un: kidomega | text

[querulus]

clark kent
accelerator
nero
cid telamon
john reese
arthur morgan
damian wayne
antigone

i need all you people to each answer one (1) weirdly specific question. it's for a computer.

[OOC: Part of Sophie's player plot!]

Comments

[levindicated]

Do you want my help or not? I’m a busy man. Ask your question.

[querulus]

Assuming your username isn't full of shit too: daughter's name.

[levindicated]

Incredible. Well that tells me something about you, too. You must either be seriously mislead, or you have a death wish if you’re snooping around my daughter.

[querulus]

Wha—I—it's the computer, man! I'm looking at this shit, okay? All I see is, and I quote: "what is the name of Cid Telamon’s daughter?" That's it. I don't know you, I don't know your daughter, and I don't wanna know. I need a name to type into a computer, not a biography.

[Just kill him. He has so many regrets.]

[levindicated]

Is that right? [There is the distinct sound of a man lighting and sucking on a cigarette.] Why don’t you show me this computer? Where are you?

video

[querulus]

[Cid gets an image of a very irritable-looking young man in the late teens/early 20s age bracket with blindingly pink hair. He makes a scowl at the camera and turns it away to show the crypt littered with bones, a single full skeleton, and a blonde woman of approximately the same age.]

Jesus fucking—look, I'm not telling you on the public goddamn network or everyone and their mom will show up, but here.

[He focuses the camera on the ancient computer, black screen lit up with nothing but green text with the questions:

What is Clark Kent's middle name?
What rank esper is Accelerator?
What state did Scott Summers grow up in?
Who is Nero's father?
Where was Jayce Talis from?
What is the name of Cid Telamon’s daughter?
What is John Reese's birthday?
What is Arthur Morgan's favorite father's name?
Who is Damian Wayne's mother?
What is Antigone's surname?]

Happy?

Video, it’s only polite

[levindicated]

I’m less thrilled about you entering my daughter's name into a computer surrounded by bones.

But the nature of those questions… sounds like they’re testing to see how much your fellow Etrayans trust you and blondie over there. Which… from how everyone else is taking this, not a whole lot.

Why do you think that is?

[querulus]

Well, duh, because—... Because.

... Huh.

[Congrats, Cid, you have succeeded in a near-impossible feat: making Quentin use his brain. He stops, leaving the camera pointed at the computer as he... thinks.]

Bubble full of pissed off, distrustful psychos. Tell them to fight each other, it's too damn obvious. They'll never do it. Try to get them to work together? Whole different story.

... We're being set up.

[levindicated]

Now you’ve got to ask yourself. By who? And to what end? If we’re being tested in kind, then perhaps it is for the best to cooperate.

[He frowns and pulls his smoke out to ash it. Looks like he’s sitting in a castle, or something.]

What’s Aurora got to say about it?

[querulus]

Hm.

[There's a long pause while Quentin ruminates. Then he switches the feed back to audio only.]

She clearly knows. Shit's been all over the network airwaves. If she hasn't done anything, she's as good as in on it as far as I'm concerned. I don't like being set up.

[He grunts, and there's the sound of feet shuffling in the crypt. Pacing.]

Define "cooperate."

[levindicated]

[Cid doesn’t bother to switch his video back to audio. That’s too much fussy bullshit for one conversation.]

Only one here who knows about my daughter that I haven’t told is Aurora. Instead of clumsily trying to get this information out of everyone, maybe you ought to have invited them?

Really, at the least you should have feigned some interest and started up a conversation. Gotten me proper drunk—

“Oh I miss my daughter so much, Mister Telamon. Her name is Benna.”

[He cringes momentarily at his own out of the air name pull. But he presses on. ]

And then I would have sat there sobbing and said her name to you. Would that have been so hard? …Harder than this?

[He doesn’t define cooperate. Seems like he wants to string Quentin along a little longer. ]

[querulus]

[There's some quiet grumbling noises while Cid answers and more pacing. But Quentin is listening. In his own way. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen.

He scoffs.]

What, so it would've been better to lie to everyone? Who would want that? I mean, hell, if I'm gonna phish everyone for their passwords I might as well just do the damn telepathic relay. A lot less work for me.

[No clarification on the "telepathic relay" thing. He's busy complaining more.]

You know what really chaps my ass? I coulda gotta every answer I wanted—and more!—if I had just a smidge less scruples. And now you're telling me that's what I should have done? Forgive the fuck outta me for wanting to do shit on the up and up, I guess. Christ.

[levindicated]

That’s the rub, kid. Probably would have been less of a headache for you. You’re not going to make a bunch of old cranks happy about whatever you’re doing, especially if you aren’t directly involving them. You don’t know most of the people on that list, do you? It’s a great line up of suspicious bastards. Arthur there told me his name was Tacitus Kilgore when I met him. Getting to know him is like trying to pry a clam open bare handed. You may as well just crack him with a rock.

…But if you think you know best and you’re specifically equipped to take it.

[He takes a meditative puff.]

Then go on and take it.

[querulus]

[Well, there's the "Tacitus" mystery solved.]

I don't want to—

[He makes a frustrated noise.]

Look, this may come as a shock to you, but people, by and large, really—and I mean really—don't like it when you just yoink shit out of their brains. Especially suspicious bastards. You wanna know what a suspicious bastard does when he finds out you've been poking around in his head? Because sure as hell isn't anything involving grace and forgiveness, I'll tell you that much. It's just—

It's a whole cycle, yeah? Only way to get anything out of assholes with trust issues is to be shady. But hey, guess why they've got trust issues? Oh, right, 'cause everyone's fucking shady! You see what I mean?

So you know what? Fuck you. If you people can't answer a basic question without get all bent out of shape about it, that's your baggage, not mine. I'm not sinking to your fucking level, and all you fucks can die mad about it for all I care.

[levindicated]

I mean, this doesn’t really change my weekend. I’m not mad about anything, except that spring has had so many false starts that I’m not sure if I should keep a fire going all night or not.

You’re the one in a cave full of bones. It doesn’t look like there’s much in the way of drink options down there.

And I’m the only one who can tell you the information you want unless you use your power.

[querulus]

Hm.

[If a shrug could be audible, Cid would hear the very exaggerated one Quentin's doing right now. His tone shifts noticeably from irritated to a cartoonish level of unbothered.]

Eh. Nice bait, but I'm not falling for it. "You'll never know what I've got in my little brain unless you come get it." Yeah, right. I know a trap when I hear one, buddy.

[levindicated]

You think I put a trap in my brain? What would that even look like?

[It sounds real enough to this other guy though to be possible.]

[querulus]

I dunno, buncha shit. Maybe you'll get all offended, tell everyone about the scary asshole telepath who beats people up and steals their brain lunch money or whatever. Maybe you've just got a really fucked up head, and if I go poking around I get suckerpunched by The Horrors. Maybe you're some iteration of a telepath, and you want to get a read on my powers. Or hell, maybe you're just some miserable bastard who wants to prove everyone else is as much of a dick as you.

[Not that he's projecting or anything.]

[levindicated]

I just think that if you think you know what’s right, you ought to not be such a coward and do it. You know none of us wanted to tell you that information, and you hardly gave us a compelling reason.

I doubt you can poke around people’s heads and still be surprised by anything. Unless you aren’t any good at it.

un: odin | voice

[odinpusrex]

[This comes in right after Cid's reply. Almost down to the milisecond.]

He alone does not possess the answer you seek.

[querulus]

Oh, great, another clown for the circus. What's your deal, Mr. Cryptic?

[odinpusrex]

Naught you must needs concern yourself with. Act you in rebellion to Echo?

[querulus]

Act I in rebellion to whatever pisses me off. Which includes but is not limited to Echo.

Spit it out. Or better yet, think it at me so your "rebellion" bullshit isn't on the goddamn network.

[odinpusrex]

My mind is unassailable.

[Which isn't a lie, he has power over darkness in a very literal, figurative, and metaphorical sense. He is able to block out his very existence from those that might detect it otherwise—mind, body, and spirit.

However, since Cidolfus felt the need to share his name, an exchange is in order.]

Her name is Midadol. Know this: I will suffer not those which jeopardize our collective success. Act wisely.

[levindicated]

That’s just Barnabas.