TSW 22: Sync-Test

[17:57]	IcePickLobotomy	Time: July 12th, 3:57pm. Location: OUTRIDER Bay.
[18:06]	IcePickLobotomy	The vast space of the Outrider Bay, the 6 titanic forms sit in their maintenance facilities. Kasra's is still being swarmed over by techs, armor slabs being removed and replaced with hints of blackened flesh beneath the oversized bandages. The din of machinery and safety announcements echoes around you, the silent padding of your plug-suits over the gantries lost to it. The thin-skinned...
[18:06]	IcePickLobotomy	...garments do nothing to ward off the subterranean chill, but near the outriders themselves you feel warm, the mass of heat rolling off them despite the dozens of coolant tubes running along and into their forms.
[18:11]	Arina	looks up at hers, expression blank and carefully calm.
[18:12]	Mary	is wearing a long face hugging jacket, stealing from Arina's example there as she walks to the Eva whose unable to die, or maybe who merely consderied the notion that the dead shall lay down a mere sugestion.
[18:14]	IcePickLobotomy	Arina: A small elevator grinds down from one cat-walk to your own. The woman on it gives you a short wave. "She's all ready for you Pilot." A Iranian accent strong on her voice
[18:14]	Arina	"... right, thank you."
[18:14]	Arina	's fingers clench into a small fist as she steps onto the elevator.
[18:17]	Mary	looks at hers, all to used to others flinching away from the titan bound in steel , raised , unable to die lead on by duty and her will.
[18:23]	IcePickLobotomy	Mary: A streak of blackish ooze makes its way from between two armored plates, smelling of rot and decay and sickness. And. . . maybe it's just your ears but you swear you hear the hiss and crackle of static. And. . . maybe it's just your eyes but fr a moment you swear you see a emerald light glint in those empty black eyes.
[18:29]	Mary	shivers for a moment, the whole thing with Kasra clearly went for her nerves she tries to lie to herself as she looks at the presence, and then takes a short choking breath as she walks onwards, eyes upwards
[18:39]	IcePickLobotomy	Arina, Mary: The inside of your plugs are humid and hot, feeling far too much like a sauna. A small pool of lukewarm BSL reaches up to your ankles, smelling sweet and faintly of copper. The helmet and glove links await you.
[18:39]	Arina	shuts her eyes, takes a deep breath, and straps in, slipping the helmet and gloves on. "... 02/a, ready."
[18:42]	Mary	shivers as she puts the helmet on, even if she is a bit to use to looking without looking, and then extens her hans to welcome the small pain of the connetion
[18:44]	Arina	looks smaller in her seat than she normally does.
[18:45]	IcePickLobotomy	Mary Arina: The faint hiss of pain as the neural links, thousands of hair-like filimants, plunge into the nerves in your hand. A breif moment of vertigo as text line stream across the HUD before the sight of the hangars snap into life, targeting and analysis overlays springing to life as you are bombarded by information.
[18:45]	IcePickLobotomy	Arina: Only. . . it feels off. Wrong.
[18:46]	Arina	's skin crawls.
[18:47]	IcePickLobotomy	Mary: Only it feels. . . warm. A kindled warmth in your chest. It feels right.
[18:48]	IcePickLobotomy	"Alright, everything is looking good so far." It's Kirmani, first time you've heard from her in a few weeks. "We're going to start the sync test now. You should know what to do by now."
[18:48]	Arina	"... right," she notes, voice dull.
[18:49]	Arina	shuts her eyes, skin crawling.
[18:51]	IcePickLobotomy	Time passes. "Mary, good job. You're a few points above your normal baseline."
[18:52]	IcePickLobotomy	Arina: "Arina? Are you feeling alright? Your Sync Ratio is down almost 10 points."
[18:53]	Mary	"Oh? It did feel a bit more welcoming today , more, as if I am accepted it just felt kind of ..right"
[18:53]	Mary	nods as she tries to explain it "But then I am after all steadily increasing it.."
[18:53]	IcePickLobotomy	Mary: "Mmmm, interesting. But good."
[18:53]	Arina	shivers, swallowing heavily to keep her stomach's contents inside. "... it's fine. Just feeling a little off."
[18:54]	IcePickLobotomy	Arina: The concern is evident through the feed. "Mmmm, alright, just say the word if you need to stop the test."
[18:55]	Arina	"... no, i can keep going." She grits her teeth, glaring down at the controls.
[18:56]	Mary	relaxed and enjoys the warm fealing , slightly pulsing , reachingn out to this acceptance
[18:57]	IcePickLobotomy	Mary: You can almost feel it at the edge of your perception but. . . it eludes you grasp.
[18:58]	IcePickLobotomy	It takes almost a hour before the test ends and your plugs jettion themselves from your units. Mary you feel good, a faint tingling warmth leaving you refreshed and alert. Arina. . . you feel awful.
[18:59]	Arina	takes her helmet off, wiping her mouth and just... sitting in the plug for a while, head bowed just enough to let her hair fall in front and veil her eyes.
[18:59]	Mary	smiles as she stands up and after gliding out of the plug before she leans over and give her beast a friendly patting on the armor plates...eww, well the one without gunnk dropping past it at the moment.
[19:05]	IcePickLobotomy	Arina, Mary After you finally make your way back to the locker rooms and change, you find Dr. Kirimani waiting for you outside them.
[19:07]	Arina	has composed herself again, looking up at the doctor.
[19:09]	Mary	looks a bit concerned at arina, if the doktor was speaking to both of them , else she just smiles slightly
[19:10]	IcePickLobotomy	"Do you two mind if I speak with you both? We noticed some abnormalities during the test."
[19:12]	Arina	nods. "All right."
[19:14]	Mary	"Sure "
[19:14]	Mary	nods
[19:19]	IcePickLobotomy	She leads you to her office, not too far from the hangars. It's a tad cramped, but warm and welcoming. Gentle earthy brown and yellows color the room. A Afghan Rug hangs from a wall, sharing space with a bookshelf laden with binders and what you can assume to be technical manuals. A small table with a tea-set stands opposite of her desk. The desk itself is neatly orginzed with stacks of...
[19:19]	IcePickLobotomy	...papers and a few binders as well as a type-writer. Pictures are dotted around the room, you see one of her and Walker at the beach, another of Kirimani being swarmed by almost a dozen children of various ages. And of course a diploma from the University of Tehran in the field of MetaBilogy hangs proudly behind her desk.
[19:19]	IcePickLobotomy	"Please, take a seat. Could I interest either of you in some tea?"
[19:20]	Arina	smiles. "Yes please, thank you."
[19:23]	Mary	"thanks for this offer Miss"
[19:26]	Mary	looks the pictures clearly surprised and interested
[19:27]	Arina	moves to sit down, folding her hands in her lap calmly.
[19:33]	Mary	"Oh, I am surprised that you knew A- Lt.Walker for so long Considering that it should have been around your Thesis"
[19:33]	Mary	sounds surprised as she sits down
[19:34]	Arina	"They've been friends for a while, I believe?"
[19:34]	IcePickLobotomy	"Oh, Amanda? We first met back when we were school girls really, though we didn't get along at that time." She chuckles to herself "Amanda was a /bit/ too much of a wild cat for my tastes back then, but we reconnected when we started workin in the Outrider program."
[19:35]	Arina	sweatdrops, thinking back on literally any detail Walker has offered about her past. "... Quite."
[19:36]	Mary	"Oh, so you went to the same Public? Private school  just with you not heading down to london then."
[19:36]	Mary	nods
[19:37]	IcePickLobotomy	"She told you about that did she?" She shakes her head "She came close to getting expelled a few times. I was more of the. . ah. ." She taps the desk "Oh, how do you say it? Less adventurous?"
[19:39]	Arina	"Actually studying?"
[19:40]	IcePickLobotomy	She nods. "Not to say Amanda didn't do well, when she put her mind to it."
[19:40]	Arina	hums.
[19:41]	Mary	"Yes, well she clearly tries to instill in us that we should not ignore our scholastic work for the training, and neither for dealing with the stress of the program"
[19:42]	Arina	"Quite."
[19:43]	IcePickLobotomy	"Considering the importance of a pilot's mental well being linkage with their synchronization rates I can only support her endeavors there. Not that everyone in the program agrees."
[19:48]	Arina	frowns. "... I suppose not."
[19:48]	Mary	raises a eyebrow at that confession
[19:51]	IcePickLobotomy	The tea kettle starts to whistle and Kirimani gets up. "I wouldn't worry too much about it, they don't have the data on their side really, and so far all of you have been more effective than we anticipated." Three tea-cups, each steaming with a sort amber colored tea in it. A tin of biscuits is set out from it's place on her bookshelf as well.
[19:52]	Arina	"So I've heard."
[19:54]	IcePickLobotomy	"Well I had to reiterate my point in Siberia over the last few weeks." She takes along drink "Had to threaten to go over the base commanders head to Command itself if he didn't relent."
[19:55]	Arina	raises an eyebrow. "Ah?"
[19:55]	Arina	"I should hope he 0x1drelented0x1d."
[19:56]	Mary	"Well a strong military focus might not be ..ideal for us "
[19:57]	IcePickLobotomy	"I'm going to be keeping a /very/ close eye on that base from here on it. It may take a few more months to get eh pilot fully certified, but it's better than having her suffer a nervous breakdown from stress. Better to have a pilot late than not have a pilot at all."
[19:58]	Arina	's fists tighten. "... Please do."
[19:59]	IcePickLobotomy	She nods "Exactly Marry, and we have far too many geniuses and military minds for them to really realize how much stess a teenager is able to cope with, on top of the stresses of adolescences, which quite frankly are bad enough as it is."
[20:01]	Arina	glares down into her tea as she takes a sip of it.
[20:02]	Mary	"And we are far harder to replace then clock, more like atomic bombs, handle with care"
[20:02]	Arina	snorts. "Tell that to quite literally any of them."
[20:03]	IcePickLobotomy	"Oh yes, we've identified several Green canidates and a handful of Blues in Europe, but no one suitable for combat deployment yet. Though it's only a matter opf time as well, but you are all priceless beyond measure, before for your natural abilities and talents, and for the experience you have."
[20:06]	Mary	"That raises a question that I was wondering about, how did you identify us?"
[20:07]	Arina	looks up, a little curious.
[20:07]	IcePickLobotomy	"Similar method to how we identify Intruders, though it requires a much longer investigative period to narrow down the area for a on foot search with the right equipment. For that we make use of disguised vans."
[20:08]	Arina	"... it's... the same kind of signal...?"
[20:09]	Mary	"Hang on, that does not make sense, unless you had identified me a few year prior to aproaching me"
[20:09]	IcePickLobotomy	"Well they're all AT Field signatures if that's what your asking, but human's are fundamentally different from the Intruders. Like different frequencies on the radio."
[20:10]	IcePickLobotomy	"Mm? What's wrong Mary?"
[20:10]	Arina	"... mm. Viable candidates have... stronger than average AT field signatures, then?"
[20:10]	IcePickLobotomy	"Yes. though the actualy diffrence between yours and mine is . . exceedingly small when compared to any of us and a Intruder. Thankfully the MAGI are /wonderful/ data-crunchers."
[20:11]	Mary	"Well Walker said that the Fed had given her my adress, which would not have been needed if you already knew where I was beforehand."
[20:11]	Arina	nods. "Just... grabbing the high ends of the bell curve."
[20:12]	Arina	"No, they had ten years, Mary."
[20:12]	IcePickLobotomy	"Mm, I'd have to ask her, we probably picked you up before you moved to New York and then had to track you back down."
[20:13]	Arina	sips her tea. "They didn't just identify you when they picked you up, most likely - they identified you before you went off the grid, and then had to find you again."
[20:13]	Mary	blinks registerinng that she might have said a bit to much there. "well..."
[20:14]	IcePickLobotomy	She nods "We had some candidates identified early on that we only brought in late when we couldn't find anyone more suitable. No offense Mary, but we tried to avoid selecting civilians if we could. Though I wasn't on that board so I can't really say what the logic was."
[20:15]	Arina	"Mm. That would be John, Mary, and Reagan."
[20:16]	Arina	"Kasra, Robin, and I were selected over a year in advance - the other three were selected barely a few weeks before the first attack."
[20:16]	IcePickLobotomy	"We ran out of time."
[20:16]	Arina	sips her tea.
[20:16]	Mary	"John does not count as civilian, and well considering my score, unless it raised itself later in Life I would have assumed that you would recruit me prior to Arina, no offernce there"
[20:17]	Arina	"None taken."
[20:17]	Arina	"John and Reagan presented political considerations. And you were missing."
[20:18]	IcePickLobotomy	"We can't identify how high you actually rank unless we run a in person test. The SCRVNR system is has a error rate of about 30 points on the SR Scores."
[20:19]	Arina	nods. "Can only detect that the ability falls within the broad bracket that hopefully includes 'effective'?"
[20:20]	IcePickLobotomy	"Yes," She munches on a biscuit "And we can only scan about half a block in a day per satalite, and considering we're splitting them between study, Unit testing, Intruder detection, and pilot identification. . . There's a reason it's taking so long."
[20:21]	Arina	"Mm. At least there's always a 0x1dbackup0x1d option." No there's no venom in her voice at all, it's as sweet as the tears of angels.
[20:22]	Mary	"Oh?"
[20:22]	Mary	"i only heard that they had found someone but not whom"
[20:23]	Arina	chuckles, a slight edge to the sound, and takes a sip of her tea.
[20:29]	IcePickLobotomy	Kirimani looks to Arina "I technicaly can't stop her from looking into the Training Lance's roster, but I won't say if you'd rather I not."
[20:29]	Mary	"Despite the power of paperwork on my side , I can evade that as I seem there is something there that should not be poked "
[20:30]	Arina	swallows her tea, looking to Mary. "The affinity's genetic."
[20:31]	Mary	drops her cup
[20:31]	Arina	"Watch Megan, mm?"
[20:31]	Arina	laughs bitterly, taking another sip of her tea.
[20:31]	Mary	looks at the tea on her "Ih uh... I need a moment to clean.. I get some papers.."
[20:32]	Mary	stands up and stumbles towards the door.
[20:32]	IcePickLobotomy	The woman nods and waits.
[20:33]	Mary	exunnts stage left
[20:34]	IcePickLobotomy	"For what it's worth Arina, I don't agree with her selection as a pilot, and I've done everything I can to try and delay it."
[20:34]	Arina	sighs. "At least maybe now she won't try and explode herself in the next battle, if that just puts her closer to the field. How far down the line is Megan, actually?"
[20:35]	IcePickLobotomy	"She's not even in the running yet. If this fight goes on long enough for her to reach her teens? Then she'll probably get picked up barring a major break through in increasing our pilot pool or a devolpment that removes the need for pilots."
[20:38]	Arina	hums. "Honestly the only surprise is that METI would wait that long."
[20:42]	IcePickLobotomy	She sighs "I can't say your unfavorable views are unfounded but I'd like to think we haven
[20:42]	IcePickLobotomy	't stooped that low."
[20:42]	Arina	"I suppose that's a matter of philosophical debate."
[20:43]	IcePickLobotomy	"Mm, probably." She gets out some paper towls and starts to clean up the spilled tea "Oh, and your sister sent my back with a few things for you, I was a faster messenger than the mail system."
[20:44]	Arina	looks up. "Ah, thank you."
[20:45]	IcePickLobotomy	She tosses the paper towels into a wastebin before passing you a manilla envolpe. It's addressed to you and from the feel of it has some photos and other things in it.
[20:45]	Arina	takes the envelope with a nod. "Thank you, Doctor."
[20:47]	Arina	puts it down on the desk. "I'll open it at home."
[20:48]	IcePickLobotomy	"She's a darling child, reminds me a great deal of my own, more excitable nieces."
[20:49]	Arina	smiles. "... I'm glad you like her."
[20:50]	IcePickLobotomy	"The whole base was quite taken with her really. Even if she was a tad hard to get to sit still."
[20:50]	Arina	"... I suppose you'll be seeing her a lot more often soon."
[20:51]	IcePickLobotomy	"As will you too."
[20:51]	Arina	snorts. "Believe me, you have her easy side."
[20:51]	Arina	"She's calmed down a lot since she was younger."
[20:51]	IcePickLobotomy	"I've seen enough of my nieces and nephews to believe you." She chuckles "Is the rest of your family well?"
[20:57]	Arina	nods. "Worried about Nadya, but otherwise, yes."
[21:00]	IcePickLobotomy	"That's good to hear. But I want to talk about today's Sync Test. Your scores were far lower than their norm, is there something going on that you want to talk about? With me or someone else?"
[21:01]	Arina	snorts. "Doubt I'm 'allowed'."
[21:05]	IcePickLobotomy	"And I think your duties as a pilot supersede whatever confidentiality agreement you may or may not have made. But, if you want to talk about it, you can tell me the topic it's on, I can tell you what I know about it from there."
[21:06]	Arina	"Oh, any such agreement was made 0x1dfor0x1d me. But I suppose you might know what those 0x1dthings0x1d you have caged over there actually are?"
[21:08]	IcePickLobotomy	"Oh." It's such a small noise. "That. . . certainly explains today's test results." She leans over to give you a hug
[21:08]	Arina	"... and you did," she notes.
[21:09]	Arina	pulls away from her.
[21:12]	IcePickLobotomy	"I'm sorry Arina."
[21:13]	Arina	just looks up at her and snorts, putting her tea down.
[21:13]	Arina	"You were only sorry when you got caught."
[21:13]	Arina	stands up and walks out of the office.
[21:15]	IcePickLobotomy	"Arina, wait. Please."
[21:16]	Arina	comes to a halt, and looks back over her shoulder. "Yes?"
[21:18]	IcePickLobotomy	"You're right, I should have told you what you were piloting. I could say that I just following orders but we'd both know that's just a excuse. I knew I should have told you, but I didn't because I was afraid you'd. . no longer pilot and. . . " She looks down "I did it for my family. It doesn't mean much at this point but I wanted you to know why I never said anything."
[21:24]	Arina	"You needn't worry on that account."
[21:24]	Arina	"I'll still do it. Even if I actually had the option to quit, I still would."
[21:24]	Arina	shrugs. "I'm not so selfish as to endanger everyone in the world, no matter what sort of monster I have to protect it in."
[21:24]	Arina	"Or 0x1dalongside0x1d."
[21:24]	IcePickLobotomy	The woman flinches as if you'd struck her. "I. . . ." She closes her eyes "You can go Arina." Her voice brittle
[21:25]	Arina	sighs. "If the damned thing will even 0x1dcooperate0x1d now that I know what it is."
[21:25]	Arina	"... sorry."
[21:25]	Arina	opens the door and leaves.