Hangar P6B, though the vacuum-resistant material muted any sound. Audible, however, is the clikclikklik-whoosht of the corridor access opening, two Haro spilling out and bouncing, noisily, around the vicinity.
"Anyone? Anyone?"
"Sleeping! Sleeping!"
"XAIRO panic, XAIRO panic--Siren?"
"No Siren! No No Siren No! Crew angry!"
"disappointed helpless 'bloop-bloop'ing"
The ratcheting and clanking of tools resumes, distant from the portal but echoing in the broad hangarspace. The sounds send the Haros into a fluttering, flapping, frenetic tizzy.
"No siren!!" The gunmetal Haro insists to his larger sister, seeing her still and lift her top panel to extend her signal suite. "No siren!!!" MAIRO descends into rapid machine code peziotransmissions to XAIRO, but trails off suddenly, turning into the dimly red-lit hallways. "--inquisitive 'bleep?'"
Both Haros still for a moment. The antennae on XAIRO glimmer and pulse.
"Human approaching! One!"
"MAIRO detect Haro! Haro ID: Haro (LE)!! Confirming VERTEX ping: Banagher! Banagher!!!"
Both industrial Haros immediately decay into a warbling storm of the words "Haro!" And "Banagher!" and "Friend!" and the ruckus surely carries down the corridor.
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links has posed.
The last of the Metis Colony survivors have left the ship, and Banagher, now bereft of urgent tasks, finds himself still unable to sleep. Fearing having to face his memories of the disaster at Industrial 7 along with Banshee's endless nightmares, the young pilot would rather wander the halls of the Ra Mari II.
At least, for now. It's irresponsible to refuse sleep right before the next Coordinate mission. He's going to have to try eventually.
"New donation! New donation!" Haro chirps, flapping next to Banagher's shoulder as the young man makes his way to the hangar.
A tired smile crosses Bangaher's face. "That's great Haro, thanks. I think we're going to reach our goal. That'll be enough to support everyone for a few months, at least. I wish someone had done this for Industrial 7..."
Haro bonks (gently) into Banagher's arm. "Sorry, Banagher. Sorry, Banagher."
"It's alright. There's way more people who need help this time anyway." Banagher opens the doorway to the hangar with a tap. Maybe the Unicorn could use a few last minute adjustments. "Besides, all we can do is--"
Chaos. The hangar is in chaos. Banagher only has a moment to stare as MAIRO and XAIRO rebound around the area before they're calling out his name. Haro, immediately charmed by the scene, races forward to join his companions.
"Banagher! Banagher!" Haro calls, flapping over to MAIRO. "Friends! MAIRO! XAIRO!"
Extending both his arms, Haro gleefully flails. "Friends!"
"Hang on--!" Banagher kicks off the floor, propelling himself toward the three companion robots. "What's got you in a state like this?"
Haro is scooped into one arm, and the young pilot places a hand on MAIRO, then XAIRO, testing if they've overheated. "Wait. Where's Chris? What are you doing wandering around without her?"
It's not strange for the industrial Haros to be seen working on their own, but Chris is /always somewhere in the vicinity. Bangher frowns. "Has something happened to her?"
<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.
The paired haros are dedicating equal hard drive allocation to the processes of utter glee and utter desperation. It's a downright cacophony.
"Banag-""BANAGHER HEL-""-her, HaroHaro!-""-P HELP""Come come, help us, han-""HELP CHRIS HELP""-gar hangar; XAIRO quiet please quiet!" MAIRO begs his younger sister, who sulks, but complies. "Banagher! Come come, Chris working!! Juice! Juice!"
It's not completely clear what 'juice means, but they are visibly unsettled about Chris, who is apparently...in the hangar...working? The last refugees have disembarked, and Banagher may have heard Sayla explicitly telling her working dog colleague that she's to submit her current task documents to Miss Marusa and--well, her exact words needn't be repeated in polite company.
Once Banagher gently reassures them, they flap once more, but still themselves. They're just a little warmer than they ought to be in the temperature-controlled circulation.
"Banagher, Follow, Follow!"
Both the Haros break off and bound down to the adjoining unit, where they open the door to a high-pitched whirring, with a beat pulse of grinding vibration that fades in and out.
As they turn the corner and enter the reverberating space, the Tristan comes into sight, only partially repainted, but fully reassembled. The panels are splayed open, exposing his delicate innards, now a little less cobwebbing of cables and cross-connections, a little more streamlined. If Banagher looks closer, he might see cable reroutes and overflow bypasses, bearing some passing familiarity to some of the Mazins rumbling below his apartment.
But more likely, his eyes are drawn to the cables trailing from the opened cockpit to a datapad. A certain redhead is flitting about in low-G, as the odd bulb in the Tristan's back whirls and counterwhirls, gleaming with pulsing light as she modulates the rotational frequency. The shouting of her Haros doesn't seem to reach her at first, and she gripes, loudly, about the "--joule loss and voltage inconsistency with the documentation," she received from Ian.
Still, she keeps adjusting, and that beat pulse rises, vibrates out to a grinding keen, and shuts down again.
"Damn it, why can't I find the harmonic frequency?!" She floats around to the front, dangling from the cowling of the forward engine block--wait, is the whole chest a conjoined dynamo? What the fuck did you do, Chris?
"Come on, come on, aren't there enough current compensators?"
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links has posed.
Banagher's eyes dart between MAIRO, XAIRO, and Haro, trying to take in the sheer amount of noise and ruckus being created by the three companion robots.
"Help?" He works out, and once MAIRO gets XAIRO to calm down, he nods eagerly. "I'm with you, let's go!"
Juice, though?
Banagher pulls his phone out of his hoodie pocket, just in case he needs to call for medical help. Chris has always been a hard worker... Maybe she's overdone things this time? At least the Chris' two Haros feel /mostly/ normal. No immediate signs of malfunction.
It's tough to keep up with Haros in low-gravity, but Banagher manages, his own Haro flapping ahead at top speed.
"Chris!" Haro calls, "Chris!"
Nearly crashing into the corner, Banagher takes in the Tristan before him. It's really a marvel of work and effort, he thinks, looking at the delicate wiring. Forgetting his Haro mission for a moment, the young pilot coasts to a stop by one of the machine's open panels, taking a good look.
"This is amazing... How long..." He murmurs, following one of those bundles of cables down to... "Chris!"
Banagher pushes himself down to her, floating just in front of the datapad. She's got to be /intensely/ focused if MAIRO and XAIRO's shouting haven't been enough to draw her attention.
"Hey!" Banagher calls, waving a hand over the datapad. "How long have you been at this?"
A glance to the... creative decisions going on near the engine block. Banagher blinks.
"I think it's time for a break." Golden eyes are soft and sympathetic. Chris isn't the only one to have been eaten by a project before. "You have a few friends worried sick about you."
Haro flutters into Chris's space, bonking against her shoulder in a friendly sort of way. "Juice! Juice!"
"What is juice." Banagher mutters, glancing between the three robots.
<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.
As soon as Banagher physically intervenes, XAIRO and MAIRO pipe down, hovering around, tentative but hopeful. Observing. Really, it's remarkable how attentive they are--they've been growing so much lately.
Chris, for a brief confused moment, peers around the object in front of her blocking her view of the datapad, before it really sinks in that it's a person in front of her.
"Wha, who... Banagher? What are you doing here? How long? I've only been working maybe...what, two hours? Did they call for dinner? Food sounds great right now, I'll be there once I get this synchronized!"
She has not. They long since did. She won't be.
When Banagher holds firm, she blinks a bit, realizes the three Haros hovering uncharacteristically silent. She stares at Banagher another moment and slowly--if he flinches, so does she, but she still has to look--reaches past him, tugging the datapad enough into view to check the time.
Dilated eyes widen.
"Wh...what... How?" She stares, increasingly bordering on tears, as Banagher names the emotions in three circuit boards and one caring soul.
"Oh, Banagher..."
Chris looks back at Haro, and, working hard to switch gears away from the electromotive equations crowding her consciousness, suddenly looks deeply ashamed.
"I..."
MAIRO only chimes in in once Chris's words fail her for a long minute, and warbles to Haro as he bonks himself into her belt. "Anaheim Juice! From Auntie Hae-won and Uncle Kashyap! MAIRO boot #3. Chris iterated, MAIRO boots #6, 8, 13."
An energy drink from her Anaheim colleagues? That doesn't quite explain...
<VERTEX> MAIRO has transferred a file: project_working_recipe_c5v3i2
Before the ding even finishes echoing, Chris unties her belt pouch and gives it to Banagher, eyes down. Tools, datasticks, ah, there, in the padded pouch. There's two left of four. One to make sure all the the refugees get sorted. One to...?
"I have to get him moving right, before we get there... I have to, or I can't protect you."
The file is properly transferred and readable.
That's uh. That's not a good... That's not great, no.
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links has posed.
"Sorry to break your focus." Banagher says, apologetically. "But these two were about to wake half the ship. They called for dinner, uh." A helpless shrug. "Hours ago."
Chris promises to come get some food once she reaches a stopping point, but Banagher doesn't move. He's heard that one before. Golden eyes stare back, unblinking. This exact scene played out a hundred times at Anaheim Electric -- with the young pilot of the Unicorn swapping between playing the distracted party and the rescuer.
Banagher's smile turns rueful as Chris realizes the time, then a little panicked as she begins to tear up. "H--hey, it's alright! We've all done this, right? It's practically a part of engineering! One time, Takuya--"
MAIRO chimes in, saving Chris from a long story of young students too smart for their own good.
"Anaheim!" Haro chirps happily. "Home, home!"
Banagher's face falls, and he takes a sharp breath.
"H--hang on." He pulls himself together. "How long have you been working on energy drinks alone? Tell me you've eaten something, had some water..."
Trailing off, Banagher sighs, accepting the pouch. He pulls out one of said Anaheim Juices and looks it over. "Wow. It's practically shocking my fingers. Are you sure this is safe, Chris?"
Haro projects MAIRO's file on a closed panel of Tristan's armor. Banagher whistles, eyes widening. "I think if I sent this recipe to Sayla, she'd come back to space to lecture you. And you've had two in..."
"Protect me." Banagher repeats, keeping his eyes on Haro's projection. "Chris, is that why you've been working so hard?"
This close, the bags beneath his eyes are clear, as are the slump of his shoulders.
"When was the last time you slept?" His voice gets even softer. "Or took a break? I -- working like this, you could get hurt, and -- I --"
Tears fill Banagher's eyes, and he quickly rubs at his face with the sleeve of his hoodie. "...I can't bear one more person..."
<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.
Chris can't meet that steady gaze. The story reflected in those eyes--not that she can see it, not with her pistons pumping and her brain pulling her back to the engine synchro. Banagher's memories, were, yes, her experiences back in the early 80s. Not always keeping to healthy limits, especially when the Gundam Development Project was iterating towards the misery that was 83, but always keeping an eye on each other. Even in the worst of days. Stardust, and then ...30 Bunch. Still, she could be talked down. Could be drawn back to real life. From being eaten by a project.
No, but...88 and on... Well. That's when she cut the juice into its current form. She'll tell Banagher about 0080 and Bernie, some time or another, when she can string different thoughts together. But that's far from her thoughts right now. It was easier to keep working, keep focused, than to sleep perchance to dream.
Maybe that's why this Laplace business was so easy to overextend on--half her age but already dealing with her burden and more still. When this is all over...they'll have to exchange their stories. Their excesses and their friends and their nightmares too.
None of this passes through the sheet lightning of her consciousness.
Her eyes widen when he holds the vial. She reaches, almost, halts, jerkily. "It's...strong. Please, be careful..." Maybe a part of her is afraid of it getting damaged, but her eyes are locked on Banagher, not the vial. That's what she's afraid of getting damaged. --Chris, why would you make something other people shouldn't risk touching?
At the mention of Sayla, though, she bursts into rapid speech, sudden movement.
"No, please! It's... Sayla made me stop. She hated finding this...me." Doesn't sound like 84, so...it must be 91. Banagher might not have heard much from Leina about Chris when she first was rescued from her own prison. He might not have heard much, but he might have seen flickers of her memories, depending. Not much is still just enough. "Leina, Char, Puru... She's so fragile... Please!"
Luckily, there's nothing habit-forming in the chemical safety datasheets. But if it's not... then the problem is solely what she means to achieve with using them. The problem is what costs she's willing to pay. The problem is what she's paying those costs with.
'Protect me. Is that why?'
Chris doesn't answer, not directly.
"I just need to finish him..." Less strident, but no less begging.
That's 'Yes.'
The problem is that nothing she does is quite enough, knowing that if she did more, did better, saved even one...
How long since? That distant, confused, disfocused gaze returns.
"I don't...remember. We had the conference, and, I, I crashed? Then..." Her eyes well up with tears, her brain spinning and spinning for a memory she barely encoded. Desperate for an answer she can't find, just like the Tristan.
"Th-then...--"
If he could save just one,
If she'd do anything to save just one more,
But she refuses to save herself.
MAIRO scans the changelogs from the datapad and the telemetry from her mobile device. "2312 to 0719 SCT! 1,186 minutes ago! 19.767 hours! 19.767 hours!!"
"No, I-- No, Banagher, you're not--" Scrambling, flailing with her hands, with her mind, with her words, reaching out to grasp him, reaching out to anchor herself onto him. She's worked up again, but she's spent long enough like this to be coasting on fumes. It's not even loud enough to echo. "You didn't do anything wrong! You didn't you didn't you didn't! Please, what's wrong? How can I fix it? Banagher, tell me!"
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links has posed.
Banagher can feel the conflict and distress in Chris' gaze, even without his Newtype abilities. He doesn't know her history, or the true reason for her sorrow, only the echoes of what has been left behind.
Someday, when she's ready to talk, Banagher will be there to listen.
"I really don't think you should be drinking something like this..." Is all that he says for the moment, feeling the liquid slosh inside the vial. Banagher looks up, alarmed, when Chris suddenly moves. "I -- was just teasing you, I'm sorry. I won't tell her."
It's a promise -- though it makes the young man look all the more distressed to swear to.
"I know she's doing badly. All of this, it's been too much for any of us, but Sayla..." He squeezes his eyes shut, enduring the flickers of memory that pass from Chris' soul to his own. "Sayla more than anyone."
Both Chris and Banagher go quiet for a moment. Emotions roil in this quiet corner of the hangar. Too much unspoken, too much endured.
"I'm sorry." He says, again, keeping his arm up to shield his face for a moment longer. "All of this is because of me."
Nearly 20 hours, MAIRO reports, and Haro makes a little chime of dislike, as though heralding the death of a character in an ancient video game.
Banagher's shoulders tremble at the announcement, and he allows Chris to grasp him, lowering his arm to look her in the eyes. Haro floats, upside down, extending a hand to take away the ominous vial from Banagher. It'd be bad if it spilled, after all...
"S--sorry, sorry..." It's all he can say. "I-- All of this. Vist, Luio. It's all happening because of me. How many people have died, now? How many have suffered and lost everything!?"
Banagher's voice raises, not in anger, then breaks and quiets again.
"I'm so /tired/, Chris. But I can't stop. Not when so much has been sacrificed for me." A breath. He can do this. Stay calm. "I just want-- you to be okay. I don't want you to feel like you have to work yourself to death to protect me."
After a second of effort, Banagher manages a little smile. "If you really want to fix it, come with me and get some proper food. I'm sure Tristan wouldn't want to see you in this state either."
Stay in the moment. Focus on the problem.
<Pose Tracker > Christina MacKenzie has posed.
Her eyes are still darting, but slower now, still flicking to the Tristan and the datapad and the cables and the engine(s) and the Haros, but it keeps coming back to Banagher, anchored by his intercession.
"Don't tell... don't tell her..." she murmurs, becoming her own echo. "I can't let her down. I can't let the survivors down..."
Warbling together, uncertain of their role in this melancholic tenor, the Haros Triplicate orbit the anguished engineers as they both retract inwards for a moment...
Haro takes the vial away, and Banagher's posture falls farther as his eyes raise. Chris pulls herself closer, but her eyes are distantly focused.
It's true that many have died and suffered. Facts, numbers, count the soldiers-- 221? Yes? No? The Britannian soldiers caught crossfire in Seattle? Do they count? Does Metis count? The bowbroken Garancieres, did it plummet to Earth? What's the total?
What were those resonance frequencies she'd ruled out, again?
She has to drag her brain away from the quantifications, and fixes herself back on this poor boy. "No, no, Banagher, nono, Bana, no, nonono," she titters out until her brain catches up with her aching heart. She's a little less disorganized, now, but her senses are still rather dyssynchronous.
"Those recordings, Luio & Rita... My war, Unicorn, Augusta ...you didn't cause them." She works hard to keep her eyes on his, though they keep eliding away. "None of this because of you. You're you just you!--all of it in spite of you."
"If you stopped, none of this would stop. To stop it we can't stop."
Chris tugged harder on the young man's jacket, adjusting to wrap her arms around his shoulders, pull that chaotic mop in.
Chris's body is warm, and there's a faint sense of vibration. No matter by what cause--the stimulant, the memories, her worry over Banagher, and glycolytic depletion--there's a tremor that runs through her body. Even so, she insists that, "I won't die. Can't die. Have to be alive to protect you--protect all three of you. Did you know? I had no hope. But now..." Her arms squeeze just a little tighter. "Now I have three hopes in this world."
It seems like she's coming down a little bit from the obsessive fixation, but she clearly is still in a degree of altered consciousness, at least.
Tristan wouldn't want...no, no he wouldn't.
("Oh, Bernie...") her thoughts roll, ("Help me protect these kids...a while longer.")
She disentangles herself from Banagher, arms jerking less and shaking more than before--clear exhaustive symptomatology.
"Food," she says, at the same volume as the thought she mistook for private, "Okay."
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links has posed.
Golden eyes fill with deeper worry as Chris worries about letting Sayla and the survivors down. "That's not... No, they wouldn't feel that way. Just the fact that someone cares that they lost everything. That's what matters. That someone wants to help, and make sure it won't happen again..."
His voice trails off, and in this moment, perhaps, Chris will realize he isn't talking entirely about the survivors of /this/ Colony's destruction.
Hearing Chris' voice go so soft has an odd reaction on the young man. He's not used to being spoken to this way, and something about it tugs old, half-remembered moments of comfort from deep in his brain. Embarrassed, he glances away, even as his eyes fill with tears.
"Cardeas Vist was my father." Banagher mutters. "It's all -- it always has been."
It's practically a confession. Banagher has spoken of his connection to Vist publicly, but this is something more. An acceptance of the weight of his actions and the path he's walked.
When Chris wraps her arms around him, Banagher sinks into her grip, hiding his face in her shoulder. Tears fall, and he clings to her in return. Messy brown hair smells clean, at least -- he hasn't entirely given up on himself.
"We can't stop." He repeats. "But if-- you burn yourself out like this, then it's just the same as if they stopped you, isn't it?"
She had no hope..? Banagher blinks, then hugs Chris more tightly. "That's what I want to be, more than anything. The Unicorn and I as a symbol of hope -- I think it's the best thing I could do. The best way to show Vist I won't be like them, not ever. The best way to help the world."
"Hope!" Haro chimes. The vial he was holding has mysteriously vanished. Perhaps judgment has been passed on Chris' dietary choices. "Hope!"
Banagher holds onto the hug for a moment longer, but releases Chris as she pulls away. They're both a mess. "You've got to promise me you'll take care of yourself the way you'd take care of one of us, then. Me, or Audrey, or Leina. You'd never let us work ourselves into a state like this, right?"
And, as Chris might know, Leina and Bangaher both have gotten themselves into a state like this in the past.
"I'll promise I'll take care of myself the way I'd take care of you."