applenet | 0 Days Remain

After the vision, and realizing that they still have an hour before the curfew, a message shows up on their program...

Luci: Finally! Human minds can be so fragile...

Luci: You saw it, right? What do you think?

Luci: Does it make you angry or terrified?

Luci: I don't really care but if you answered yes to either of those, good!

Luci: I've got presents for you, lambs.

Luci: Once an apple falls from the tree, it's hard to stop gravity.

Luci: They will try.

Luci: Already a few of you didn't make it.

Luci: But you are all stronger than you look! Amazing, I know.

Luci: SO LISTEN UP! See that dot on the map?

Luci: No? Maybe arrows will help?

That's where you saw that vision.

Luci: It's just about twenty minutes away from the central part of Green Valley's fancy-ass school. You know the 'World Famous' apple orchards out in the back? The very first subway station?

Luci: If you want to know more about what you saw and any other questions that might be burning in your mind, I suggest you hop into the underground city subway and wait until midnight strikes then sneak out to it. Don't think the city will care for less than fifty people going there anyway. Staying after darkness is normal anyway, right?

Luci: When we get there, you'll get a brand new message.

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[It seems to take forever for Haruka to realize he's got someone chasing him. Michi for once has a means to empathize with the dog across the street that seems to want nothing more than to be hit by a car, the way it races after vehicles. It's a little more wearing than it seems like it would be to keep up with one. The longer this went on, the more he started to worry that Haruka might speed up-

To his relief, eventually Haruka slows to a stop.

It clearly doesn't matter if there's more rain or less rain. Michi's so flustered that he's not got a raincoat, or umbrella, or basically anything that would make traveling in rain a little easier. Maybe it's a bit of an assumption that Haruka would be willing to ferry him without any discussion about it, but Michi feels like it'd be okay to do that. Eligors have to stick together. They just have to.]

If it's okay, I really want a ride. I don't know what that Luci is thinking, telling us to go out here right now...

[To punctuate that, Michi multitasks complaining with getting on the scooter to test if there's room.]

... couldn't they have said to do this during the day and just wait there?

Edited 2017-06-04 09:15 (UTC)

[As far as assumptions go, Haruka is generally willing to give rides anytime he isn't on delivery business, and doubly so when there's a pressing need -- so tonight basically breaks the gauge entirely on 'pressing need' and skyrockets straight into 'picking up literally anyone he sees out at this hour who doesn't look like a mad axe murderer and attempting to break the laws of physics with how much he can fit on one rickety middle-aged scooter'.

That is to say, Eligors will stick together, Haruka will stick together with anything short of the Shadows or firemen themselves, and there's even less space on the scooter than before. So Michi will likely end up sandwiched between bags of fertilizer and a small tank of gasoline, sorry for the smell.]

... I don't think those things are out during the day. That's why there's curfew.

[Haruka is speaking very quietly, wary of the quiet in the street; next minute, though, the silence is shattered by the tires of the scooter literally squealing loud enough to wake the dead as they shift into 'we need to get to the school in the next 5 minutes' overdrive. They're also not really going in a straight line and there's water everywhere. Hope Michi's managed to figure out what to hold onto real quick this time.]

[At least it's dark out, and no one can see him hesitantly wrap his arms around Haruka's waist again. It's better than being out in the street, he has to remind himself. He should be really grateful for this, and he is, but ... there's still something just too profoundly weird about it.]

I know-

[Haruka's back cuts the wind for the most part, but it still whips around the sides, and between that and the noise, there's not much chance of communicating anything. He'll just have to wait to explain why he's not actually stupid until they're traveling at a less noisy pace.

The thought is driven out of his mind entirely by wondering if that sound is dragging horrors towards them. Could those firemen have heard it? Could the monsters? It's a sobering thought to say the least, especially since, judging by the smell, there's gasoline behind him. If anyone were to use a flamethrower, they'd have no chance of getting away from that.

It's probably just chill from the rain that makes Michi shiver. Ignore that.]

[Part of Haruka is aware that traffic is still a thing, even in the early morning, and that he should probably be more concerned about the ratio of sound versus how much speed they need -- the rest of him is too preoccupied to care, or at least to care beyond the muffling effect of the ongoing rain, making sure Michi or the fertilizer hasn't gone flying off the back, and keeping the scooter upright on slippery pavement.

He could navigate to the school in his sleep, even though he still takes the subway much more often than he takes his scooter that way, and they make good time despite skidding once or twice and having to slow whenever the rain comes down hard enough that Haruka can no longer see the street signs. The school's in sight by the time they slow enough for speech and divided driving attention.]

... Sorry. I promised someone I'd meet her, before we go to the meeting point.

[It's actually impressive that they've gotten here in one piece, all things considered, but there's no need to tempt fate or whatever is out there right now by counting themselves safe before the appointed time. (Or after it, but that's another can of worms.)]

[When they first skid, Michi goes from holding on gingerly to tightly clinging for dear life. Warnings from his mother float through his mind - coffins on wheels! Death traps! - enough that he doesn't release that grip when the tires get traction under them again. He's immediately justified when they slide again, teeth gritted so hard that his jaw's starting to hurt and heart in his throat.

The rain is relentless, intensifying into roaming sheets of rain that Michi can't see a thing through. They've slowed down, but Haruka never stops moving. No matter what the weather is, he goes forward. It's a good thing, too. Michi would have to evaluate if that walk really seemed like such a bad idea if he got the chance to get off of the scooter.

In the back of his mind, another annoyance pokes at him, too. He's going to have to get somewhere dry enough that wringing out his dreads would have any effect. And it's too humid for them to really dry after that. So he'll have to put up with that until he gets home and can attack them with a hairdryer, and then he'll have to explain to whoever he woke up why he's drying his dreads out past midnight. It's at least something that takes his mind off of the ride, right until he has another thought.

It's not going to even matter. He's going to die soon, anyway.

They've slowed down again, enough that he can hear Haruka talk, but Michi's grip just tightens a little.]

Okay.

[Not 'who', because that would require brainpower taken away from morbid, fun thoughts.]

I gotta do that, too. I told 1001 I'd be going here first!

[But not what he looked like or any way to find that out. He's looking for anyone who looks like they're up and wandering around in a school and all he has to go by is whether or not he's a string of numbers. Michi's not stopped panicking internally for a long, long while now. Thinking anything through takes away from finding new ways that they're all going to die somehow, and then even more ways to distract himself from that thought.]

[Death is something Haruka's been thinking about in slightly more than the abstract sense in the last three weeks -- possibly more than he's ever thought about it in his life, since despite his more sedate nature he's not actually more given to pessimism than his peers -- but tonight is somehow different. Maybe it's the fact that Michi's still squeezing the breath out of him; maybe it's the vision that time has told him is in the future, somehow; maybe it's just his own stubbornness.

For the moment, he's more focused on moving forward and getting through the night -- on getting all of them through the night, whether or not they're a user under the yoke of AppleNet -- than on the dangers of the process. That's also probably why he only has the usual misgivings about meeting with Ryann, rather than a whole new set involving breaking curfew and a few dozen other laws before breakfast.

He's in the process of kicking the scooter forward again when Michi speaks up, and pauses when he realizes--]

1001. [of course, he'd almost forgotten that the numbers came in a set even outside the app] I know him, I can go with you once Ryann and I are done.

[He's not entirely sure how long it will take, given that he has no idea exactly what Ryann is up to or how they're going to rig what he's brought with what resources she has; but he also has a promise with John to meet up beforehand, and he knows he has to honor it. He owes his friend that much.]

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