2024-09-20: .the doctor's unnerving perceptioN
- Log: .the doctor's unnerving perceptioN
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Violet Miyazaki
- Where: Choir, Mongolia
- Date: 2024-09-20
- Summary: Violet, in the guise of 'Dr. Lambda', comes to Choir to liaise with the Prince through Nika -- and runs into Yuliana, in the process. Yuliana offers her a warm welcome, but she can't help but be a little strange... something which Violet finds compelling, even as they discuss the dire circumstances of the town. With an offer to visit the Silent Castle, they'll surely meet again.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Choir is a Mongolian town a hundred kilometres from the border of the Gobi Desert; normally eight thousand strong, its numbers have swelled to sixteen thousand, even though the town was damaged by the shockwaves and storms even at this distance. The sheer extra amount filled the hotels, and the spare rooms, and even the empty jail cells -- and then the rest were left to spill out into a camp town which has spread out on the edges, tent after tent of refugees who have lost more than everything.
A hulking water tank, in the middle of the camp, must have been transported via mech; at least they have water. And clothes, thanks to the combined efforts of the Silent Calling and the Yumi Foundation; they are at least warm enough, in the bone-chilling desert nights.
The problem is...
... everyone's hungry.
A child cries, in the middle of the camp; a woman in black robes and a black hijab crouches down, to hug him. She is not, at first glance, immediately identifiable as notorious reality criminal Yuliana Kafim, wanted throughout NUNE dead or alive for her crimes against humanity. "Haa, do not worry," that disguised reality criminal assures him in choppy Mongolian, as she pulls back and puts her hands on his shoulders. (She only appears to have two hands... though her robes are quite flowing and voluminous.) "You must wait until dinner only. You can do this, for me?"
"But mama's hungry," the boy sniffs, eyes all full of tears.
"Oh, I know," Yuliana says, her head canting to one side as she squeezes his shoulder gently. "These adults, we are all working very much to make it better. Where is mama?"
The boy rubs at his eyes, and points at one of the dark tents the Silent Calling has set up.
"Go beside her," she urges him, and puts on a reassuring smile. "She will worry, young man."
"'Kay," the boy sniffs, as he turns and hurries back to his tent.
Yuliana sighs, as she straightens up, a hand coming to rest on her hip. "Tch... big promises, Leyasha," she mutters, under her breath, dropping back to the more comfortable OCU English. "We're running out of time."
<Pose Tracker> Violet Miyazaki has posed.
A woman in the most generic possible "press" outfit emerges from a nearby tent. Generic white shirt, generic black slacks, generic brown hair in a generic bun. She even has the customary "press badge" - a badge that literally has PRESS printed on it in large letters. The archetypal journalist, aside from the conspicuous domino mask doing its best to look medically necessary.
This is Violet Miyazaki, doing her best to pretend to be something other than her actual day job or her current supervillain hobby. Her assistant, Erica, applied the various products currently disguising the specifics of her face and hair, and was also the one who decided she should have the mask.
The disguise seems to work well enough. Nobody's questioned her presence, despite giving her a few looks. The go-between, Nika, seemed a little confused, but she accepted "Dr. Lambda" soon enough. Violet is proud of that alias. She's not quite ready to admit publically to terrorism yet.
Speaking of public admissions. Isn't that the woman she was told was Yuliana Kafim? Violet strolls up to her side.
"An interesting place to meet. It makes sense. Lots of traffic here," she notes, observing Yuliana for her response.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Ah, the press.
Yuliana looks at her and sees a member of the press -- or someone who would like to be seen as a member of the press, at the very least. Whether it's a feint or for real, though, her reaction is the same: she turns to her, and smiles.
It's an expression entirely discongruent with the sheer drop into nothingness which surrounds her.
It isn't a physical presence. Perhaps there would be some aura surrounding her, if it were something -- but it's nothing, and that nothing is invisible to the eye. It can be sensed, however, by the Awakened mind: a cone of silence, six feet around her in every direction, where the hearts of humanity grow quiet at once.
Perhaps it's easier to miss, when those voices are already quiet.
Yuliana's eyes fall on her -- a pupilless, endless green -- and she seems to notice; her attention snaps to her, at least, before she speaks. (The connection failed. She knows the connection failed. She always knows when the connection... has failed.) "Greetings," she says, still smiling. She sounds perfectly affable -- though there's absolutely no psychic sensation from her at all. (No psychic sensation here, period; but there was nothing before Violet stepped up, either.) "The press are welcome here. I am Bolormaa, and I have come to aid my people..."
She glances aside, from the corner of her eye, as Nika slips out of a nearby tent.
"... unless," she says, delicately, quietly, "you've come seeking audience with royalty?"
Technically, that describes both her and the Prince.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Miyazaki has posed.
It's taken a little while to realise, almost casually lounging next to "Bolormaa" with her hands in her pockets, but the space around Yuliana is quiet. Too quiet to be natural. Violet's never encountered this type of... she wants to call it a chill, but the most she can say about it is that nothing is there where there should be something. Not that Violet is notably strong as far as Newtypes go, but she can still tell when someone who should be giving off signals... isn't.
The glance doesn't escape her notice. "Royalty? Something like that," she half-whispers, matching Yuliana's discretion.
"It's nice to meet you, Bolormaa." There's no excuse not to get the pronounciation right after being told, so Violet does the two of them the dignity of that minimum effort. "Your highness," she adds in a knowing tone.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yes, she is too quiet to be Natural.
And her smile is too beatific, on her address, for it to be anything but on the mark.
"Come," Yuliana says, and says it kindly, placing a hand lightly at this mysterious presswoman's shoulder to gesture her onwards. "You will want some privacy for your... interviews, I think?"
She leads her into one of those dark tents, and smiles, to the person in black robes working there. "Davaa, can you give us a moment?" She pauses, and adds: "It's all right. She knows."
"Uh -- sure thing, Oracle," Davaa says, as they pick up the papers they were sifting through from the card table that's been set up here. They make their way out of the tent, leaving the chairs which have been set up for people to work from empty, too. They're of the kind one might take camping -- fabric stretched over collapsible metal frames. Yuliana's creaks, a little, as she settles down, but it accepts her weight well enough after a moment to adjust.
"If you're the one Nika told us about," Yuliana says, as her robes shift around her, "it would be impolite for me to hide. I am Yuliana Kafim," she says, as two black, snakelike tentacles -- or are they more like flowering orchids? or grasping hands? -- slither out from the folds of the fabric to fold on her lap. "I do hope you understand my discretion. NUNE would love nothing more than to claim me again, after all. And you are...?"
She gestures to her, with a scarred hand -- a rich wedding ring banded across her finger, rose gold all studded with onyx and emeralds and diamonds.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Miyazaki has posed.
"Of course. Lead the way."
The false journalist - not totally false, she thinks, she's in the habit of sniffing out stories herself - follows the false... bystander? into her tent, taking her seat in one of the temporary chairs nearby, trying not to put too much pressure on it too fast. Not so close by as to feel invasive, not so far as to take her out of the... lack of aura that she's rapidly taken an interest in.
Violet's eyes engage with the robed woman sitting in front of her with interest, lingering on the tentacles. Not something often seen on humans, if she is indeed human. Were they a later addition, or have they always been there? The opportunity will come to ask. First, introductions.
"The discretion is a natural part of what we're doing here. Since I haven't yet been publically exposed... You can call me Dr. Lambda, for now." 'Lambda' leans back in her chair, crossing her legs casually and knitting her hands together on her own lap. "It's a pleasure to meet the creator of the infamous 'evil ice', as the news reports so... creatively put it." Violet chuckles. Both the respect towards the project and the sarcasm directed at the reporting is genuine.
"This town definitely wasn't designed with a population surge in mind," her so-called small talk begins. "Though that's to be expected when the... fifth or so? colony-level impact in the past 20 years happens." Violet's observations are made with the casual tone of someone noting down inescapable facts.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana does notice, in fact, the way this not-quite-presswoman doesn't move her chair back to escape her sphere of influence. Strange, she thinks; most Newtypes can't wait to get away from it.
... well, aside from the Newtypes in the Silent Calling, that is. They tend to appreciate her aura far more.
She is... closer to human than her wife.
Dr. Lambda might notice, when she shares her name, the way Yuliana's smile grows just a hair more fixed on her face -- just a fraction more stiff. (She's not comfortable around medical personnel, generally speaking.) "As you will, Doctor," she says, and she still sounds perfectly affable. "I'm pleased to hear you reflect on it so thoughtfully. I'll admit we scarred the Earth... but we went with God."
She tilts her head, gesturing, with a hand. "Now the piece of God who is my wife and I go against God," she adds, still quite calm. "Though She too is my Wife. I saw the devastation the Void would bring Earth, were it brought here. No longer will we merge that world to this. We will gather the strength to usurp the Empress at the End of All Things, and we will go and claim Her empire. There shall we live in peace."
They do say the Silent Calling is a religious cult; this must be what they meant. Does that... count as smalltalk? (Preaching, maybe.)
She shakes her head, glancing to the doorflap of the tent. "But the North Pole aside... this town was never built to service this many people, no." Yuliana sighs, and she does look sad, thinking about it. "But places like Mandalgovi," another Mongolian town, closer to the border, and the capital of Dundgovi Province, "they've all been destroyed... the blasts hit the desert, but the shockwaves annihilated more than that. It's that way throughout the Northern Hemisphere... I regret that I cannot assist more than one of our cells at a time, as they try to offer aid and comfort." She's quiet, for a moment, teeth pressing into her bottom lip.
She has one more than she ought to -- a fang, on her right side, crowded by the usual type of canine.
"Colony drops are the lowest of the low," she adds, dismally.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Miyazaki has posed.
The good doctor does indeed notice Yuliana's smile shifting. Bad experiences with doctors, she figures. Natural, when your existence is either a scientific curiosity or the product of such curiosity. Not that the labs that perform these modifications are often given to curiosity beyond the next phenomenon they can weaponise.
"Unpleasant experience with doctors, I see. You can rest assured that this is a supervillain name. I've no intent of laying you on a slab here," Violet jokes, trying to lighten the mood. "I have a touch more tact than... some people," and the some here clearly has directionality.
Violet remembers her time with the Federation's Newtype Institute. Plain walls, gleaming tools, miserable children... and the staff. She came to loathe the staff most of all. She had come to work on understanding a new type of human being... and she found colleagues whose only ambition was taking the loose orphans they had gathered and trying to produce obedient weapons. All the promise of a new way of seeing the world, a new way of Being, the apple of enlightenment hanging directly in their face and the only ambition they could muster was putting it in an ugly box and presenting it to egotistical-
Violet abruptly stops remembering. She can rant later, to Erica, who never seems to tire of hearing it.
"God, you say... To usurp God's empire." Lambda smirks slightly. Not a mocking smirk - more... appreciative. "Ambitions like that always produce the most interesting results..." There's an interested tone in her voice.
"But anyway, as for this town. The force transfer equations certainly support destruction of that magnitude. The various charitable efforts have done their best, but I could tell just by overhearing," both the words of complaint and the pangs of hunger, "that the food has run out here completely. Those supply chains are always the first to go. If you had enough to feed everyone here, you would have, I think. Starvation will set in inside of a week, and the NUNE has already decided who is worthy of saving... though, I believe my new associates disagree with them on who that is."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I didn't say anything," Yuliana says, a light scowl crossing her face. She might be just a little touchy. She glances away, her expression tightening a shade further, holding one of those tentacles in her hands. "But -- yes, I -- you'll excuse me, it's not the sort of thing I ought to speak on here." A beat, and she adds, "... perhaps later."
She's not trying to be unfriendly.
(But she remembers her labs, too.)
She smiles again, at least, when she thinks of their creed. "Ambition is always worthy," she echoes, gently, "and strength, most of all." She's not echoing Lambda, but it brings her peace, anyway.
"Mm," she hums, frowning again, when she turns her attention to the town. "By tomorrow, they'll go hungry. L-- a friend of mine, she said her people would help... but it's all tied up in their red tape. Tchah! Even so, we have no intention of letting them starve." She pauses, looking up to the ceiling of the tent. "We move tomorrow. One-nine-hundred hours," and perhaps she used to be military hardware, with language like that.
(She was. The raid on her laboratory was quite publicised, back in the day.)
With a sigh, she puts her hand to her knee, and pushes herself up; grasping her robes, she tucks her tentacles beneath that black cloth again, and she looks to all the world like an average woman. "Stay and see, if you like," she adds, lightly. "If the Prince gave you audience, you've the right. Or perhaps you've some errand to do... well, you could come stop by the Silent Castle, sometime, later. It rests on Kaffeklubben Island, the island closest to Heaven."
As she exits the tent, she clarifies, without looking over her shoulder: "... that is, the North Pole."
That evil green place... is like Heaven?
She doesn't stop to explain, as she heads out to continue her own tasks.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Miyazaki has posed.
"My apologies, then. I'll restrain the observations in the future... though if you're offering to clarify," Violet makes her bid to smooth things over while demonstrating her interest.
"One nine hundred hours. I'll provide the demonstration, and the samples I promised to the Prince." Violet is also used to military language, in her own way. She observes that Yuliana is, too.
"And perhaps I will pay a visit to your castle." Yuliana is certainly intriguing. Violet's mind is made up: she needs to get more of the measure of this woman. For now, though, she decides to take a closer look at the camp. Once she finishes with that, the fake reporter makes her exit. Erica, too, leaves. At a different time and through a different route, of course. They meet back at Violet's... transport, as it prepares to lift off, and the two of them shuck their disguises.
"Well, how'd it go?" Erica's voice is chipper, but it isn't unwelcome after the dreariness of the camp.
"I have my contacts. And we've been invited to an activity. I made an interesting acquaintance, too. Yuliana Kafim." Violet needs not explain who that is. Dr. Viviani was the one who briefed her on the Dawn of Fold. "Yes, I think the next few months will be very interesting indeed."
Erica continues energetically chittering for a little while after they leave. A long while.