synopsychic | Of Councils and Conspiracies

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Of Councils and Conspiracies

We managed to make it in and out of the Council offices in one piece.

[That's the sort of statement that should sound celebratory. It doesn't. Even with the flattened affect provided by the psychic network's rendering of tone, there's an undercurrent of carefully restrained anger.]

The plague's gone. The plague's been gone for almost two hundred years. The Council's been keeping quarantine all this time in order to keep from having to admit they've been drugging people blind for no good reason for centuries. Their biggest concern right now is the fact that more and more kids are being born resistant to their drugs.

That's where the Duskling population boom is coming from. And the kids born on the wrong side of twilight - apparently, immunity to one side doesn't guarantee immunity to the other, and they aren't all that careful about making sure their shipments don't get mixed up, since an adult probably isn't going to notice any change after a few doses of the wrong thing.

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So what would be the most effective way of exposing all this pakshit to the whole city?

Kerosene, some matches, and a map to wherever they're keeping the shit they're dosing people with.

Or if we want the less destructive option, according to the avalanche of memos, they're holding a public meeting next week.

They probably keep it at the guarded facility in Gritta. That's where all the food comes from.

On the flip side...that's where all the food comes from. We could torch it, sure, but then we'd get to be responsible for the following food shortage.

It wasn't exactly a serious suggestion. Fire's a last resort. A very cathartic last resort.

But if the food in storage has all been tampered with, it might be a loss anyway. They must store everything for the Dusk market in a separate location...

Well, we could always torch the Council instead. Much more satisfying, and with a lot less risk of starvation.

[it's not exactly a serious suggestion either. but admittedly, still rather tempting]

The farms, maybe?

Maybe. We should send someone out there to see how well they can support the population if the food in the warehouse has all been altered.

If we could just get word to another city...

We do wonder what's happened with those other cities...did they ever get the plague as well, or was it just January?

I think it had to have hit them. You said your source told you a delegate brought it back - there's a good chance it spread to the other cities the same way.

If it hadn't, someone would have come looking by now.

They also sent people out, to tell the other cities that there was still plague. Still, you would think that someone would have managed some contact by this point.

We...hope that they have not all fallen to plague. But it is possible.

More than a thousand years ago. No one's going to write off a city for a thousand years unless getting to it turns into a matter of can't, not won't.

Not if they decide it's in their interests to do so.

But...you're probably right.

We'll probably never know. Not unless someone feels like exploring, and gets lucky enough to find something before this is all over.

How do people stand this?

The same way people stand anything. Because we have no choice.

[but by the angry, bitter tone he spits that out in...he's just as unhappy about it all as she is]

Edited 2016-10-14 00:54 (UTC)

[She recognizes that tone, mostly from hearing it in her own voice. She's hardly a stranger to survival, after all.

Gambling with the future of entire worlds, though? That's new.

Mostly.]

Too bad we can't just organize a strike until we get a living wage and reasonable information.

We wish. Problem is, the worlds the Trumps are playing around are still real, and they're usually heading towards some kind of upheaval when we arrive.

There's a lot of potential for things to go very wrong.

So what do they get out of making sure everything hits the boiling point early?

No idea.

They're not exactly big on explaining their goals. Or anything, really.

(no subject)

memoryandtheft - 2016-10-28 01:01 (UTC) - Expand

Telling people is the easy part. Getting them to not think we're completely out of our minds is another. We need to prove it, even if we fake it enough to get their attention.

We have the memos, and the possibility of the plague test being put into production. Getting samples of food won't be hard; chemical analysis isn't my thing, but it's an option for smarter people than me. If we can get into their facility, we might be able to get samples of the actual compounds they're using to drug people before they're mixed in with the food.

No amount of proof is going to convince everyone that the way they've lived their lives for a few centuries isn't necessary, but it will convince enough people to start trying to eat clean that they'll become proof on their own as the effects taper off.

Can't fit into my armor like this but I got a robot that can pull that off on his own. Used him for missions like that before. He can hide a lot easier than a person can. Got some basic sensors that might help, not sure how much if there are components I don't have programmed in.

Even if he can just get an internal layout, that's a starting point for a break-in.

He can do that no problem. Probably get a general count of where people tend to be too.

Useful for mapping guard patterns, if the rotations are regular enough.

Where's the facility? I'll send him out as soon as possible.

In...

[There's a pause as she consults some notes.]

Gritta. Near the wall surrounding the city. If Matthew's been there, he can probably give you more precise directions.

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