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Fri, May 16
I got a text from Emma saying she needed to talk to me about a missing friend that just turned up again. Then, a few minutes later, I got a text from Mouse about a missing pet being found, which she heard about from Emma. I asked if Mouse wanted a sidekick and we got together in KC prior to heading over to the farmhouse. Mouse had "The Batmobile."
It's a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow modified with nitrous and all kinds of bulletproof this and that. (Basically a "mundane" version of what I'd done to my old 1971 Plymouth Satellite Sebring via magic looooong ago. I kind of miss that car, but it was a little obnoxious. Purple metallic flake paint is not exactly subtle. Of course, I was the one who had it painted that color, but I think I was barely 20 at the time? It was a period of many terrible--but mostly obnoxious--decisions on my part.)
At the farmhouse, Emma, Reed, Alicia, and Jack were there discussing what to do with a missing WWNP wolf that'd been abducted, undergone some kind of surgery, and which had cybernetic eyes implanted in its head. Cameras. We all suspected it was The Suits behind it. Mouse, Alicia, Jack, and I got in a car, drove out a ways, then hiked our asses off around the woods. Alicia unearthed the eyes from where they'd been buried. She'd used her teeth to chew them out of the wolf's head. (Good lord!!!) We did a partial field dissection of one eye. Alicia'd used some gift that disrupts technology prior to digging them eyes up. I stayed back far enough to hopefully be out of range, but I wasn't and it shut my phone down, so I pulled out some Forces and rebooted it. Alicia went ape-shit over my phone working because apparently it shouldn't have been able to just reboot with a "have you tried turning it off and on again?" Mouse explained that the phone was a Terminus tech prototype the Walkers were working on to keep tech working versus a fostern-level gift that seems fairly popular--even among BSDs. Alicia grumbled a lot, but then seemed to let it slide. I guess garou gifts rarely fail? If only the same were so for real magick. When I was a young mage and only able to sense things, I screwed up about 30-40% of the time. I've gotten LOTS better over the past two decades, but I still screw up regularly enough--especially while doing magick on the fly--that it doesn't come as a complete shock when it happens.
Anyway. After retrieving the eyes, we went on ANOTHER hike to go see the blinded wolf. (If a wound persists too long--like having your eyes plucked out and replaced with cybercamera eyes and allowing the damage to heal passably--then the garou aren't able to heal the damage that has been done. Good to know.) It was pretty damn pitiful. Mouse and I detected cyberware in it still--Mouse out loud and me silently to Mouse via typing unsent text messages, which Mouse was able to read. (Interesting.)
Note to self: purge the porn history links in any browsers before inviting Mouse over.
Charlene was there watching out for the wolf. There'd been debate earlier as to whether or not the wolf needed to be culled. Mouse wanted to take it back to the city, extract the cyberware, and see what could be done for her--perhaps put her in a wolf rescue place. The wares would have to come out though.
On the walk back, Alicia seemed to have calmed down a bit about her earlier outburst. The moon was much fuller than I was comfortable with. (I thought Emma was going to thump Reed for him being surly at her earlier. Why garou don't all separate when the moon gets fuller is beyond me.) I split to pick up the unregistered white cargo van I'd secured for the Walkers earlier. Brought it back to the farmhouse. Had a brief chat with Reed while waiting for Mouse and crew to get the wolf to where it needed to be for loading. Reed apologized for being angry at me earlier. Said there were a lot of things going wrong at the time and that he felt no one was listening to him--like no one seemed to acknowledge his suggestion of putting the wolf down. I told him people heard it, and were likely thinking it, but not wanting to make that tough decision. That'd be giving up hope, and what is hope but the belief that statistical probability (or reality) might be wrong this time around? I apologized for my attempt at humor earlier, which seemed to be a catalyst for his anger earlier. (I did much better on the excursion to see the cybereyes and the wolf--I largely kept my mouth shut and limited myself to unsent texts back and forth with Mouse.)
Mouse drove her and I and the wolf out to a fallout bunker on the outskirts of St. Clair. I kept the wolf placid the whole time by having a reassuring hand on it--and a nice Mind effect going to alter its senses to make it think it was in a safe place. Animal minds are sooooooo much easier to fool than human ones. Long story made short? The wiring harness implanted across the top of her brain and underneath the wolf's skull? Using a simple Matter effect (which is pretty much the extent of my knowledge with Matter), I was able to turn the metal to a hard plastic, the hard plastic to a soft plastic, the soft plastic to a flexible silicone, the flexible silicon into silicon gel, and the silicon gel into a saline solution that'd be absorbed and excreted in short order. It was time-consuming, strenuous, and inelegant, but it worked.
Mouse was impressed, said I was "doing it again," to which I thought she meant "dazzling"--which she used previously to describe the effect I seemingly had in attracting women to me. I told her I would keep my eyes open for a guy for her, but apparently she hadn't meant it that way--just that she'd been impressed and not.... We agreed to not speak about that ever again.
Mouse removed the tracking device and battery, then healed the wolf with Mother's Touch. The eyes didn't heal, but everything else did. Mouse thinks she'll do fine in a wolf rehab facility. (I was sorely tempted to take it in myself, but I don't think it and LOLcat would get along. I think, because Mouse is metis, she empathizes more with wolves as people than people (and likely homid garou) see wolves. I see wolves more as just animals (pets?) and of lower value than humans. I suspect most homids see things roughly the same way. Lupus the opposite way. Metis... ?
While I watched, my ungloved hands slowly reshaped the metal of the tub the wolf was in for the surgery. (I don't want to think about what those tubs have been used for in the past.) I think, because I spent so much time/effort turning metal into something progressively more and more malleable, reality has altered around me slightly so that I veeeeeery slowly now bend metals that I apply mild pressure to over time. I'm back to wearing gloves 24/7 and holed myself up in my RV's bed. Lots of padding, which doesn't seem to be affected.
Exchanged a few texts with Alicia. She seems concerned and less of an angry buttmunch. (Val seems to think The Doctors that had/lost X are behind this.) I really need to learn not to form opinions about garou when the moon is fuller and they're at their bitchiest. Hell, even Emma being aggressive at Reed earlier wigged me out just a little.
Sat-Mon, May 17-19
Plus side of being holed up in my RV for a while? Getting a lot of work done for Terminus and making some good progress with the Celestial Chorus tome on Correspondence theories. The trick/revelation? Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth" talks about Star Wars and The Force being the equivalence of a religion/god. Replacing references to "God" and "The One" in the tome with "The Force" makes the theories surprisingly approachable. I wonder if I can sneak into the umbra once more before the moon gets too thin so I can explore some of the ideas I have percolating?
I got a text from Emma saying she needed to talk to me about a missing friend that just turned up again. Then, a few minutes later, I got a text from Mouse about a missing pet being found, which she heard about from Emma. I asked if Mouse wanted a sidekick and we got together in KC prior to heading over to the farmhouse. Mouse had "The Batmobile."
It's a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow modified with nitrous and all kinds of bulletproof this and that. (Basically a "mundane" version of what I'd done to my old 1971 Plymouth Satellite Sebring via magic looooong ago. I kind of miss that car, but it was a little obnoxious. Purple metallic flake paint is not exactly subtle. Of course, I was the one who had it painted that color, but I think I was barely 20 at the time? It was a period of many terrible--but mostly obnoxious--decisions on my part.)
At the farmhouse, Emma, Reed, Alicia, and Jack were there discussing what to do with a missing WWNP wolf that'd been abducted, undergone some kind of surgery, and which had cybernetic eyes implanted in its head. Cameras. We all suspected it was The Suits behind it. Mouse, Alicia, Jack, and I got in a car, drove out a ways, then hiked our asses off around the woods. Alicia unearthed the eyes from where they'd been buried. She'd used her teeth to chew them out of the wolf's head. (Good lord!!!) We did a partial field dissection of one eye. Alicia'd used some gift that disrupts technology prior to digging them eyes up. I stayed back far enough to hopefully be out of range, but I wasn't and it shut my phone down, so I pulled out some Forces and rebooted it. Alicia went ape-shit over my phone working because apparently it shouldn't have been able to just reboot with a "have you tried turning it off and on again?" Mouse explained that the phone was a Terminus tech prototype the Walkers were working on to keep tech working versus a fostern-level gift that seems fairly popular--even among BSDs. Alicia grumbled a lot, but then seemed to let it slide. I guess garou gifts rarely fail? If only the same were so for real magick. When I was a young mage and only able to sense things, I screwed up about 30-40% of the time. I've gotten LOTS better over the past two decades, but I still screw up regularly enough--especially while doing magick on the fly--that it doesn't come as a complete shock when it happens.
Anyway. After retrieving the eyes, we went on ANOTHER hike to go see the blinded wolf. (If a wound persists too long--like having your eyes plucked out and replaced with cybercamera eyes and allowing the damage to heal passably--then the garou aren't able to heal the damage that has been done. Good to know.) It was pretty damn pitiful. Mouse and I detected cyberware in it still--Mouse out loud and me silently to Mouse via typing unsent text messages, which Mouse was able to read. (Interesting.)
Note to self: purge the porn history links in any browsers before inviting Mouse over.
Charlene was there watching out for the wolf. There'd been debate earlier as to whether or not the wolf needed to be culled. Mouse wanted to take it back to the city, extract the cyberware, and see what could be done for her--perhaps put her in a wolf rescue place. The wares would have to come out though.
On the walk back, Alicia seemed to have calmed down a bit about her earlier outburst. The moon was much fuller than I was comfortable with. (I thought Emma was going to thump Reed for him being surly at her earlier. Why garou don't all separate when the moon gets fuller is beyond me.) I split to pick up the unregistered white cargo van I'd secured for the Walkers earlier. Brought it back to the farmhouse. Had a brief chat with Reed while waiting for Mouse and crew to get the wolf to where it needed to be for loading. Reed apologized for being angry at me earlier. Said there were a lot of things going wrong at the time and that he felt no one was listening to him--like no one seemed to acknowledge his suggestion of putting the wolf down. I told him people heard it, and were likely thinking it, but not wanting to make that tough decision. That'd be giving up hope, and what is hope but the belief that statistical probability (or reality) might be wrong this time around? I apologized for my attempt at humor earlier, which seemed to be a catalyst for his anger earlier. (I did much better on the excursion to see the cybereyes and the wolf--I largely kept my mouth shut and limited myself to unsent texts back and forth with Mouse.)
Mouse drove her and I and the wolf out to a fallout bunker on the outskirts of St. Clair. I kept the wolf placid the whole time by having a reassuring hand on it--and a nice Mind effect going to alter its senses to make it think it was in a safe place. Animal minds are sooooooo much easier to fool than human ones. Long story made short? The wiring harness implanted across the top of her brain and underneath the wolf's skull? Using a simple Matter effect (which is pretty much the extent of my knowledge with Matter), I was able to turn the metal to a hard plastic, the hard plastic to a soft plastic, the soft plastic to a flexible silicone, the flexible silicon into silicon gel, and the silicon gel into a saline solution that'd be absorbed and excreted in short order. It was time-consuming, strenuous, and inelegant, but it worked.
Mouse was impressed, said I was "doing it again," to which I thought she meant "dazzling"--which she used previously to describe the effect I seemingly had in attracting women to me. I told her I would keep my eyes open for a guy for her, but apparently she hadn't meant it that way--just that she'd been impressed and not.... We agreed to not speak about that ever again.
Mouse removed the tracking device and battery, then healed the wolf with Mother's Touch. The eyes didn't heal, but everything else did. Mouse thinks she'll do fine in a wolf rehab facility. (I was sorely tempted to take it in myself, but I don't think it and LOLcat would get along. I think, because Mouse is metis, she empathizes more with wolves as people than people (and likely homid garou) see wolves. I see wolves more as just animals (pets?) and of lower value than humans. I suspect most homids see things roughly the same way. Lupus the opposite way. Metis... ?
While I watched, my ungloved hands slowly reshaped the metal of the tub the wolf was in for the surgery. (I don't want to think about what those tubs have been used for in the past.) I think, because I spent so much time/effort turning metal into something progressively more and more malleable, reality has altered around me slightly so that I veeeeeery slowly now bend metals that I apply mild pressure to over time. I'm back to wearing gloves 24/7 and holed myself up in my RV's bed. Lots of padding, which doesn't seem to be affected.
Exchanged a few texts with Alicia. She seems concerned and less of an angry buttmunch. (Val seems to think The Doctors that had/lost X are behind this.) I really need to learn not to form opinions about garou when the moon is fuller and they're at their bitchiest. Hell, even Emma being aggressive at Reed earlier wigged me out just a little.
Sat-Mon, May 17-19
Plus side of being holed up in my RV for a while? Getting a lot of work done for Terminus and making some good progress with the Celestial Chorus tome on Correspondence theories. The trick/revelation? Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth" talks about Star Wars and The Force being the equivalence of a religion/god. Replacing references to "God" and "The One" in the tome with "The Force" makes the theories surprisingly approachable. I wonder if I can sneak into the umbra once more before the moon gets too thin so I can explore some of the ideas I have percolating?
