silentspringmods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silentspringmods) wrote2022-02-03 12:58 pm
silentspringmods) wrote2022-02-03 12:58 pm
( SETTING INTERACTION. )
As of 2/3/24, this is the new page where all character interactions with the setting/explorations/etc unrelated to events will reside. Here are some examples of the types of things to post on this page:
- My character would like to search the library for xyz, would they find anything?
- My character is going to approach an NPC outside of an event and do xyz, what happens?
- If my character goes asking around for x, what will they be told?
Examples of things that should still go on the FAQ:
- What kind of books does the library have on x topic? (Character is not specifically searching the library IC).
- Does the town have x facility?
- Is my character able to do x?
And, when in doubt, it's fine to just post the question on your best guess and I can move it as needed!
TW: torture/waterboarding/interrogation
Within about 15 minutes, the broadcast stops. Within an hour, a man approaches Maureen in the diner, insistent on having her come take a look at his daughter—she's sick, he says, and he doesn't know what to do; her mother is out of town. If Maureen refuses, the man becomes more and more insistent, until he's effectively dragging her out by the arm. None of the waitresses even seem to notice.
Maureen is, of course, shoved into the back of the nondescript stationwagon as soon as the door is opened. There is a glass divider between the front and back of the vehicle, and the door locks from the outside as soon as it closes. The man gets into the car and begins to drive—as her consciousness starts to fade as a small dose of some sweet, etherlike substance circulates in the back of the vehicle. Within 5 minutes, Maureen is rendered unconscious.
She wakes in an interrogation room, wrists handcuffed to the center bar of the table as Norman and an unfamiliar man in a hat, not the same one from the car, stand before her. A third man with horn-rimmed glasses, also in a hat and suit, sits in a chair toward the corner of the room with a notepad and pen, as though he's meant to be some kind of observer.
"You have to have known that wasn't a good idea," Norman drawls blandly, head canted to one side, regarding her with contempt. "What did you think was going to happen, really?"
The man without glasses steps forward, placing his fingertips on the table between them and shifting his weight forward onto his hands. "I need you to cooperate with me, okay, ma'am? Otherwise this will be unpleasant."
He asks the following questions:
— Where she obtained the materials to build the radio
— Who helped her
— What her intentions were
— Why she felt she needed to call for help
— Where her husband is, and if he knows about this
— Who all knows about this
If she answers, the man in the horn-rimmed glasses can be seen taking notes. On the other hand, if Maureen seems to resist answering questions or otherwise 'wastes' the interrogators' time, the man in the glasses gets up and leaves, returning with a coil of rope over one shoulder, a stretcher under that arm, and a bucket of water with a clean white washcloth hanging over the edge.
"One last time," the man says, nodding in the direction of his assistant, who is already unfurling the rope. "Let's just have a dry conversation about this."
If Maureen still doesn't answer in full, she is transferred to the stretcher while handcuffed, strapped down and laid out at an angle between chair and table, ankles slightly higher than her head. 'Night night,' Norman says as he wrings out the washcloth and drapes it over her face, eclipsing even the view of the ceiling lights. The waterboarding begins.
Maureen will be given a moment to catch her breath between spells, each time asked the same questions, the torture repeated if she evades. Norman's voice is a constant: while he doesn't partake in the waterboarding, he stands at her side, watching it, smoking a cigarette, his voice and periodic application of two fingers to her jugular vein setting the temp:
'Again.' Questions. A chance to gasp wetly for air. 'Again.' The rush of icy water, the sensations indistinguishable from drowning, a nervous system completely fooled into believing the body that hosts it is dying. Another break in the splashing to gasp for air, to feel it ripped away. Norman's voice: 'Again.'
This goes on, if needed, for hours.
How, and at what point in the process (without being tortured, early in torture, etc) does Maureen answer her interrogator, and does she name any names?
no subject
- The components of the radio boil down to relatively basic materials—hardware store finds, aluminum foil sheeting, a car battery, etc. She spent the last few months gathering the materials from stores around Sweetwater, from around her own home, or borrowing things from neighbors who were just trying to be friendly. All the pieces are individually relatively innocuous before she Frankensteined them into the radio.
- No one helped her. If any locals asked why she was buying aluminum weather stripping, she said she was doing the shopping for some winterizing her husband wanted to do, etc. If she borrowed something from a neighbor, she lied about what it was for.
- She was trying to contact the people she was separated from when she arrived here, and to identify whether a radio signal could pass through the barrier around the town. She recognized the probability was thin, but she needed to try. And she needed the people she suspected she might end up talking to in this room to take her more seriously than a housewife when she says—
- They have to know something is going on here. People in town may be pretending or have been convinced otherwise, but there's some kind of serious distortion of time and space happening here. She doesn't know if it's destructive yet, but what she does know is that it would take an incredible amount of energy to start poking holes into the universe and yanking people through it. Either someone knows what's happening and is controlling it, or they don't have it figured out yet. Which means that someone is either ambitious as hell, or they're desperate. Why else would they have someone like Dr. Ravichandran here? Whatever it is, she can help with it.
Hope Norman and Co are prepared for the full scifi.
- As far as Maureen knows, Jupe is at home. He knows she was working on a project, but not what it was. She told him the radio was a receiver for measuring frequencies from astronomical objects. He likes astronomy? He has a telescope. She just made it sound like a hobby they shared. (LOCAL WOMAN LIES THROUGH HER TEETH.)
- No one. She was acting alone, and she's kept this to herself explicitly to keep from implicating anyone. She knows this was dangerous.
Let me know if they'd still go the waterboarding route and I can extrapolate as necessary.