"Oh wow, just going for it. OK!" Roger says, equal parts wary and enthusiastic.

Billy's vacant stare is not an entirely new phenomenon, but it's been a few months now since he's had cause to contemplate the space just behind his eyeballs.

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 795):

Billy continues to stare at nothing in particular.

In reply to The Watcher (msg # 793):

I just do not have a read on him at all.

Frank takes up a strategic position behind Billy and readies herself for action.

If he so much as flinches the wrong way I'm blowing out his knee. Godlike parasite or not, bipeds don't do well as unipeds.


She also shoots a quick look Nightmares way and adds with an appreciable menace If I catch you in my head without consent we will have an answer the age old parable of what came first, the fist or the feeding tube?

Sensing the confusion in the room, she genuinely inquires, Have you guys not read "InterroGREAT"? It's a seminal work in the 5X Blackbelt curriculum focused on advanced interrogation methodologies in management settings. Worth a gander!

In reply to Penelope Franklin (msg # 797):

Oh I did!  Aviva raises one hand enthusiastically.

It was intense

But almost painfully pragmatic, Aviva conceeds

Aviva whispers into her ear and she smirks.

uniped...

In reply to Aviva (msg # 798):

Once Billy goes slack she gets an oh shit face and hustles back to him.

What is with the friendly fire in this group?!  She asks bemused, fixing her eyes on Gestalt and Frank... Psychically, I announce myself with a chime you can reach out to me from that point.  I primarily can do two way communication.  I don't get access to thoughts or anything like that, so no worries on that front

She laughs and then hastily

But... I wouldn't do it even if I could. 

She flushes furiously red and gets very busy searching Billy's face for any signs of distress.

Idiot girl!  You are making yourself look like a psycho.  Just be cool, why can't you be cool?!
This message was last edited by the player at 22:41, Mon 13 May.

Billy's eyes remain vacant.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:12, Tue 14 May.

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 800):

Roger hums a jaunty tune.

In reply to Yardbird (msg # 801):

Aviva attempts to harmonize with Roger, but because she starts at the end of the song it doesn't work well

In reply to Aviva (msg # 802):

"No no no, keep going. That was rad. I got it."

Roger materializes a crude recording device with two separate microphones, one for him and one for Aviva. He hands her one and stands apart from her to avoid sound bleed between the mics. Once the cacophony has subsided, he taps a few buttons on his bracer, which is connected to the device.

"See, if we throw them into separate channels, I can reverse yours. Check it out."

He taps his bracer and the tune flows in perfect harmony, save for any pitchiness in the two divas' vocals.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 13:26, Tue 14 May.

In reply to Aviva (msg # 802):


Billy stirs somewhat.

In reply to Yardbird (msg # 803):

Cool!

Ooh, we can do Karaoke! 

Aviva cocks her head to one side and gestures toward Billy.

He do that often?  I don't remember if he will

How can we tell if he's still in control?

Billy suddenly pulls his finger out if the socket in the collar and glances around the room.  He takes a deep breath as if he’s about to say something, even bracing his arms to gesticulate but stops and deflates, “We need to deal with this Joss legality bullshit.  They are officially small time.” he sighs, but then suddenly seems invigorated, jabbing a finger at Roger, “How long has it been since that recording of the voice of Ceto?  Was it before or after you started hearing about the voice if the deepest burrow from the moles?”
Billy removes the collar as he starts talking rapid-fire, throwing the device to the techie mid-karaoke, “Can we get any info on the spike?  It looks different from the collar, is it just mole-made?  Briggs, you still have access to info on the Nadir crew?  Did you happen to have anyone with any kind of expertise in ancient Earth history? I’m going to talk to Dolom and the architects, we gotta go sooner than we planned.” Billy brusquely heads for the ramp up out if the guest chamber even as he speaks, pausing at the top of the ramp to look back at the group of humans, “The parasite’s the Voice of Ceto.  All the parasites, it’s one big thing.  I might’ve threatened it before I hung up.  Figure out who’s not in before I get back, but if I’m employing you it’s mandatory.” With that he turns back toward the entrance to speak with the guards about when this public trial thing is supposed to be happening.

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 806):

She breathes a sigh of relief as Billy steps back and assumes himself.  After his initial flurry of orders she shoots Aviva a flat look.

He's still in control...

She gives a small smile and cringes hard at the news about the parasite.

I would KILL for a botanist... Don't suppose anyone knows one do you?

As Billy leaves the room Nightmare physically steps to where he was standing clapping her hands and rubbing them together.  She looks to each of the non-Starblazers members there.

You heard the boss, we are mobilizing.  Anyone dumb enou.... er brave enough to volunteer to join us?

Pausing for a moment to telepathically link to Each Starblazers member she can find relaying the orders and follows along with standard comms units for those she can't.  She hits up the pilot and puts him on standby.  Once she is done her eyes turn expectant to the non-employees, calling on any who are reticent to respond directly.

I don't care what your answer is... I just need AN answer.  She tells anyone who is indecisive.

Roger claps his hands and rubs them together with a big smile. "Yes! Action!"

He thinks for a moment about Billy's question: "Hard to say. Let's see. We crashed here... Gustaf got jumped by Talpids at our camspite -- I think he went underground to escape. Must've run into the parasite then. Later, come to find out Ponce and his men found Gustaf, but by then his mind was already mush. That's when I started hearing 'Face in the Deepest Burrow' and 'Voice of the Deep' ... dunno if they're the same thing. Anyway, it was after that when we caught up with Gustaf in the video you saw. The swirling sand was probably the parasite using Gustaf's geomancer abilities."

"Shit, I wonder if he's still compromised. We didn't pull anything outta his head."

Roger turns to Nightmare.

"If we're goin' to war with this thing, we gotta develop weapons and countermeasures. Let's do some R&D. Bill, can you tell us what you heard or saw? Is the parasite all like this tentacle thing? Is it like a fungus?"

“Just heard a voice,” Billy replies to Roger’s questions without pause, “Didn’t sound like your recording, it liked rhyming.”

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 809):

"What kind of cold sinister intelligence..." Roger muses, trailing off.

In reply to Yardbird (msg # 810):

The sinisterest

Aviva checks her sidearm.  Weapons indeed, she agrees with Roger

In reply to Nightmare (msg # 807):

Frank taps a satchel on her waist before removing an array of plants in varying stages of life. Would you settle for a pharmacological alchemist?

Frank presses the stems together, and with a thrum of purpose and energy creates a pulsing ampule.

What can I do for you?

And what can you do for me?

In reply to Penelope Franklin (msg # 812):

"Honestly, that seems like the move. Fight organics with organics. We should research the tentacle's weakness and figure out how to harden ourselves against mind control, whether it's a biologic or telepathic vector. That raises the question... are there multiple flavors of parasite? And, and! Is the parasite itself being controlled by something else? Weird that Billy got a poet but I got a librarian when we each made contact. Is the parasite the strings and the real puppeteer some sort of non-parasite entity? "

When Frank does her demonstration Nightmare's eyes light up like a kid at Christmas.

Yes!  That will do nicely!  She actually skips as she lightly claps her hands with exuberance.

She points at Roger as he asks

That is exactly the right question!  So it appears that it requires at a minimum a biological vector, there may be a psychic component as well.  Evidence indicates that the parasite has both the capability to mind control on its own but is not acting 'naturally'.  Think the difference between a trained dog and a wolf.  I have no information to be able to guess the nature of the controlling entity though... its possible its the voice of Ceto...

Also... I hate to say it but... yes Gustaf is still likely under control of this.  If we can find him I may be able to pull it out... however, I don't know if he would survive the damage done to his brain.  Our best bet would be to kill the primary fungus if it is somehow communicating to the other colonies and maybe his brain can restore some percentage of full capacity.

Her voice is dubious and unsure about this particular issue.

OK so first of all to scope out what we are looking at... this is a parasitic fungus.  On earth there was a similar fungus called cordyceps, its life cycle involved growing in the gut of a bird, but the bird would expel it... so it was able to infect ants, and causes them to 'GO UP' and they would climb as high as they could, then the fungus would bloom, the ant gets eaten by a bird... the circle of life.  There is a similar parasite for cats but it is a protozoan, not a fungus. 

She sketches an image on her datapad and shows it to the group circling step 4 and indicating the tentacle laying on the table.

Based upon the behavior with Fu Chi and the others it appears there needs to be some sort of chrysalis structure needed for infection of an individual.  That individual then grows a 'tumor' in their brain that begins to issue commands.  This thing had the collar on it, so there is clearly outside influence somewhere. There is no need to put a collar on this organism if it was a hive mind, as you would just need access to the primary organism.  Additionally, the tumors continued to grow after the dissolution of the creature in the cave, so it is unlikely that communication between colonies is assured, prerequisite or required. This explains the difference in 'personality' between the organisms that we have dealt with.  Billy, does this match the conversation you had with the thing? Did it give you anything about goals or next manuevers? 

She pauses a moment to let Billy interject

Roger, you are correct we need weapons and defense... I have ideas but will need time and help.  For weapons, this is where Frank comes into play what we need is some kind of poison for this.  Most commercial fungicides are peptidoglycan inhibitors... stops them from making the chitinous cell wall that these species has, not great for a full grown item though.  Most commercial herbicides ruin a plant's ability to regulate water movement.  If we can make it 'leaky' then we choke it out.  If all the colonies are physically attached, which is possible.  We can poke enough holes in enough areas to bleed it dry. Alternatively if you can synthesize a strong peptidase like papain we could use it to disassociate the cell wall and/or membrane.  If we can turn it to mush relatively safely we may have our cure.

We fortunately have plenty of organic matter that we can use to experiment.  Also in the helmet of my space suit is a modification that can act as a... fine... microscope.

Aviva!

She says brightly

Connecting with your mind was like licking a cattle prod, I have an idea that we may be able to use the wall of psychic static in your head to protect us from this creature's messaging.  It won't be pleasant but its better than taking orders from a damn fungus.  So there is offense and countermeasures.
She exaggerates breathing heavily for a moment then a thought hits her and her hair flashes blue as she whips around to face Roger, her voice comes in quiet rush as she speaks.

Roger.... we have samples, a portion of the main fruiting body and some new offspring.  Can you check for biological activity on both the fruiting body and the offspring?  Really if you can track CO2 emissions you are 80% of the way there.  Also is there any way you can rig something up to measure frequencies between the two items?  See if there is a connection from the main body to the offspring.  Finally, if there is some way that you can visualize the 'neural network' of this creature we can chase down the main body and destroy it.

Apologies for hogging the stage on this but if you couldn't tell... this is my jam.  I will now cede the floor to see if anyone has a different take or a better idea.

At roughly this point Percy comes waddling over with a plate and pushes it at her.  She shoots him a dirty look and pushes it away.  The doll insists, offering her the plate again.  She rolls her eyes and grabs something off the plate and starts to eat... she then ravenously begins to tear up the rest of the food.  She adds between bites

Sorry, apparently I haven't eaten in over 18 hours... that happens when I'm working.






This message was last edited by the player at 20:38, Wed 15 May.

Billy continues addressing the guards as Rebecca does a more science-focused action plan after his own.  He chuckles slightly as she reminds him of himself even as he misses the details of her speech.  Probably sciency stuff he wouldn’t be much help with anyway.

Didn't you just eat?

Aviva hands Nightmare a small ration bar

You said it's gritty


So... the pillbug in Briggs is a mind-control fungus... the tentacle is a fungus... what is the collar?

Fungus controlling a fungus?

Also yes

And no

It's not like static but, I'm not sure how a direct ELECTRONIC connection would work?

In reply to Aviva (msg # 816):

Her eyes light up at the offered ration bar, grabbing it with both hands like a rat and munching it.

It is gritty... but gritty is an understatement.  Eating sand is gritty... that is...

Anyway, what I experienced with you was a wall of white noise, akin to static.  We don't need a direct electronic connection you have me and a psychic connection.

She taps the side of her head.

I don't know what the collar is... clearly not fungal in origin its someone actively doing something... Joss, Talpid, Human... or most disconcertingly... other....

In reply to Nightmare (msg # 817):

"OK, OK, so we need..." Roger says, taking a deep breath. "CO2 sensor, frequency detector, neural net visualizer..." closing his eyes and counting the devices on his fingers. He opens his eyes and looks at Frank. "What gear do you need to make the peptides?"