unfinishedlibrary | I'm not saying that it's aliens

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I'm not saying that it's aliens - TAKE A LOAD OFF, LOG 2

Who: Readers and Actors
What: Beta Story final log
When: November 28 - December 11
Where: Woodhurst (UK) and the SS Radiance (in space!), 2019
Content warnings: Please tag warnings in comment headers!

In Woodhurst:

There is quite a bit of confusion in the village as the weeks pass by- by now it is clear that some people are very much not themselves, and there are multiple theories as to why. Aliens, obviously- the really weird bit is that it’s not just certain edgy teens purporting this theory, but since there’s been some (alleged) activity previously, maybe they’ve come back! Some tourists (and perhaps some locals) have made signs of the ‘Take me with you!’ variety, mostly loitering in the town square or in the park, whenever they get chased out of one or the other.

Suffice it to say, those people aren’t being taken seriously by those in charge- though even they have to admit that something strange is going on. Prevailing theories amongst officials are ‘gas leakage’ and ‘water contamination,’ neither of which are suitable explanations but no one seems to want to think too hard on it. As a result, the friends and families of those acting out of sorts are in a strange position. Do they try to seek medical help? Wait and hope it sorts itself out? Or do they join the crowds bidding welcome to their potential alien guests, demanding their real loved ones return?

Visitors of all stripes might find themselves a bit more scrutinized, as a result. Didn’t a bunch of weird people show up just as people seemed to start changing? Readers and aliens alike had best be on their most normal behavior, or it’s possible they’ll get cornered by someone asking what’s happening, or… a fanatic who wants to be taken up into their spaceship. Some of whom have some weird questions about probes. Good luck figuring out what that’s about.

On the IMW Group Supply Ship: Radiance

Things are not all well further up in the atmosphere, either. The staff have had to deal with much more pushback than they were expecting, including some people who seemed to not enough understand the concept of mental health (which was not in the briefing- shouldn’t they have at least heard of it before?). A few cases also seem to be quite severe, involving a level of intervention that they weren’t really prepared for- but of course, they’re here, so they’re going to do the very best they can to get all the humans the help they need! Hopefully legally.

Most alarmingly, however, it seems there have been some kidnapping attempts! …Kidnapping attempts that didn’t involve them! Someone, or multiple someones, have managed to get the patients off the ship without first filling out their discharge paperwork, and that simply will not do. As a result, security is ramped up on the ship… sort of. There’s very little in the way of a security crew, after all, and it’s not like they can call in reinforcements. So mostly this means that there are some very tired counselors who have been put on hallway shifts, and everyone has been assigned a little name badge that they MUST wear at ALL TIMES.

(There are actual people guarding the shuttles now, but again… there’s only so much security. The real question is, do you really want to beat up the aliens who are just trying to help?)

To their credit, the various Group members are trying to listen to the concerns of the patients who are here… less than willingly, and are beginning to filter some cases back to the planet by request. But they are going to do it properly, which means the proper forms. A wrap up visit with their counselor, a form agreeing to be finished with treatment, a politely worded request to maybe not tell people about the aliens (it’s not an NDA, because the Group has never needed those, it’s really just a form asking if they’re going to talk about it so management can figure out how badly this is going to go). Oh, and would you mind filling out this survey about your experience?

Of course, not everyone is in a hurry to leave- or at least needs something to do while waiting for bits of paperwork to approve. All the regular classes and sessions are still going, and they even retrofitted one of the spas to have water instead of… whatever it was before. Now certified safe for humans!

[Information on what's available on the ship is in the first log; info post is here.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You are." The card is set down at the top of the array of six of its fellows, its image a single fist holding a stick. "You wonder what I might do to you. What I might do to your allies, when I catch them. The imagination is vivid, is it not?"

The entire set is swept back up and added back to the stack, shuffled with an idle grace repeatedly. Deck split, reshuffled. Split again, reshuffled. "Fear is a gift few understand until it's much too late." When he begins setting them out again, in the same pattern as before, the cards are all identical to the previous layout, including the single fist and its lone stick at the top. "A protective mechanism designed to keep life from foolish mistakes and terrible lapses of judgment. Those who forget die much faster than those who do not."

"I don't want to know that." Which means yes, its brain had run down the road of 'what would have happened' and had come back screaming. One down side of being an artist is an imagination.

But as long as the stranger is here, he's not, well, doing that to anyone else.

"Without fear, there would be no courage." And surely its drink makes a wonderful shield, with the way Tsang is trying to hold it in front. "Every hero has felt fear, and overcome it."

"And few heroes have long peaceful lives with which to enjoy their courage." Again the cards are collected and reshuffled. The odds were against one repetition.

Seven beggars belief. "Come, miserable creature. Sit. You wish to pretend to be human, act as humans do. Play the game of fate, as humans do, and see if courage serves you or cuts you."

The stack of cards is set on the table, and swept in a long arc to display their seventy-plus identical backs. "Choose seven."

"It takes courage to live in peace, as well." So full of aphorisms, it is.

It makes a sound that in a human would be an audible nervous swallow, but Tsang is a Revanian, so his nervous gulp sound sounds more like a cricket chirp. Which it realizes was wrong, so it hides the chirp in a sip from its drink.

Ah, delicious green. But it has a mission now: to show that it's not afraid. So it perches on the chair, like a nervous bird, one hand, the wrist wrapped in layers of friendship bracelets (because Tsang has FRIENDS!!) tapping the cards, twitching back each time as if this was a trap.

It probably was.

Either Tsang's words or that nervous chirp earn a snort from the Night Haunter. "It takes complacency and laziness to live in peace." Though he makes no move to grab the alien, every flinch back sharpens his attention much like dangling a feather at a cat, and it takes supreme restraint to simply slide each indicated card in front of himself and collect the rest that aren't selected back into their neat stack.

"This version of the lesser arcanoi is different than I'm used to," the pale man says, tone thoughtful, as the cards are arranged, face-down, in a loose figure-eight. "Though it does usually vary from world to world, I've gotten rather used to my own. I'll convert them as best I can." The first is flipped over, a rabbit sitting amongst five cups, two still full of red liquid, three spilled on the ground. "Many believe that it is possible to tell the present, the past and the future based on what card arrives in which position, as a fun game with friends. Pay attention. I will not repeat it." He's one of them. He knows it works well for unraveling the mysteries of his own foresight when it's too vague to provide more than uneasy warning.

No visions have plagued him here, though. "This position represents what has gone before, and its influence on matters now. It is..." There's a moment of hesitation, and a frown follows it, running what he knows of his own cards on the Nightfall versus 'modern' Earth's variant. "An emotional state returning to cause trouble. Sorrow, loss, depression, inherited cycles of emotional suffering." Hey, wasn't that why the aliens are here to begin with? Except he's not ... sure it applies to the alien. "It is also a reminder nothing lasts forever, and an opportunity waits to change old patterns and break free."

It notices (sorry, empath) the interest in its sharp, nervous movements, but Tsang is helpless to calm them down, snatching its hand back after each tap as though the other would bite its fingers. Or worse.

"I...don't know what that means." Sorrow, depression? Can you even see this floppy manbun being sad? "Unless you mean my mission here." Because this place was an emotional sinkhole.

But still. "What kinds of old patterns?"

All those sharp teeth on display in a jagged smile suggests he absolutely would bite its fingers if he got the opportunity, and that it wouldn't go well for those fingers.

Curze is the very picture of restraint. Temptation claws at him, but he's able to resist it. He'd decorate this entire place with xenos blood, sooner or later. "I don't know your mission here, so that is up to you. One way or another it ends very soon, but we may pretend otherwise for a little while. Meaning is ... terribly subjective, its focus on the individual the cards are for. Think about what you have been doing that is familiar but no longer working or is now actively causing you trouble."

Tsang is trying its very hardest to look non-tasty or non-chewable. Or skinnable, for that matter. That would be awful, if its human costume came off in the middle of public. An absolute disaster.

It was almost like being around the stranger just made terrible thoughts appear in Tsang's head.

"Our mission is to help. Only that. I don't know why you don't believe me!" Tsang might be getting agitated so it regulates by another sip of its frothy drink. "And...this mission. I did exactly what I was trained to do!" And one of its patients had been counterkidnapped and there was a non human hacking the shipboard system and then...this person. "Maybe I am not meant to do this."

Great job, stranger, causing an existential crisis. Are you happy now?

"We have learned, at considerable cost, that rarely there is an alignment in what an alien claims to wish to do, and what they actually do." Which is why Curze is going to kill them all, once he finds them all. And he intends to start with this one. "All the things I may visit upon you humanity has endured a thousand times over at the hands of xenos pretending to be friends." What's ... the point of telling this idiotic creature any of this?

Maybe it didn't know what its kind did with the people it replaced. That seemed unlikely. "Perhaps you are not meant to do this indeed. I will extend to you the courtesy of a doubt. Maybe you creatures are so ignorant of human nature that you are unaware your methods are designed to terrorize and antagonize every individual forced to endure it.."

Konrad won't be happy until every single alien is off the planet and dead or suffering an existential crisis. Or suffering an existential crisis before being killed. "But there must be justice, and ignorance is no excuse."

The second card is turned over, an absurdly cheerful looking religious figure of some sort. It takes him a moment to map it not by appearance but by number. The Sigilite, in any sane deck. What's a hierophant?

"No!" Tsang is getting heated now, because that's just wrong! "We don't terrorize anyone! We do talking circles! Tactile clay! Colored pencils! Drum circles!" Admit it, those don't exactly sound like the nefarious tools of terror.

"Are your kind so afraid to feel their feelings that it feels like torture?" If so, Tsang would like to offer a hug. But...not really because it does not feel comfortable without the length of this cafe table between them. A metaphorical hug.

"What justice is there in letting something suffer when you could help it heal?" Meanie!

Tsang is given another of those long unblinking looks, irritation seething just out of sight. "And now you know why I say we have suffered at the hands of aliens which claim to want one thing but do another. You do not get to decide how your undeserving victims feel about your actions." He leans forward a little over the cards, and while the temptation is there to seize the alien, he does not. "Humanity is a pack species, prey that has learned to be predators. Fear is their most primal, predictable reaction to new, threatening things. You have stolen people from their kin and homes and replaced them with parodies; those left behind will know this is not their loved one, and worry and fear for their safety. You have compelled innocents to act as you wish when you wish, without their consent."

He leans back in his seat, disgust bleeding into his voice and expression. "You aren't helping. You're making things worse. If you were going to survive the night I would suggest a little more reflection on the effects your kind is having on this colony. Not what you intend. Intention is meaningless. Results are everything." None of this is hypocritical to Curze; he knows what he is and why he does what he does. But he also didn't try to claim he was there to help.

Oh, sorry, but Tsang can feel the irritation: empath, remember? Its emotive spines are almost quivering under its human suit. That is not a nice feeling, stranger. Tsang has no idea why the stranger wants to feel that way.

"There are no victims!" This is so distressing. Tsang hasn't victimized anyone. "Talk to any of our patients. They have suffered no harm. The replacements are so that no one worries about their loved ones." It's all been so carefully thought out to be kind and considerate and here is this person who does not even seem to dress himself appropriately (does Tsang need to get him a shirt from their costume supply?) being mean about it!

It was time for some nonviolent communication! "When you say things like that, it makes me feel hurt, because you are attributing harmful motives to the work we came across the galaxy to do to help." Humans are LOUD.

...'survive the night'? It did not like how that sounded at all. "What would harming me achieve?"

Curze folds his hands before him, resting his chin on upturned knuckles. "If I were to cut your eyes out right this moment, but I insisted it was for a good cause and you weren't my victim, would it hurt less? Would you bleed less? Would the terror you feel knowing I will do it to every other member of your species be eased by my repeating it isn't really hurting you?"

He sounds patient and disappointed, like an instructor dealing with a student that keeps making the same mistakes. Beneath it hostile hatred burns, pure and clean and utterly focused. "You demonstrate an incapability and utter disinterest for learning and changing your ways. And so you will be the lesson, in the hope that others of your kind are capable of learning." He wanted to know what it looked like outside of its disguise. Tracking down its home planet might be easier.

"But there's no reason to rush to find out, as yet. You have a drink to finish and I my meal." Which he... has yet to touch and probably should.

"Sir. Ma'am. Honored person." Or whatever. It is too busy trying to do the Revanian version of not losing its composure entirely and it may have made a gender gaffe. It would apologize for that later. "I do not think that is a fair comparison. You are talking about permanent disfigurement, and I am...talking about sock puppets." They don't compare.

Wait. A lightbulb went off in its brain. "Do you think that healing from your trauma is a...bad thing? Does your kind willingly carry the scars of what one has endured?" That was not in the briefing packet!

It edges back in its seat, trying to create as much distance between itself and the stranger, while still trying to look, well, relatively normal to any passersby. Just two...ordinary people having a totally normal conversation.

Nobody's ever called Curze a ma'am before. It would figure an alien might. "Distress is distress. The one who inflicts it cannot tell the one suffering it how severe or mild the offense is. To do so is to wound them again."

Morality lessons with the Night Haunter. Lorgar would be better suited to this. Or Sanguinius, if his angelic brother would bother attempting to teach an alien, but he didn't expect so.

The second card is studied. A wise counselor, advice on right and wrong. A trusted source. "Context," he says softly, "Is all important. The scars we carry mold us into who we are. You may not deny those who wish to keep the lessons of their lives written on flesh and mind alike. Nor may you force them to accept 'healing' they do not desire, simply because you think they should."

The Sigilite is not a card that should be waiting for xenos filth. "For mankind, the right to choose their path is sacrosanct. Nothing matters more to humanity, and you took it away. Many would have welcomed kindness and healing. Had you come to this colony with open hands and open intentions, and not this subterfuge, this abduction and terrorizing of a defenseless population ... this conversation would be very different indeed. Perhaps our people could have been friends, if you hadn't lied to us from the moment you arrived. There's a parable from ancient Terra about liars trying to get people to believe them when it's suddenly life or death..."

He shakes his head, a dark curtain of hair swaying with the motion, and taps the upturned card with a ragged black nail. "This is the Sigilite. It warns you that you require advice from a wise and trusted source, who knows well the difference between right and wrong when your own views are clouded by your biases and fears. You chose the card, you chose its placement. Its message is for you."

"But...well...you are distressing me right now?" If distress is bad, then...stop being bad!

"But people make bad choices sometimes! Isn't it better to show them a better way, so they could make a better choice? Or just watch them do wrong things?" Tsang can't stand by and watch that. Not when it could help.

"We do not force anyone to do anything, to come with us, or to do any of our offerings. We want humanity to achieve its fullest potential but it can't so long as people are unhealed in their trauma. Traumatized people lash out and harm others." Tsang isn't a mean person, and its spine may in fact be made of gummy bears, but it still manages to shoot a Pointed Look at Mr Lash Out and Harm Others here.

"I talk frequently with Kaiisteron." So, wise trusted source? CHECK. In fact, Kai might be searching for this dark menace right now!

"Your current distress in no way mitigates the results of your own actions. You do not get to claim to be the victim of your decisions simply because you don't like the outcome. All this does is tell those you hurt you're not repentant at all, and that you think your pain is more important than theirs." Somewhere in there is a remarkable amount of hypocrisy, but he won't recognize that for well over another two centuries. And by then.. what can be done about it? "And your ongoing efforts to justify the things you've done, even though you have been repeatedly told it's harmful and why in spite of your insistence you wish to do no harm is only further evidence of your guilt."

The third card is left face-down for now, its imagery and meaning hidden. "Now, answer true - yes or no. When you arrived to take humans from their homes, did you reveal what you are, and your intentions, and ask them first if they wished to go with you?"

Kaiisteron is in communication with the aliens. He'd smelled human. He'd sounded human. Was he simply better disguised..?

"I did not say it does. Just that you are putting me in more danger than we applied to any of our patients." Patients, you hear that? "We take an oath to do no harm, and I take that oath very seriously!" There might be a strange rippling under his scalp, as his emotive antennae riffle in upset. How dare his good intentions be called into question! That was really hurtful, stranger!

"Eerrrrr, no? We did not want to cause public panic from a frightened populace. It would interfere with our work. And cause a possible stigma for those seeking mental health help."

His smile puts on display all those sharp filed teeth. "You are doing harm and thus you are an oathbreaker as well as a criminal in accordance with our laws."

Aliens. They made his skin crawl. "We will discuss later where to find your home planet so I and my brothers may visit."

"I am not! I do none of those things!" There's a crunchy ice sound as he swirls his drink in agitation. "Whatever I do, it doesn't deserve...whatever penalty you have in mind! If you would rather do some mediation, we could discuss it with Kaiisteron."

And just for that he's NEVER going to say where Reva is.

The sigh that passes Curze's sharp teeth is disappointed. "I am going to kill you. That is the punishment. You have proven again and again you are unrepentant, have no concern for your victims, and intend to keep doing that which harms humanity."

It's not at all unexpected. Xenos were hated for a reason. "The only thing I can do in return is write a warning to your kind in your blood. If mankind's fear means nothing, then perhaps yours will mean something."

Curze sits back in his seat, absently studying the dinner he was supposed to eat and hadn't yet. "It didn have to be this way. Our relationship with the Jokaero is one of mutual gain. But they didn't do what you have."

"No?" Plz don't? "I have done nothing worthy of death. If you wish an apology, it can only be for the wrongs I have done to you, which were...negligble." Compared to you pulling the whole knife on poor Tsang. "But I will apologize, as it has cause you distress. But you cannot decide for others what has wronged them. That removes their autonomy to decide."

If it throws enough words at the creepy stranger, perhaps he will back down.

"Every criminal says the same, when retribution has come." There's a strange serenity that creeps up by degrees, with certainty before him like a thin skin of ice over depthless black malice. "They beg, they plead, they refuse to acknowledge their crimes. They downplay their own wrongs, they insist they deserve mercy when they've given none. Insist on choice, when they have taken it from others. Anything they can do, anything they can try to escape consequences for their own actions. You are one of millions."

He lets the feeling eclipse the rest, calm certainty instead of manic fury. It will end. But not for a while yet.

There's time. "Shall we finish our game? Perhaps the cards think you have a different fate than my mercy and forgiveness."

"I am no criminal! I teach art therapy! We color in our feelings! We even supply glitter?" Come on. That's....not the crime of the century. But the glitter part may be, as some of it still lightly dusting Tsang's coat and hair. "What part of that is a crime to you?"

It's a terrible day to be an empath, because it can feel this...awfulness from the other. If only he had agreed to therapy, Tsang was sure that some sock puppets would have helped.

"I, uh, certainly." Don't notice Tsang's feet gently aiming in case it needs to make a quick dash to the exit. Or bathroom. Whichever is closer and safer.

Again, that slight shake of his head. "I have already explained it, at more length than I would ordinarily bother. What good will repeating it do? You have chosen deliberate ignorance." There's no escaping him tonight, unless that personal teleporter gets used again. It's just a matter of patience.

He can be very patient.

The third card is tapped. "This position is for what is most needed now. This-" The fourth, "Is what you fear. What you hope for," the next one down in the figure 8 shape, "What works in your favor, if anything. And finally what is working against you to achieve your inevitable failure." This is all utterly without any sound of malice, though it still lingers on the emotional spectrum. "The eighth and final card is never selected. It remains to be revealed. Remember these placements, for all the good it will do you."

Could Curze use therapy? Absolutely. And probably some very strong medication and the regular attendance of a Sister of Silence. He has none of these, so it's fine. "What do you suppose it will tell you that you need most?"

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