Nora's expression went through three swift yet distinct changes.  Something like-

1) What-?
2) Oh, haha, she's joking.
3) No!   She's actually serious!

She began laughing, quietly, the harsh reality of the situation momentarily softened, as well as actually impressed by Mel's ingenuity.

On the verge of reply, she went abruptly silent, as the armored one emerged, and addressed them all.    The man's death -- it bothered her, of course.   Yet, it was nearly in the realm of a Darwin* Award.   Or a suicide, maybe?    Well, she wished to live, and couldn't afford to dwell on it.    She did her best to look horrified, cowed, putting her head down like the others.      But inside there was no submission:

In bocca al lupo! she thought, 'In the mouth of the wolf!'

It was a common saying before doing something that needed guts, risk, or fortitude.  Italians generally didn't wish for luck...due to a superstition that doing so was the quickest way to jinx things.

The time for guts was not now, however.   Plainly, any chance that would come, would be later.

*No reference meant to our dear GM's character in that other game -  but, I'll take a bonus point if you are handing any out.  ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 02:31, Wed 06 Nov 2019.

The armored man paused a few more moments, then nodded his head. "Very good."

Apparently satisfied, he went back into the control room. The guards stayed alert now, holding their weapons at the ready as the transport continued on it's way.

It was not very long before the engines took on a distinct whine as the transport slowed. A few moments later there was a dull thud and the engines powered down.

The side door opened as the guards took positions. The armored man came back out and in quick, efficient, and well practiced motions directed the prisoners out.

The prison facility was like a small floating town almost. Everything was made of metals, heavily reinforced. One could hear the soft hum of the engines that kept the prison aloft. On one side was the largest building, where guards and personnel moved back and forth. This was the main headquarters and the science facilities. At the far end, the barracks for the guards that lived there, as well as the exercise facilities. On the other side, the building where the prisoners stayed. It had fences around it, and listless people with inhibitor devices milled around. The fence was open, and while guards watched their charges it didn't seem to be restricted.

Dawnfire and Glaze find themselves standing together as a guard exchanges pleasantries with the armored man who brought them there, then the armored man and his guards file back on the transport and it takes off.

There's a very brief orientation for the new arrivals, where they're basically told to obey orders and not to go into any building except the prisoner bunks without permission. Other than that, he doesn't seem to really care.

As the new arrivals start to mill off, fairly accepting of their new lot in life, the duo sees an interesting little scene play out.

Two guards who are nearby are talking as a young looking woman walks up. She's inhibited, and has a pair of wings that emerge from her back, her feathers start out white at the base and up to the top curve, then shade down through grey until solid black at the bottom. She's attractive enough, although being here has obviously taken a toll on her, plus the constant drain of the inhibitor shows in her posture. She's tired, and the non-stop energy drain makes her force herself to move. Her long hair is clean however, and is shaded much like her wings, starting at a platinum blond and shading down to black at the tips.

She clasps her hands in front of her, looking down at the ground. "Wünschst du mir jetzt?" she says softly.

One guard nods, the other frowns. "You shouldn't be doing that with prisoners. It's not right." the frowning one says. He runs a hand through his reddish brown hair, cracking his neck tot he side. Unlike the other guard who seems a bit out of shape, this guy is well toned, fit and lean. His eyes are almost amber, and he holds himself in what at first appears a relaxed stance but looking closer one can see the readiness in it. Like a jungle cat, ready to spring at a moment's notice. The one is a guard, but this man is a soldier.

The other laughs. "I ain't soliciting her, she asked me. Perfectly within rules."

The frowning one shakes his head. It's easy to see the momentary flash of anger in his eyes, but he quickly masks it. "She don't know any better. She's damaged goods now. It's the same as..."

"Cut the shit. What, you gonna shoot me or something if I do? Back the fuck off, newbie."

The frowning man takes a step back, muttering something under his breath. The other guard stretches out a hand to the woman. She reaches out, and then looks at the frowning man. "Wirst du sie nehmen?"

He nods, then turns and  calls out "Daria!"

A young girl, probably no older than 12, comes running over. Her clothing, like the other girl's, is slightly tattered. They've obviously been here a while. The little girl has stark black hair, and wide sad eyes. She reaches up and takes the guard's hand gently. The other guard laughs again. "Take good care of the squirt," he says as he leads the winged woman away toward the guard barracks.

The other guard goes down to one knee, and gently pats the girl on the head. Her eyes are glued to the retreating figures.

"Hey kiddo. Remember what we say?"

She gives a small nod, then turns to look at him. Something in those nearly black eyes of her seems to rise, almost a red glow, just for a moment, that quickly fades. "That he's a bad man."

He smiles at her. "That's right."

"And that he'll get his."

"Yup. He'll get his. Your mom thinks she's protecting you. And she is, in her own way."

"Can I say it this time?"

"Sure. Not too loud though."

She finally gives a little smile. "Cry Havok, and let slip the Dogs of War."

He nods, and pats her head again. "That's right. Havok's coming little one. Soon."

The fuck was that about? Melissa wondered.  A paranoid part of her thought it might have been somehow staged for their benefit given how little care the "nice" guard and girl seemed to have for being overheard.  Hasn't that guy ever heard of prison snitches?  Still... she turned to Nora and leaned in closely to the other girl.

"That was interesting," Melissa commented to Nora quietly.  "But it doesn't change much.  Maybe this Havoc is coming.  And he's bringing Patriot, Jesus and Santa Claus as backup.  But I don't want to wait and get weaker in case he's not. "

"Okay, you're a healer, right?"  Melissa asked Nora again in a quiet tone.  "How good a healer?  Like, if, say, somebody got part of their right arm cut off, could you grow it back?"
This message was last edited by the player at 17:55, Thu 07 Nov 2019.

Nora likewise observed and listened in full to the exchange, grasping early the nature of it, without understanding the angel-woman's words, though recognizing them as German.

Like Mel, she held some suspicions, though they didn't yet know the culture of this place.  Which could be different from a standard penitentiary, if having some superficial things in common.     She was surprised that the fence to the prisoner area was open.   But with the inhibitors, there was a much reduced need for keeping everyone locked in.    The penalty for breaking any rule could be a near instant and final *ZAP.*

"Of course, any place such as this will have its pervs, its would be rapists.  Extra rough being here with your kid.   Can you imagine? I wonder how many children are here."   She frowned, then answered Mel's question.

"Regrow a whole body part?   Ah, never had to try...not so sure 'bout something like that. Each case is individual...I must touch, and 'sync' with the..." she grasped for the right term, never having really articulated it before, "life-pattern of the body.  The less damage, the easier.  Worst case, I healed up a guy pretty good who was pretty crushed from piece of a building falling on him.    Took me awhile.  Was tiring.   My power, a little funny.   Someone who knows these things told me I'm vitalkinetic.   I magnify my own lifeforce.    Good for my body, good for others.   Kind of like Super-girl, with ER service."

Melissa winced.  "That's a little too iffy for me."

She gestured with her right arm, the one with the inhibitor.  "Figure if you could grow this back, especially fast, we could, you know, "disarm" some people so they could use their shit, but I guess not."

She looked over at the nice guard, then back to Nora.  "Okay, we either get out, or they're gonna kill us.  This is a re-education camp.  We're here to be re-educated.  We're here so these fucks can strip out whatever makes us us and replaces with something that turns us into slaves or pets or robots or some shit.  Whoever we are at the end of that process won't be us and won't be any one I wanna be.  And if they can't re-educate us, they're gonna kill us.  So we're dead either way."

"I think we take the chance and go talk to that guy.  If it's a set up, then fuck it.  It'll hurt but t least we'll die fast," Melissa concluded turning to head toward the "nice guard."

She shook her head at Mel's creative, but ultra risky idea.  "No, good thinking, but definitely not going there."   

She shrugged as to the rest of it.    "I think we can talk, and still play ignorant to a degree.   Maybe not overdue it, hey?"  She likewise began walking toward this harbinger of Havok.

"Honestly, I don't think that's going to work," Melissa quietly told Nora.  "Playing too dumb will get us dismissed as being dumb.  Playing coy might make us look lies spies or something and the dude'll fry us himself as a possible threat."

"Doing nothing means we just hope that whatever happens ends up including us.  I think the best way to get out of here is to level with the guy and be an active part of getting out of here," Melissa told the other woman.  "If you're not comfortable with that, hang back and wait to see what happens.  If things are cool, I'll give you the nod.  If I get fried or dragged off, you'll at least have better info for yourself."

The guard is still with Daria, although they aren't speaking right now. The girl is holding onto the man's pants with her left hand, letting her inhibited right hang at her side.

Her inhibitor looks a bit odd, and at first it could be assumed that is because it is sized for a child and not for an adult. Although a closer look reveals an extra module that is attached to it, with tubes that lie on the surface and go down into a spot near the wrist fastener.

The guard is looking out over the yard, his eyes seem not quite focused. He seems to perhaps be listening to something, but there's no sound that seems out of the ordinary for this place.

"Point taken.   I'm not hanging back.  Let's go and do this." 

She continued walking forward, in manner that made it plain to the guard and the girl they were about to be approached.     Once close enough, she smiled in greeting.  Said in a soft tone-

"Hello.  Myself and my friend," she indicated Mel, "are new here, in case it isn't plain.  We overheard you.  And, from the gist of it, I think a little Havok would suit us.  We're not really cut out to sit around and make license plates."

Okay, you go, girl, Melissa thought as Nora took the initiative.

"Yeah, I don't need re-education," Melissa added in a quiet tone.  "I'm already in college and my tuition's high enough as is."

As Dawnfire approached the two, Daria moved behind the guard's leg. Odd that she'd trust a guard over one of her own, but who knows how long the child had been here or how many times this guy ended up watching her.

He turned to face the two, his eyes once more in focus. If he was surprised by the interruption, he didn't show it.

"Well, now I could go ahead and play like I don't know what you mean but things are moving a mite faster then I'd expected today and I'm guessing that the more's going to be the merrier."

He reached down and ruffled Daria's hair. She didn't really react to it. She seemed tired, and lethargic.

"Reeducating people really implies there's things to be relearned, and no amount of learnin' gonna change what people are."  He shrugged. "Some do learn to play nice, some don't. This here's where they figure out which you are, and what needs to be done about it."

No other guards are about in this area, so it seems clear enough.

"As to Havok, well..." his eyes narrows just a touch as his voice dropped a bit, "There's chaos, there's surprise, and then there's the man."

He smiled.

"Name's Andy, and this here's Daria."

Nora took the girl's trust in Andy as a sign that this probably hadn't been a mistake.  Poor kid;  how more fucked up to be here, at her age.  Nora wondered what her power was, that it seemed to require a different kind of damper.  She returned Andy's smile.

"Good to meet you both.   I'm Nora, my friend is Mel.  We both can do some helpful things, when we're not damp.   I'd wondered how much re-education was just PC for something worse.  Sounds about half and half, I guess?  We aren't going to do impulsive, stupid shit, or make your job harder.  Any tips for getting along, here?"     

"Yeah, we're all in on getting out," Melissa put in then swung her right arm to indicate the inhibitor.  "But our super-cool awesome power stuff is pretty fu-, um, frakking, irrelevant with these things.  And they can, you know, kill us all with a flipped switch.  We got a preview of that on the ride over here."

"If you're looking to get along in here, best bet is to lie low. Those fancy bands make most people here kind of slow. Expend energy, takes a long time to get it back. Which is why you see most of these just milling about. Not enough energy and drive to make trouble, for guards or each other."

Daria looks off in the direction her mother had gone before looking back. Her eyes definitely begin to glow red, and then the extra device on her inhibitor makes a soft beep and a hissing noise as it pumps something into her. Immediately her eyes stop glowing and her eyelids flicker a bit as she begins to get sleepy.

Andy ruffles her hair again.

"As to getting out..." his voice is lower now. "I'm hoping that comes soon. Waiting on a ghost."

Waiting on a ghost...

That particular phrase drove Nora's attention inward for a moment.  It was fleetingly visible in her face, a subtle shift in demeanor.    A pair of faces out of memory, smiling and kind. Both gone now.   Thanks to the callousness of others.   And of course, her own poor decisions.

Her eyes went to the girl, whose wish to protect her mother was plain. Even if the particular nature of her means to do so wasn't.

"Yes.  We have had a preview," she said somewhat distantly, echoing Mel's remark.   Her eyes went back to the benefactor in enemy's clothing.

"So. Don't be more active than needed.  And be patient. Those are doable."

"Okay, is there any place we need to be, or maybe try to get others to be so we can be ready when Casper and company show up?" Melissa asked quietly.

"Also, what's with her and that extra shi-, er, stuff on her inhibitor?" Melissa asked about the girl whose eyed had just glowed.

"Finally, if you, uh, hypothetically had access to small bit of conductive metal, could we use that to short these things out without killing ourselves?" she finished.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:01, Sun 17 Nov 2019.

"I'd suggest not trying to push yourselves for now. Those things even think you're trying to use any sort of ability and the drain starts. Likelyhood is you're already getting a slow drain. And if you get too weak, you won't be able to do anything when the time is right."

He looks down at Daria, then back up.

"Daria here is a special case. Her inhibitor is mainly for show. Her powers...well...let's just say they don't work the same way yours do and leave it at that. So when she starts doing things, her unit drugs her. Keeps her docile enough to lose focus."

Daria yawns, seemingly not paying much attention right now.

"To be honest, if you start tampering with that thing it's most likely to discharge. So I'd not try it."

Andy looks off to the side, and his eyes go vacant for a moment before he nods and turns back.

"Well now, looks like Engel is just about finished. So...there's a distinct possibility that things may get a mite bit interesting real quick."

"What sort of interesting?"

As Andy gave her the bad news, Melissa was starring at the inhibitor and remembering... something.  Someone.  Dirty blond hair.  Goofy-ass surfer-dude accent.  Something about radios and...

"Fuck me.  I got it," Melissa said, a bit louder than she'd expected.  "Aluminum mother-fucking foil."

She looked at Daria.  "Yeah.  I cuss.  A lot.  It's a thing."

"So there's another Andy I know, except his name is Andru, A-n-d-r-fucking-u.  And a few weeks back he was boring the piss out of me in a Chemistry 101 lab about some science thing he did as a kid with foil," Melissa explained to the others.  "You know how those fucktards on TV put foil on their heads to block out alien mind control rays?  Turns out it's not bullshit after all."

"'Cause little Andru did the thing with foil and the controller for a remote toy car and the car couldn't move any more.  The foil was conductive so it blocked the radio waves.  Y'know, like the radio waves that'll get sent out to tell these fucking things to fry us," Melissa said, indicating her inhibitor.

"See, when shit gets interesting, Havok or whoever is gonna have to take out whatever sets these things to kill us perfectly," Melissa pointed out.  "And if they can't either we'll all die or the fuckers here'll use us as hostages.  We block the signal with foil, we take that away from them."

"We'll have to have enough to cover these things completely to have a shot and it might not work, but we have to try.  Your ghost buddies are coming to save us.  Last thing I want is to get used against them."

Andy chuckles a bit.

"Well, there's this old Chinese curse that goes 'May you live in interesting times'. That about sums up the interesting that I'm talking about."

He just kind of shakes his head at Glaze's suggestion though.

'I reckon you'd need quite a bit to shield those things, and likely no one here's got that much to give. Or get. Things they give you here and all in plastics and such. They's extra careful."

he looks off to the side for a moment, then back. "And I have it on good authority that them tin foil hats don't really keep out the mind controllers."

"Like I said, I know tin-foil hats are bullshit," Melissa insisted.  "And for fuckin' sure they won't give us foil.  You'd need to get some for us, figure the heavy duty shit would be best.  And we wouldn't need to wrap our whole bodies in it.  Just enough to completely cover the inhibitors end to end to block signals.  It'll work.  And even if it doesn't, I'd rather die trying than sit here waiting to get rescued or get killed like a helpless fuckin' baby princess or some shit."

"I mean, c'mon, Andy," Melissa cajoled, nodding toward Daria.  "You really want to see her fry 'cause you wouldn't score some Reynold's wrap from the kitchen?"

"You get us the stuff, put it in some place they'll move us to when shit gets Chinese an' we wrap everyone up and protect 'em 'til Havok gets us free.  Simple."  Melissa finished.  "Not easy.  Dangerous as fuck.  But simple."

Andy shook his head again.

"Darlin', I think you're misunderstandin'. They don't use any here, least as far as I've even seen. Everything is shipped in with plastics and the like. No foil, no metal utensils, nothin' but plastics and the like."

He gave a half shrug.

"Not that that ain't a grand idea, mind you. Might need to remember that one in the future. But for this here, once the plan's in motion I won't need to worry about any of that. Signal goes out, and the cuffs drop off."

After listening, Nora added- "It would depend too, I think, on how the signal is transmitted.   I have heard that thing about aluminum stopping radio and microwaves.  Both very commonly used in transmission.   But, those are not the only possibility.   If someone is smart enough to invent tech like this, quite possibly they're smart enough to make it so it is not so easily, eh, foiled.  Hard to believe they'd leave such an obvious vulnerability, in fact.  At least, obvious to anyone with a decent grounding in the sciences."   She shrugged.      And thought about it some more.

"Steel is better for blocking all sorts of electromagnetic radiation.   I remember that.    Not possible to wrap it around, of course.  But say, if the part that transmits, were pressed flat against a steel surface?"  She shrugged again.  "I don't care to mess up Mr. Havok's crafty plan.   More desperate things left for if it fails."     

"Where does the signal come from, anyway?"   she inquired softly as an afterthought.

Is there any obvious dish, antenna, or tower?
This message was last edited by the player at 02:53, Thu 21 Nov 2019.

"Figure the transmitter will have to be Havoc's problem," Melissa noted.  "But maybe if we find the receiver on this fucking things we use your steel idea.  Or maybe just disable the fucking thing."

"Signal's housed in the main building, up by the science type area. If you're meaning where these devices get the signal...well, hell if I know."

Andy gives a nod to the main building as he speaks.