Log01.entry

[ugh_emotions]

Who: SecUnit, Charles, and eventually other people depending on how things go lots of other people, everyone join in
What: SecUnit checks up Charles, no one has a good time
When: Just before the start of the Story
Where: The stacks
Content warnings: SecUnit getting accidentally bricked

Every time SecUnit or one of its drones caught sight of Charles, he seemed to look even more dead than the last time.

Which was weird. He was already dead (which was also weird), surely he couldn't get any more dead. You were either dead or you weren't.

Whatever. It wasn't SecUnit's problem. Charles wasn't one of its humans. It didn't need to worry about him.

(It worried about him.)

Eventually though, it gets to the point where it can't ignore it anymore, and it stomps over to where Charles is in the Stacks.

"What's wrong with you?" it demands.

Comments

[hellandbackpack]

The sudden move of SecUnit into his path brings him up short, Charles thinking in a single frustrated moment that he could just go incorporeal and walk through it- not a thing that hurt the living, but definitely uncomfortable-

But before he could decide anything, SecUnit was stopping dead in it's tracks. Something about the shift was strange, and Charles had just enough time to see that unseeing distance to it's gaze before it was just crumpling suddenly. The ghost teen let out a startled noise, reaching to try and help brace it on the way down- but as tall as SecUnit was, it was too unwieldy and Charles just barely managed to keep enough of a grip to make the impact with carpet a bit more gentle.

"Rin?" There was no panic in his voice, none at all! A small small bit of relief when shaking hands found a pulse, but with how slow it was... that wasn't normal. Couldn't be good. "Ah hell-"

His gaze snapped up, wide-eyes fixing on the drone. "Go get help!"

[ugh_emotions]

The drone doesn't respond.

With SecUnit offline, it just remains in place, not moving. It wasn't caught in the electromagnetic flare, so its still operating.

But it's also clearly not going to be any assistance to Charles.

[hellandbackpack]

"Fat lotta help you are-" Hissed out between gritted teeth as Charles was unshouldering his pack, rifling through with no small amount of agitation. Enough so that even as he was shaking a blanket free to put under SecUnit's head, the bag tried to snap closed on his hand.

He needed help. And if the drone wasn't going to go get any, it was up to Charles. But he also didn't want to leave SecUnit alone like this, so there was only one option. Which just had Charles yanking his journal from his pocket. Hopefully someone would see this admittedly fragmented plea for help, or this wasn't going to end well.

[codeswitchcraft]

It's a few minutes later when Siobhan finds them and she immediately kneels down next to SecUnit, putting her hands on its head and closing her eyes.

My lady, she thinks at the fragment of the goddess inside of her, as she closes her eyes. Can you tell what happened to Rin?

There's a moment where she suspects Thorne is using the feed to probe at Rin. Then, It looks like something sent them into shutdown mode. They'll be fine once they reboot.

Luckily those are both terms that Thorne has defined for Siobhan before, so she's able to say, "Rin is unconscious, but they'll be fine once they wake up again."

[hellandbackpack]

Charles can't help but feel relief when another familiar face shows up. At least it's not just him dealing with this now. Not that he looks much better for it, but he watches as Siobhan's laying hands on SecUnit, a confused furrow of brows following her assessment.

"But- what even caused it? How do you know?" Sorry, he's just a bit freaked out here, and his protective streak is slapping down heavily in the moment with their unconscious companion as the subject.

[codeswitchcraft]

My best guess is a small, localized EMP, her goddess suggests.

"A very small eeyempy," Siobhan relays to Charles.

Ah fuck. An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse. A small burst of lightning energy and lodestone energy. Earth people call lodestones magnets, she adds hastily.

"A small burst of lightning and magnets," Siobhan qualifies, maybe a second or two after her first statement.

[hellandbackpack]

"An-" It takes a moment to realize what she's talking about, just enough time for Siobhan to add the extra explanation.

"An EMP? I-" She might see the moment of sickening realization. "Ah hell. It was my fault then."

A beat, a moment for something akin to sense to regain control at least a bit through the panic. A thing he'll just latch onto for the time being. "But how? My field doesn't hurt humans. Might tickle at most, maybe feel a little annoying, but nothin' like-"

A helpless gesture towards SecUnit.

[codeswitchcraft]

"I don't know," Siobhan lies through her teeth. "Rin is very much a normal human from their world and time."

After a moment she adds, "Fucking magnets, how do they work?"

[birdchasingecho]

It's at about this moment that Mei shows up, almost missing the place twice in her haste to search the stacks. She actually does have a fairly hefty case, brown, marked with a square red cross.

"Sorry for intruding... I brought a gift." She kneels down and sets down the case.

This, she opens, revealing some small phials of glowing gel (for repairing minor cuts and cleansing wounds), rolls of bandages, some unopened plasters, gauze pads, a few various kinds of pills, long scissors, closures... and a pair of unused cold compresses, one of which she sets aside. "Did I read right that this one took a fall poorly, as well?"

[codeswitchcraft]

"They fainted because of Charles letting off an eeyempy," Siobhan explains. "That's a pulse of lightning and magnets? Fucking magnets, how do they work?

"Hikaru says that Rin probably has lots of cybernetics inside them and that's why the eeyempy made them faint. It might do the same thing to me too, so don't let one off again," she adds, directed at Charles.

[birdchasingecho]

She's nodding along while getting a good look at 'Rin', and noticing the ways in which Rin's body is weak are... Not the ways in which a human body is weak. In fact, almost as if it's very specifically made to not be weak in those ways, where design constraints of looking vaguely human allow.

Must be part of the cybernetics. Address swelling, if any; trace damage if any... "... if they're as integrated into Rin's systems as you say, I should address obvious injuries before then. Those cybernetics did a good job of protecting central nervous, at least."

Use the chemical compress. She hums, pulls away her judo uniform, and uses that to prevent frostbite. Carefully applies the cold to reduce swelling. She suspects that the body isn't going to swell enough to cause damage via swelling, but it's best to get ahead of these things.

[codeswitchcraft]

Siobhan nods. "Hikaru says it's probably something called an 'innerlociter' which they'd use to control their drones and process what they're seeing. It's very normal for humans with the job of protecting people if they're from an 'interstellar era.' Which me and Laina and Hikaru also are," she adds, directed at Charles, "so be careful."

[birdchasingecho]

"Inter-- ah. Internal interface." Different words, same concept. Still, there's almost no blunt force trauma to speak of. "So light...?"

.. and what little she swore she saw knit up as she watched, as well. "... hm. Perhaps I should have brought my laptop, instead-- if this is common enough there's probably an external bus to check on the interface's status."

[hellandbackpack]

Charles was about to reply, probably crash out a little harder at the joke- it got a near-hysterical little giggle out of him all the same, but thankfully someone else showing up distracted him. A bit reassuring seeing Mei with her kit, with the stuff to help someone out and what sounded like the knowledge to use it.

It wasn't going to soothe him all the way, but it did keep him from spiraling much farther in the moment. Guilt hitting him at the idea that he'd hurt Rin making his grimace and tone a little sharper than it needed to as he replied. "I didn't let off an emp, it's not sommat I do on purpose-"

He managed to cut off, taking a shaking breath he didn't need to try and calm himself, glaring down at his hands. Fuck. Fuck, just existing around people here if he couldn't keep a lid on it was going to hurt them?

"I should... probably go then, yeah? If... just bein' around me is gonna do this-" How the hell could he even tell who was safe to be around?

[codeswitchcraft]

"How close were you to Rin when it happened?" Siobhan asks, frowning a little. "Does your eeyempy field have a certain radius? We can just make sure that people who probably have cybernetics don't get very close to you."

[birdchasingecho]

"Most such fields drop by half if you double the distance." She pulls out her cell phone and hums. ... No... Obvious ports...

No. One obvious port. ... One she, unsurprisingly, can't interface with. She sighs. "Yeah, this is up to Rin now."

[hellandbackpack]

"About... this far?" He estimated, holding a hand out. A bit closer than the norm, given SecUnit had stepped in front of him, but that was hardly it's fault.

"It's... normally it's not like that. Normally, so long as I don't like... walk through someone physically, they don't even feel it," He grimaced, shaking his head. "But then we don't have people with cybernetics back home. Not anything like this. Normal tech like... I dunno, phones, computers and stuff, they all kinda get messed up if I stay around 'em too long."

[codeswitchcraft]

"Great. Amazing."

Siobhan hooks her arms under SecUnit's arms and starts pulling it back away from Charles with her--but since Strength was her dump stat, it's a bit of a struggle.

[birdchasingecho]

"Easy. I got it, if we need it. But I'm not sure we do." She looks up. "Charles, right? If you have an exercise or something that helps you stay calm, feel free. I'm not gonna take anyone down 'cause of an accident, and you're pretty worried about Rin, I can tell."

She closes the first aid kit, and is, unlike everyone else, acting calm, even if she doesn't quite feel calm, for reasons unrelated.

[hellandbackpack]

"Yeah that's..." The assurance might've helped. Maybe not calmed him, but Charles could have maybe gotten a better grip on himself if he didn't see that alarmed sort of response from Siobhan. He couldn't help the faint flinch as something in his expression closed off, and he recoiled slightly, already moving.

"Nah. Nah, don't move them if you don't need to- I can just go."

[codeswitchcraft]

"I'm not going to force you to leave," Siobhan says, still attempting to pull SecUnit with her. She's been able to move it maybe two inches so far. "You didn't do it on purp-- augh."

Her arms slip out from under SecUnit's armpits and she sways visibly.

"Did... did someone catch the arms on the coach that hit me?" she slurs in... well, everyone can understand it, because of the Library's translation effect, but it's very clear that she's suddenly switched from her usual English to straight-up German.

[birdchasingecho]

"Okay. There's a lot of jumpin' to conclusions here..." She secures the kit to her back... Somehow... and then Sio gets hit with the second EMP, and she feels her phone spark and shut down like the cheap piece of crap it is, and sighs in resignation. She wasn't sure what she expected to happen. ... Well, at least the battery didn't explode, small favors.

German, huh? ... Understandable. She didn't learn German, but she knows a few other languages. Maybe she should pick a different one than Japanese?

Thankfully, she is 100% pure human (she says), and thus immune to EMPs. That she's also capable of... After a moment's assessment... picking up SecUnit in a way that is, in fact, safe given its anatomy, like picking up a bunch of grapes, and as immobilized as she can make it? Might cause some reassessments as to her capabilities. "Sio. C'mon."

It... Looks a little ridiculous, given how small Mei is compared to SecUnit, but she gets it far enough to be safe before gently returning it to an on-back position, and begins standing guard.

[hellandbackpack]

Charles froze for a moment seeing Siobhan being affected now, eyes widening as he drew back a bit more emphatically, shaking his head.

"I- I'm just gonna make things worse if I stick around. Just-" He gave himself a little shake and a rake of a hand through his hair, pushing quickly to his feet before glancing towards Mein, brows lifting slightly at the sight of her hefting SecUnit so easily. "Just let me know when they're alright, yeah?"

He wasn't going to wait around for something else to go wrong on his account- he'd just seem to vanish into thin air, though an attentive eye would see the wet footprints tracking his progress, straight towards and through one of the nearby walls of shelving. And the drone would likely still be able to track him through energy signatures should it be scanning for that sort of thing.

[codeswitchcraft]

"I ain't afraid of no ghosts," Siobhan mumbles in English, before shaking her head violently, as if she's trying to clear it. "Ugh. Stupid-- I want Mutti," she whines in German again. "I want Mutti and Mutti doesn't exist. Vati does but he's a lying murderer-- I want Mutti."

She lurches forward, stumbling over nothing, tumbling top over teakettle and somersaulting the rest of the way to SecUnit and Mei. "Augh. Fuck. Stupid eeyempy. Rin, I'm keeping your secrets. Like I promised."

[birdchasingecho]

"Yep." She definitely didn't feel any gun ports or anything. "Come. Sit near me a while. I ain't yer Mutti, but I can keep watch over you."

And, in fact, she is keeping watch, as a bodyguard would. Eyes over every inch of the library she can see, marking well the exits and entrances.