ru5t

[ru5t]

@champagneprobllems ( Gem ) //> Where She Stops. . .

+ flashback

  The long pull of the hall swims in front of her eyes. She blinks, and blinks again. Trying to pull it - to pull anything into focus. But it slips and slips like shoes on the soaked floor, like sharp steel right through skin.

  “..H..” She tries, and fails, to say something. Though she’s not sure, exactly, what word she was aiming for. Maybe that’s why she can’t find it. Why she just stands there, breath catching, expression cycling in pieces through snatches of things that could be called angry… afraid… confused… hopeful… despairing. Desperate. She tries to look away and her head only twitches. A tremor begins to crawl up her leg. It’s after it reaches her middle, grabbing, that she remembers where she’s supposed to be. It’s creeping up around her collar, making her lift her head in search of air to breathe that she finds a small, tear-threatened version of her voice. “...Gem.”

  Help.

[ru5t]

colorful cacti

[ru5t]

thinking about zone culture again. the coming-of-age traditions in each crew, the handing down of ray guns and cars and old scrap technology being passed down. family is tied together by blood, but the blood spilled to protect one another, not the stuff running through their veins. every adult in the crew takes care of the young ones, the young ones take care of the younger ones. the child birthed into the crew is as much a part of it as the baby found abandoned in the sand, both wrapped in cloth and protected from the harsh elements of the desert.

the rise and fall of crews, fame and fortune being swapped for tragedy and extinction as the years pass by, the myths and legends of old zone-runners and crash-queens being passed down by the only rebels left who remember them. information is traded between zones through zines and radio and signals painted on the side of neutral village buildings, stories are told around campfires and curled up in cars and vans and campers. the fabulous killjoys just being the latest protagonists of the tale told to every motor-baby in the desert.

secret radio stations to tune into that give away locations of one-time gigs and markets and parties, entire campsites being built and torn down in a day to ensure crews can meet up and leave without being caught. rebels trade fuel and water and alcohol and medicine, motorbabies trade shiny pieces of jewellery and drawings and comic books scavenged from abandoned buildings. friendships formed and loves found and lost in a day, the chance of reunion slim in the ever-changing nature of the desert. kisses on cheeks and half-hearted promises and secret handshakes which will never be forgotten, even as years pass by.

[ru5t]

  It takes the most the monumental effort ever exerted by a human being for Maddy to stop herself before her gut reaction -a viciously disgusted retching noise- actually touches the air. Something in her was fooled, for a second, into feeling she was mid conversation with her brother. (Even though he can read her mind, really. Or he can read something close enough to it at any rate. Or he could, last time she checked—) All that attention to her guts doesn't do anything for the heavily harried roll of her eyes. And she still sighs.

  “Do you get a kick out of driving people crazy?” she whips with the speed to suggest it had, somehow, been her original question. She adjusts for a moment. Not really changing anything about the way she's sitting, but rearranging in place. Shifting like she's got a bug bite she specifically has been forbidden to scratch. Deliberately not meeting the look she can half-see-half-sense in her peripheral, she ventures: “D'you ever get sick of.. just gettin' saddled with stuff?”

He supposes this is something of his own making; an air of perceived unapproachability that leaves many hesitating to ask things of him. Generally he doesn't mind. Questions aren't his preference for day-to-day. His team gets more leeway than he's prone to admitting.

Richie muses on letting her keep the question, since she'd aborted it so early on.

A mix of encouraging communication, and his own curiosity, see him prompting, "Do I...?" He casts a wry glance her direction. "Mindreading's not part of the skillset, unfortunately."

[ru5t]

  “Trial and error,” she mutters, scraping away more dust from the computer tower. Chickens came from trial and error. Trials and trials and try again, it's still got teeth. Still bites. Tsk- she makes the noise aloud, click, new gear, leave that alone.

  Tower tower, what's in the tower? Something good? She dusts more of it off, finding model numbers that don't mean anything to her and a brand label long since defunct no doubt and. Just a case. No cracks no growths no burns or warping. Promises, promises.

  “I dunno yet,” she answers eventually. By then, she's already dug into her bag for a multitool and begun trying to get into the thing. The keyboards and other scrap have merit either way, but there's no point in hauling this around if it's promise is empty. Whether she takes the pieces for scrap or finds it functional, opening the case is the best choice. She begins to hum faintly, while she works.

"Chickens had to come from somewhere." But he's not getting into a theory of the evolution from dinosaur to bird. Not today, anyway. Maybe not ever, unless he can some old textbook or another as an aid. Is the natural history museum still around?

Midnight watches her with bemusement, as she dips and vanishes partially from sight. Must've spotted something. "Find something good down there, or are we practicing earthquake safety?"

[ru5t]

  She devotes a little belated attention to her cigarette, dusting away the collecting end. It’s become almost accessory. Bizarre incense while they sit here and talk.

  She doesn’t dare say it, but the thought echoes around, must be nice must be nice must be nice nice nice. To have somewhere that he fits. Fits best. She’s never felt that way. Maybe that’s what makes it possible to just stay. Be still. And he is –she glances, too nervous to really study him now but wanting to get an idea all the same– still. Settled. Sure of where he is.

  Maddy begins to ask, “Do y-” but it gives in a strange way. Never becomes entirely a word, entirely a sound, just an odd little syllable. She fidgets and smokes and tries to pretend that nothing happened.

Isn't that the point, she asks, and he concedes, "For some," even as he inwardly laughs a little. She has no idea the irony of it, to ask him specifically that sort of thing. "Better pay, better privileges." He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. What are either of those to a man raised in money and privilege? His father, at least, had wanted him moving up the officer ranks for the security and prestige, as was common of the Arden line. (He was never supposed to be boots on the ground, firstborn son that he is.)

In any case, "You find more of those types outside of special operations." The 20-years-or-less crowd.

He sniffs, ashing his cigarette. He's in it for the job, really. Doing something, and making use of all the ways he'd fail out of most civilian jobs. The adrenaline and the fight of it all had been particularly appealing when he'd been a younger man. Now... "Some of us just fit best here." And they'll stay as long as His Majesty's service would have them.

[ru5t]

  Not much..? Her eyes jump to the stranger. Then circle around them. Okay, well, not much exactly right here, where they’re standing exactly. But.

  She makes a gesture. Almost a tug on a shirt tail, like a child without the words for their demands, but she never makes contact. Just mimes it. Come here. Follow me. She putters off without looking back, too busy looking ahead. Scanning open air and nearby scrub, knowing and yet just a bit aimless.

Rei's got no intention of trapping the girl in a conversation she doesn't want to have, happy to leave things off when she starts looking around in an apparent search for someone. Rei had only wanted to get out of the Tavern away from Bash's irritatingly insatiable appetite for a while, had already gotten the distraction she wanted. She’s in no hurry to get back, but she’s loosened up from her earlier tension.

She does think fondly of her childhood in Middle City—she doesn't think she would suffer her teen years again for it, but she does miss the simplicity of those days. The comfort. But they're long behind her, now. “Yeah,” she agrees softly. “The birds were nice. Had one that roosted in the planter under my window a few springs in a row.” Her eyes skate over the landscape. “Not much of that out here, though.”

[ru5t]

  Tech looses a noncommittal hum.

  You’d expect that she would be the one with such little faith in people. But here they are and she can only think how few of the literal hands involved had mattered to the build itself. Sped things up, for sure. But she could have done it all alone (…probably) with enough time. It was all the pieces, the parts, capacitors and cables. Those had taken deals and promise and trade. Weeks of combing through collections amassed over months and years. A few special missions…

  Her and Gem and the twins, if no one else, they could do it easy. But only if they had the means, and pickings seem so slim. So Tech just shrugs. Not in the mood to pick a fight about it. To pick a fight with Gem at all. The tension already -still- between them is more than enough.

  No one’s fault. Everyone’s fault.

  “We need a better…” she pauses to mime the lost word, a box, four sides (housing), “for this one. Wind keeps takin’ it out.” This is the third or fourth time she’s repaired it. “Basically babysittin’ it at this point.”

“I don’t let things slide,” Tech says, and Gem wisely keeps her fucking mouth shut. No need to drag up old issues, not if Tech’s willing to let bygones be bygones. The slight wince at her words might give away where Gem’s mind went, but she’s not going to broach the subject, instead turning her attention to returning things to her bag.

“We’d find a way,” she says, more confident than she feels. “It’d be a pain in th’fuckin’ ass, an’ prob’ly a whole helluva lot bloodier,” she grins at Tech’s sliced thumb, “but we’d manage.” She hitches her bag back on her shoulder, tucks her hands into her pockets. Her feet coast side to side under her, but her torso barely moves.

“I think it’d be harder to find the manpower than the parts,” she muses. “Weather’s got people skittish, t’say nothin’a the clouds pushin’ outta 01. Tryna pull people together for somethin’ like this? Like fuckin’ pullin’ teeth.”

[ru5t]

𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑶𝑼𝑻𝑳𝑰𝑵𝑬.

for sanity's sake, dustverse only answers, but if you want answers for any of her aus you can rattle me and i'll do it again with the shifts

origins + family.

full name:  as far as the zones are concerned, it's Techno Havoc (or, more sparingly, Miss Magpie); it's not very hard to overhear her brother call her Maddy but repeating that is a really bad idea

date of birth: 5 may

age: middle 20s somewhere

social class: middle in the city; she's arguably kind of recognizable in the zones depending on which circles you move in, which is zones-culture version of being higher on the proverbial ladder, but there's not really a class system out there

parents: Mayhem Maker/Adrienne Magson (mother, deceased); Scott Magson (father, estranged); Merit (biological father, unknown to her)

siblings:  Jack (half brother); Pedal sort of??? (biologically her cousin, but was raised by her biological father- listen it's. it's involved. it just depends how you wanna view things. ig it's kind of moot though because she doesn't know pedal atp....ANYWAY)

physical + appearance.

height: 5'2"

weight: under what it should be, she struggles to put weight on

distinguishing features: scar through her right brow probably the most distinguishing, the scar on her chest maybe the most disturbingly obvious, but there's others (top of right shoulder, outside of her left thigh, on her left arm, her knees, her hands, etc. etc.)

hair color: naturally rusty red, typically dyed california poppy orange with at least one streak of neon green

eye color: amber / tawny brown / gold / whatever you want to call that

what do they consider their best feature?: if you asked her this directly i don't think she'd be able to answer you but from my all-seeing position i think it'd be something that isn't technically a feature so much as a skill which is that she is ambidexterous, or maybe that she runs fast s;dlkgfj;lsdkgfj; she... does not put a lot of thought into her body in terms of whether or not it's appealing to look at

style of dress/typical outfit(s): a little tiny bit tomboyish, a little punk/grunge inspired except in brighter colors, many pockets, [common outfits here]

jewelry? tattoos? piercings?: she has her ears double pierced! no tattoos (yet?), and often wears woven and beaded bracelets, preferably with beads made of wood or plastic, she's not big on metals

do they work out/exercise?: as a distinct activity, no, but every day of her life is effectively a workout so,,,,

belief +  intellect.

level of self esteem: broadly speaking i'd say it runs under what a distinctly healthy margin would be, she does a lot of second-guessing of herself, but she's prone to fits of like... she has cocky moments, and when other people question her capability suddenly she's little miss egomaniac of the year

known languages: english, slangy zone-spanish, she reads but cannot speak some scattered japanese; fully capable in multiple coding languages which is not really a communication language exactly but goes here anyway i feel

gifts/talents: prodigiously gifted electronics engineer and programmer until they drove her a little bit crazy. she's still above-average incredible but probably could have been scarily untouchable had things gone differently.

how do they deal with stress?: in whatever way it takes to survive it. she's... an interestingly effective compartmentalizer, in the sense that she can put things into systems and categories and etc. in a way that makes them endurable, however her version of enduring is. different, i think, than what many people's perceptions of effectively handling something would be... if that makes sense(?). also she gets weirder (more likely to space out and dissociate and say things that aren't for you and that are fragments of her constantly-making-associations-and-doing-math thought process) and also. she gets bitey-er.

what do they do when upset?: angry-upset tech is a Shouting Match expert, and sometimes the arguments are even good ones. fearful-upset tech is a runner. hurt-upset tech is a pouter with the biggest wettest how-could-you-est eyes. triggered-upset tech is going to say anything, everything, but especially what she thinks is going to scare/wound someone enough to back off, nothing is off the table, no line is too far to cross. (until she's already over it and no longer as upset as when she crossed it and now she has Regrets)

do they believe in happy endings?: she. would like to.

how do they feel about asking for help?: depends on what she needs help with and who she'd have to ask to get it.

optimist or pessimist: weird sort of spiteful optimist.

extrovert or introvert: on a sliding scale i do actually think she might... fall closer to extrovert? by some margin? but there's. tl;dr it's just not clean cut.

leader or follower: follower.

makes decisions based mostly on emotions, or on logic?: entirely dependent on what exactly needs a decision. there are times when she's incredibly capable of taking a big step back from things and looking at -and solving them- like puzzles, at other times she can't see around her big big feelings and at others she just. gets overwhelmed by those feelings and can't even make decisions.

spontaneous or planner: planner. her in-the-moment decisions can often be impulsive but she's often thinking about eventualities and possibilities and there are many things that she has. varying levels of serious plans (and sometimes even like, hidden resources etc.) for. not to invoke doomsday preppers but maybe she's got a few little hidden caches of things, what about it.

organized or messy: messy-organized. it's a system (usually), it's not neat and tidy in any sense of the word. things go where they go, don't move anything (no, not even so you can walk across the room without stepping on stuff.)

worrier or carefree: lol. lmao. (worrier.)

artistic?: not... especially? she's got some artistic expression in her clothing and arguably in the way she makes her machines, but she doesn't fit the general perception of being Artistic™

mathematical?: very. it's hard for me to write sometimes because i am not particularly mathematical as a default setting, so i usually end up relying on analogies and figurative language that explains the concepts as i best understand them instead of strictly literal or expressly functional descriptions of her computing and engineering. luckily for me she's also an odd little bug so explaining explaining a particular computer system via You Know How Clouds Pick Up Lakes To Make Rain? is very at home in her dialogue and internal monologue.

sex + intimacy.

current marital/relationship/sexual status: she has. well it's some kind of relationship with the Kobra Kid (but not just any concept of him specifically the one my friend wrote who i have. assimilated into the version of him i now write (@hittheredline)) but it's not an exclusive or traditional relationship it's. just definitely Something. i accidentally wrote myself into shipping her with another of my own OCs as well but it was so completely accidental. also sometimes i talked with my friend about shipping her with Lith (her best friend) but i don't know how serious that ever was or if it was more of a queerplatonic thing or what.

sexual orientation (is it something they question or a secret): asexual, biromantic. it's arguably more grey-sexual? but that's under the umbrella and she's not exceptionally pressed about putting a hyper-specific definition on anything other than "don't fucking touch me unless i give you permission." it's decidedly not a secret, the zones are Very queer.

views on sex (one night stands, promiscuity, etc): her views are less views and more... personal dynamic with sex? and it's. complicated. she's not repulsed by it on principle, or ashamed of her experiences, but it is very adjacent to Many of her triggers and some other generally sensory stuff and she's got disorganized attachment and it's just. it's a lot. she has No opinion on what other people are doing with their sex lives.

ever been in love?: unclear! (yes)

do they fall in love easily?:  no.

do they desire marriage and/or children in their future?: absolutely not to both.

thoughts on public displays of affection?: she's very socially conscious, both in terms of people being near her and in terms of the amount of attention she's generating, and isn't the biggest fan of said attention, so she's not... exceptionally prone to them? unless somebody is playing jealously games in which case she has been known to .. for lack of better terminology stake her claim. it doesn't take a lot to fluster and lowkey embarrass her in this regard and she'll always do some amount of protesting but also. it's kind of a good flustered and a good embarrassed and she maybe secretly likes the other person being the one who does the public gestures that other people can see. one of those things where she'll go "stop" but doesn't actually mean it. if you can somehow get her anxious brain to scale down and she's not even thinking about whether or not other people are looking (difficult, but possible) then she's just all happy warm melty about it.

how do they show affection/love to their partner?: lots of preferential treatment, except. not always in the most obvious ways? she is capable of being really sweet and earnest in a way that disarms people i think, but that's a high vulnerability state and it's more likely to get a bite-y version of her that's Distinct from when she's being mean to be mean (flirty-mean.) she will commit crimes for you! you might not have even asked her to. she might not tell you about it. she will try so hard, very hard so desperately, to keep you Safe, even in ways that you wouldn't like. the rest are ultra super private it would be unfair to go around airing out.

relationships.

social habits (popular, loner, some close friends, makes friends and then quickly drops them): she perceives herself as a loner who doesn't quite know how to interact with people and will, especially in times of distress, demand various levels of distance and independence, but i do think she's actually pretty social. (far more than her brother, in fact.) she's definitely got a shorter list of like, close/highly trusted individuals, but her overall network of friends and allies and friendly-enoughs and aquaintences and she-doesn't-know-it-but-they're-really-fond-of-her's is ...quite large. she's often convinced that even if she could make herself a more stationary kind of person that people would get sick of her. i think most of her contacts would be happy to have her around, even though she is rather temperamental.

how do they treat others (politely, rudely, keep at distance, etc)?:  broadly, kept at various levels of distance. it takes a lot for her to open up — rather it takes very specific key moments of revelation. which sometimes come naturally and easily and quickly close the distance. (even more or less instantly, in some cases.) but most of the time getting to all these kind of key moments takes time and/or effort (and/or her orchestrating them coming around as a test but that's a thing that needs its own post) and it's. a process. she is, usually, at least vaguely friendly-leaning when encountering new strangers -no reason to make an enemy for no reason- but it doesn't necessarily take a lot for her to get rude, snappish, or decide she doesn't like your vibe. her snap judgements aren't final but they sure can snap, sometimes. and her close contacts aren't safe either - if anything being safer means seeing more of her honest edges, and not just the stay-away-i-don't-need-you edges.

confront or avoid conflict?: depends entirely on the nature of the conflict. behold my daughter, the walking contradiction. she'll run from everything. also she'll fight anyone. that shit's a coin flip.

secrets.

dreams: i can't figure out if this is supposed to be dreams like ambitions or dreams like the thing that happens when we sleep but the former is ambiguous and the latter is a recurrent thing i have and will continue to write about so. just hang around ig.

greatest fears: hallways and heavy boots and held breaths and doctors and the dark, the dark, the dark, the dark, the dark. the Forever of There where the line really never ends and the ends of you don't exist and sparks flicker out, smothered in madness and Empty.

biggest regret: mmm practically speaking probably trusting whatever little bastard of a joy-killer was the one who turncoated and got her hauled in for reEd but i'm not sure.. she actually has any functional memory of who that was/possibly that that's how it happened. i have a hunch that everything right around her capture is still a big blank to her.

what they most want  to change about their current life?: man can BLi just fuckin DIE. (no. it's a company not an individual it's not that simple.) i guess that's not a secret but it is technically the answer to the question so maybe this is just an oddly titled section of questions.

likes + dislikes.

hobbies: putting her nose where it doesn't go. scanning the radios, tinkering with her little nonsense bots (they're little robots that don't have 'a purpose' other than just, being little guys) talking to her cat. she likes to read, any book she can get her hands on.

indoors or outdoors?: outdoors but only in the sense that if she couldn't have access, if she was locked it forever, it would it end her (vs. being on the move permanently would be survivable. difficult, and often painful, but still.)

favorite color: gotta be the greens. the orange is very Her right, i'm not arguing and she wouldn't argue that, it just Fits it just Is. california poppy orange, little orange cat. but the bright green is what her favorite is, i'm pretty sure.

favorite smell:

favorite and least favorite food: i know that she must have a favorite, if only by the power of some nostalgia memory alone, but i do not currently know what it is. least favorite, obligatory power pup mention.

coffee or tea?: i don't think she's into either. i think tea is more common/available in the zones. ... actually im not sure how accessible coffee is at all that's very much an import/luxury item it's hard to say if the city would be invested in it? this a devolvement risk. anyway both are not her particular choice (a sugary energy drink goblin.)

favorite type of weather: sunny skies with lots of funny fluffy clouds to look at but that don't interrupt the warmth

favorite form of entertainment: reading, i think?

how do they feel about traveling?: if you held her still forever she would explode and die

what sort of gifts do they like?: i don't think i'm allowed to answer this she wants people to figure it out ;dslkfgj;dslkfjg

drugs + alcohol.

thoughts on drugs and alcohol: idk, they're around? doesn't care at all what other people are doing (unless it makes them a threat to her.) has her own complex relationship with the nature of what a drug fundamentally is. she is... a regular but not Habitual™ drinker. genuinely can pass on it without any struggle, just (as a person chronically hypertense) likes the effects of a good rolling buzz when she's trying to have fun.

do they smoke? If so, do they want to quit?: she does, but more as a comfort action that a routine habit. she'll keep them with her but isn't running through the packs, you know? more of a. grounding item/positive trigger to invoke when she's Lost.

have they ever tried other drugs (which, what happened, consequences): involuntarily, so many. voluntarily... actually a few i think? but i haven't properly rattled this thought so i don't know what the experience was like right now i'll have to think about it. i can say— nothing intravenous. no thanks.

do they have any addictions?: nope. related yet unrelated thought that i also need to rattle out better and i think mentioned before but she's got.. a weird thing going on with her level of tolerance/resistance that i'm not sure she fully understands. though to be fair i'm not sure the people responsible for it fully understand what they did to her, either. (if it is anything that happened with intention rather than as a weird side effect, they were probably trying to make her less resistant.)

other details.

most important/defining event in life to date: man. shit's been happening okay?

typical Saturday night: her n her cat and the radio scanner.

what is home like (messy, neat, sparse): where is home? magpie nest.

pets? if not, do they want any?: bestest boy Glitch, the cat who knows to much and may be aware of the fourth wall a little bit dwbi (<- that's a joke i'm joking.)

can they hold their breath for a long time?: survival skill. she can hold hers longer than you probably, but don't ask her to.

do they know how to swim?: nope.

can they cook (if so, how well and do they enjoy it)?: she can... make things that are edible out of the resources she has access to. i dunno that i'd call it cooking, exactly. food and cooking is very much a necessity thing for her, not an enjoyment thing.

[ru5t]

Blythe Baird, from If My Body Could Speak; “The way I was taught to love”

[Text ID: “Half daughter, / half apology, all fire and the wrong kind of love.”]

[ru5t]

apropos of nothing i bet the light pollution in the city is off the charts because god knows it's never really dark in the city and probably the stars are barely even visible (if at all) inside the wall and it takes until the outskirts of 03 for that to really back off, and if you wanna be super duper wowed you should push all the way out to 06 where nights are so dark you can practically touch 'em

like. okay this is Vegas not LA but yknow it's not all 1 to 1 anyway but like this looking-at-it-from-space picture that always makes me giggle a little b/c it looks like. tin foil.

only actually Battery is almost definitely way neater of a circle i should think, given the city's wall, with weird little outcrops for the annex and neon

[ru5t]

my unfinished art projects list is so long u know but im thinkin about this one

[ru5t]

[ru5t]

@lcfthaunted //> Unprompted

“I may not like you one hundred percent of the time, but I am always going to love you.”

  Her lip curls up. Her brow shifts down. For a scant few fractions of seconds her expression can't decide if it's enraged or petrified, flinches echoing at the edges of her eyes, flints in the depths. Then the curl completes into a sneer. Well. Since they're offering estimations. Since they're giving reviews.

  “I don't think you know what love is,” Tech answers, dropping every word with such condemnation it's a miracle none of them melt through her little mouth on conjuration.

[ru5t]

couldn't find it but i can ✨Make It✨ owo

im thinkin about. a tech expression there's a face there's a gif of this face. this is weird i know and dwb how i got here i'm just thinkin about her

[ru5t]

i don't know if this is ever going to go anywhere fr but here is a very incomplete thing i wrote/am still writing(?) that i just like a lot so far and am thinking about

uhh i think it needs a little context so context is: her brother broke her out of detainment. on the way out of the city he then sedated her specifically to hold off an incoming crash, because she'd been part of a drug trial recently and was about to crash, and for the moment it was easier to have her down than actively crashing so. then when what happens to separate them happens (which i have ideas for but no concrete statement) she's unconscious. then hits that crash, so she's not really coherent or aware when the traders rescue her, so by the time she's clear enough to really actually wake up and be aware she has no idea where she is how she got there or who picked up and she's just gotten out of her only contact with other people for the last several years having been violent or violating in one form or another so---

… she shoved the divider over on top of whoever it was without waiting to find out. They went down with a startled yelp, and the crash of the wooden frame, the riiiiiip of pulled fabric. Maddy scuttled around the edge of the chaos (she’d been caught going overtop of a drac she’d bowled over with a cart one time; never again) and pulled the door open again. On the other side, she balked. It was a sort of organized chaos, shelves and tables piled with things, every size shape and color. Chairs and wheels and baskets, books and bottles. A counter directly in front of her. A door beyond that. That was all she had time to catalog. Another person appeared, rounding a corner to her right with a puzzled look on his face. Rather than wait for him to come to her, Maddy jumped the counter, scattering notebooks and shoelaces, throwing a box to the floor with the loudest crash she’d heard in her whole life. She aimed for the door. Before she could get through it, someone got their hands on her.

“NOOOO,” the shriek exploded out of her as the handle slipped through her fingers. She began to flail. Kicking and elbowing, howling like a wounded animal while he kept trying to catch her arms and hold her still. Still! Still! They always wanted her still. In all the fuss the pair fell to the ground with the hard smack of skin and bone against linoleum. Her attacker growled in frustration as she jabbed her elbows into his ribs. But he got an arm around her shoulders.

There was the sound of bells, and a gasp.

“Stop! You’ll-”

“Hold on! It’s-”

New voices. Even while she bucked, trying to slam the back of her head into his nose she couldn’t help but notice the new voices. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was distraction- another arm moved in. She ducked and, seeing the new chance, grabbed hold of the arm wrapped around her collar. She sank all of her teeth into flesh. Down down, sharp, as hard as she could. There was always this long second, like when she fell and things seemed to slow down around her, where skin would squish and push and move with her teeth like it wasn’t going to work. Then, pop! Like a balloon. Blood rushed into her mouth, horrible and hot and coppery, but she only bit down harder. That was what got them to let go, the biting down. Only he didn’t let go. He hissed softly, pained and annoyed, and looped his other arm around her waist at last. He had her, now. Her back flush against his chest, ribs to ribs.

“There,” a voice much younger than she’d expected came from her captor. “I got you, you got me.” It was true. Her teeth were nearly touching — she could rip a whole chunk of his arm right off, and he wouldn’t be able to do a single thing about it. She tightened her jaw a little just to make a point of it. The boy inhaled tightly. The blood oozed down her chin, dripping onto their laps and the floor. “Yeah,” she could hear the wince, “ ’xactly.”

So what now? They sat there for a long second, impasse’d. Silent and holding on. She could feel his torso rising and falling as he fought to regain his breath - she could even feel his heart. Fast like a rabbit’s. Just like hers.

Shuffling sounds from behind the counter told Maddy when whoever she’d surprised freed themself from the clutter. Four to one. Always the stacked odds. She wondered, briefly, if that was just what the world was going to be like forever.

“Whoever yer runnin’ from,” the boy said, his voice dropped low, “they ain’t here. An’ they can’t get you here.”

Bullshit! She couldn’t talk without giving up her only get, so she squirmed, kicked heels at his shins and clawed at his arms with her fingernails. Let me go!

“Listen t’me! I mean it. Don’t matter who th’fuck it was, f’ some suit bagged yer bitey little ass, or it was the pressers, the ghosts- look. Look.” He insisted, pushing his arm up into her mouth to lift her head, direct her eyes up.

Beyond the upturned tables and odd ends, there were walls. There were windows in the walls. Some half covered, the rest scratched and smudged, dirt flecked near the point of being patina, they served as an effective enough view nonetheless. It took a few blinks for Maddy to understand was she was looking at. Beyond the supports of the building’s overhang, beyond the rusted gas pumps and half-painted van. Beyond a stretch of hard packed dirt and dry scrub.

…Nothing.

That was, horizon. A skyline so bright it hurt her eyes. Not a building in sight.

Not even a hint of the city.

She let go of his arm. It went, gingerly, to join the other at her waist. Not a grab anymore but a seatbelt of sorts, holding on while the train of her thoughts spun wheels over chassis into all the empty, blazing blue. It burned to look. Burned in a way nothing in the cold, white halls ever had. Tears pricked her eyes, but she kept staring at it.

“Weasel-” Same voice who’d said ‘stop’ standing something like a yard to their right.

“Fuck off,” the boy answered conversationally, “we’re lookin’.”

“H— f--?”

“Ey?” her captor –Weasel, as the stop-it voice had called him– sat up a little higher. Maddy sat back to meet him, pressing rib to rib again. It felt.. Better, having something solid behind her when everything in front of her was empty like that. Just outside the door she’d been fighting so hard to get through.

“How far?” she whispered.

“Fence f’three an’ four.”

Fence? Three and four? What was that supposed to mean? Maddy shook her head, I don’t get it.

“Mm,” Weasel made a new noise, not annoyed but lightly stumped.

“Forty-five miles from the wall, give or take” the hold-on voice supplied, also speaking from off to the right.

Forty-five miles. A number that a corner of her thoughts insists isn’t very high at all. No when so many so much bigger numbers existed to her just in the world of a day. But it’s also forty-five miles farther than she’s ever been in her entire life. Forty-five miles beyond the wall that held the walls that held the sub-levels that held the endless hallways. Even better living didn't have a hallway this long.

“The moon,” she whispered.

Weasel gave a single bark of laughter.

“Yeah, we're on the moon.”

[ru5t]

Zones Specific Whump Wheel.

Some of the items are more generic than others but all are incredibly encounterable or even common in the zones. I may continue updating this but there's a good number on there already. There are a handful of star* marked words that are zone specific, their definitions are below:

boxing ring — a one-on-one firefight between two members of rival gangs; most common between leaders or their 'champions' to settle disagreements without mass casualties

crow raid — when the S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W unit send a raid out into the desert with the intent of killing and/or capturing groups of killjoys. usually heavily armed; full post about S/C/A/RE/C/R/O/W division here

dracs — low level S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W employees who are very violent but not necessarily very organized. or smart. usually not very well armed beyond hand held ray guns.

DESTROYA — dubbed a 'phenomenon' by the doubtful, a deity by the superstitious/religious, but very real either way; characterized by voices on the radio and/or auditory hallucinations in which voices encourage a person's negative thoughts and impulses, driving them to fear, paranoia, isolation,and sometimes worse; the driving force behind these things can cause a person to have nightmares about their fears and other ambient horrors

the Fuck You!!!! House — a venue where, in short, people beat each other up for fun, it's not always lethal but there's not a lot (if any) rules of sportsmanship there; sometimes fights with crows are arranged, fight being a generous word for the crow's side of things; sometimes the arranged fights expand beyond the ''official'' arrangments and the whole house becomes one big brawl

gunsick — illness due to being shot by or otherwise exposed excessively to ray gun fire, which resembles anything from flulike symptoms to mimicing radiation poisoning in severe cases; typically mild (because you can only get hit so many times before someone hits a lucky shot), there is medicine for it commonly carried by crows but it's not publicly produced and somewhat hard to get hold of (the demand in the zones outweighs the level of in-city production and it can only source from S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W employees, it cannot be bought by civilians)

howlers — a cult of DESTROYA fanatics who spread chaos and violence, attacking killjoys neutrals and city employees indiscriminately throughout the zones; also like to burn shrines and torture followers of the other deities for fun

ray gun — Better Living produced weaponry that fires bolts of energy as opposed to physical amunition; contact with the bolts leaves burns (mild to severe depending on range) and causes numbness around the location or in extremeties for a few hours (after which they just hurt); full post about them here

sandburn — common on heavily windy days, in sandstorms, and by driving without facial protection, caused by repeated abrasion from airborn sand, dirt, and other small particulates; similar to friction burns or, in severe cases, a scraped knee/elbow/etc. (or, in really severe cases, road rash); can also give you a nasty cough

smiler — a predator genetically engineered by the city, intensely territorial and some packs hunt people for sustenance; densely muscular and difficult (but not impossible!) to kill; full post about them here

zonesick — illness due to being exposed to the zones' radiation hotspots; mild cases can look flulike, severe cases are. bad ♥; the gunsick treatments can be used to help combat mild cases, but only do so much for moderate cases; the city has solutions for severe cases but they are not publicly available and require specialized equipment

zone 07 — is a mysterious location/entity in the zones near the former coast, getting too close induces the desire to enter the zone to the exclusion of all else, paranoia and desperation, hallucinations are common; caving to the compulsion is a 99.9% guaranteed death, with the .1% being promised "came back wrong", going in is not a casual whump a character can shrug off they will either die or be Something Else afterwards (how close one has to be to be "in" though is, of course, a grey area)