Players:
Summary: Fiona meets Gwyn, Mike drops by.
Date: 12/20/2012
Log Title: Encryption Games
Rating: PG
NYC - Mutant Town (Avenue B)
Mutant Town, also known as District X, has become a haven for mutants. This section of town doesn't care what you look like, accepting all mutants no matter what their appearance. Most of the businesses in this section of town are mutant run ranging from small convenience stores to clothing shops to restaurants to night clubs. The buildings here aren't the high rise buildings you might find in mid-town but most are about 5-6 stories high. Mutant Town might not be the most luxurious section of town, in fact it's fairly run down, but this section of where mutants are safe and welcomed regardless of race, religion and culture.
Fiona is walking down the street. Out in the open! Where oh where did all the sentinels go? Well, it's not like she cares, really. It's much nicer to be able to travel at least somewhat freely again, what with her rather obvious mutation. Right? It's totally a mutation. No problem. It's evening, and the purple eyed girl is just taking in the town; without being able to go there it's difficult to see how mutant town fared…
Poorly! The streets are a little bit cleaner due to efforts to clean up the rubble from buildings. At least a couple buildings have collapsed from the attack and riots that happened just a few days ago. Volunteer efforts and the work of other mutants have increased productivity, but the scars are still visible. Electricity still has not been completely restored, and the street lamps haven't even turned on.
Gwyn has been busy assisting others to clean up the debris over the last couple days, but during the evenings, they spend time in the embassy. Which is where Gwyn is currently walking to. They're still wearing the same clothes they've been wearing over the course of the past few days, considering Gwyn hasn't left Mutant Town yet.
So then… the place is pretty much still a ghetto, but Fiona's not unused to that, being a resident of Hell's Kitchen… she continues meandering along, keeping an eye out, as best she can, in the dark - as she comes closer to Gwyn. The two are about to meet! Oh, what will happen?! The suspense!
Gwyn stops to greet Fiona is what happens. "Hello, there. How are you? Is everything okay?" They say in a fairly concerned toned and a tilted head. This is what Gwyn asks most people in case anyone needs food, medicine, or care in any way. It's what Gwyn's absolved to do for those caught in the attack.
Fiona pauses mid-step, looking up at Gwyn for a moment, "Hmmm?" she asks idly, as if caught deep in thought. "Who, me? Nonono I'm fine," she nods, waving a hand. "I was just scoping things out, maybe figured I'd offer to help out where I could…" she trails off, eyeing Gwyn for a moment.
Gwyn removes their spectacles for a moment and nods. The reason for removing them was just to clean them off on the shirt they are currently wearing. "Yea, things are getting better. I guess you weren't here for the attack? I hope you stayed safe. There were a lot of casualties."
"I was outside… I live in Hell's Kitchen," notes Fiona, nodding, "But I had friends who were trapped in here. Or at least, well, acquaintances… I still haven't heard from most of them, I don't think. But it looks like the electricity's not fully back on," she glances up at the unlit street lamps, "So that's probably why."
"There were EMP bombs discharged into Mutant Town. I wasn't here when it happened, but it damaged most electronics. Until the city sends someone in to repair everything, I doubt we'll have electricity." replies Gwyn, putting the spectacles back on shortly thereafter. "Ever since the gate tore down, it's been a little easier for people to return home, though."
"EMP bombs?" Fiona raises an eyebrow - clearly not one for tech, but she'll take Gwyn's word on it for the most part… "That's good. The place looks like where I live sometimes does… only, it never used to be this bad…"
Gwyn is talking to Fiona by the side of the road near no discernible landmarks. "With collapsed buildings and chunks taken out of the road from laser blasts?" replies Gwyn with a raised eyebrow and tilted head. Gwyn hasn't changed clothes since Mike saw them a while ago.
Approaching Mutant Town, Mike Drakos is a stealth motorcycle, nearly soundless and barely visible while in motion. Even the exhaust from his engine is scrubbed and thermally adjusted to match the air. He pauses, noting that the walls are indeed down, like the news reports said. Still, he doesn't drop the stealth mode. The Purifiers may have been driven back but they haven't been eradicated and Mike has no intention of being seen and identified. He doesn't sense anything unusual, but binoculars and tall buildings still work to passively view into the area.
He pulls up near Gwyn and Fiona, and pulls into an alley nearby, then steps out of the bike. His face and form are not the ones he normally has, and in fact, his face is clearly a mutant, three eyes, but the tee-shirt, "My other body is a porsche" is still the one Gwyn saw before. He approaches the pair, waving a polite three-fingered hello.
"Well, it's Hell's Kitchen, so replace the laser blasts with bullet holes and graffiti, and you're pretty much right on the money," laughs Fiona, "At least we have electricity over there still, though…" she glances over towards Mike, whom she recognizes. "Hey!"
"Electricity is pretty awesome." replies Gwyn, looking over towards Mike. "Something tells me you're another mutant." A pleasant smile and a nod, "We delivered R's message! Did you see? Nothing bad happened except my umbrella got incinerated. Umbrellas do not protect you from energy blasts."
"I saw. And, normally, umbrellas don't." Mike's VOICE is the same as it usually is. "Hello, by the way, Fiona, Gwyn. I apologize that the bug-net hasn't come up yet. It took much longer than I expected to get facilities for it, and now I'm not sure how much to deploy. We may still need it, but … we'll see, I suppose." He winks the middle-upper eye at Fiona.
"Bug net?" Fiona shoots a questioning glance at Mike for a moment, and then back over at Gwyn, "I suppose that makes you one as well?" she ponders that, though of course she doesn't really have any reason to believe that. Simply that Gwyn is here, in Mutant Town, helping out mutants?
"Nope, I am just an exceptional human. An activist." says Gwyn with a light shrug and a dip of the head towards Mike. "All is well. There was an additional EMP strike by one of the mutants during the attack, so connection would have been disrupted. What are you doing here now, though?"
"Following up … seeing what I can still do, of course. And checking on my family's business, which brought me into town. Things are interesting on that front." Mike checks out the three-fingered hand trick by looking more closely at them. "Wow. I can see how this would be a pain for touch typing. I'll have to design a chassis with this configuration though - the fingers are probably stronger this way…"
He looks at Fiona "I was planning to provide a back-door network to the area, but it didn't happen as fast as I wanted it to. It'd be EMP resistant, by the way."
Gwyn nods and says, "Maybe you could make me EMP resistant, too?" The question is phrased jokingly, like how one might want their personal devices EMP-proofed. "I have access to the embassy's network, but I'm being a polite guest."
"That'd be a good thing, but it's rather intimate. I had to take myself apart to do it. Can still lose some functions to it if it exceeds a certain level." Mike shrugs. "But then again anything that strong gets channeled into my batteries too, so I have energy to repair the damage. I sometimes wish I had been into cyberpunk when I was a kid instead of into cars."
"I remember when cyberpunk was just becoming popular. I'm so old," laughs Gwyn. "I still feel awfully useless here, just picking up rubble and things. R has been wonderful, though. She's made sure I've been safe. At this point, I might be exceeding my utility, though."
"I imagine so. But the fact is, you can do a lot that others cannot, which really helps - starvation has its side effects, y'know, and even after we got started getting people out of here, there was a problem with that." Mike shrugs. "I'm going to have to head back to my temporary base soon, but I wanted to see if there was anything you needed."
"Can you make sure my apartment hasn't been raided or something?" inquires Gwyn with a tilted head, "It's in Brooklyn, I'll email you the address later. I haven't been there in a while and I just want to make sure it hasn't burnt to the ground or something."
"Sure. Do you need me to collect mail or anything? I can detour to there on my way back. The family stuff is out on the other side of Queens, so." Mike does a quick visual scan of the area. Nothing in particular, just a few people doing evening-time cleanup, and one or two places that have electricity lighting up, food smells that he can only detect as 'burned hydrocarbon and protein'.
"The place is coming back slowly, huh?"
"Slowly. I won't have any mail, I'm pretty sure." replies Gwyn with a shrug, "We're working to bring things back up. The city needs to send our electricians to fix the power, I think. There's a lot of infrastructure damage that even I can't provide."
"OK. But I'm sure you'll have junk mail. And yes, the city does need to do that but they may not - whatever prevented them from stopping this in the first place is probably still in play, and I'm not sure it'll be fixed soon." Mike sighs. "And, I have to head off soon. You have my email, feel free to send me encoded updates. Nothing important should be in clear anyway, but you know that."
"I'll try not to make the encryption too tight." replies Gwyn with a shrug and a small smile, "Please take care of yourself, and if you need me to do anything, please don't hesitate to send me a message."
