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Distortion Dets.     Tae-young Produce Company, by its many warehouse-plastering posters, is a proud, eager, up-and-coming local powerhouse of a corporation in its own little section of the Backstreets of District 14, with stylized renditions of products, happy customers, and corporate mottos. A sprawling complex, with gated-off paths and roadways, and while the clustered towers of a backstreets residential zone frame the area, the central headquarters building itself, flat, dull, and square, with the company's name painted over it in story-height lettering on its windowless panel walls, looms over the industrial park.

    The guard posts at the chain-link fences and street barricades sit empty, gates-up, an eerie first indication of the personnel issues Moses had mentioned- that not another single worker can be spotted milling around the campus' grounds is another.

    Right outside the main tower's lobby, stand Moses, YuRia, and a bit further away, nearly cornering a security guard, Ezra. While her companion buys time and takes up the guard's attention, Moses just smokes away at her pipe, waiting for the outside help she'd called in. In the moments Ezra's distraction attempt slips up, the guard looks confused for too many more stragglers to be trailing in, but he never goes for the walkie-talkie clipped at his hip.

    "Mm. Kept an old woman waiting," Moses says, projecting more than her usual at the Watch help, and then, quieter, after taking more steps away from the guard, "The old Fixer friend of mine I asked a favor of, he never got back in touch with me after scouting this job. Four days, it's been, without word. Whatever is happening here, it seems worse than 'worker troubles'. Don't let your caution wane."

    With that, she pats the nearest Watch associate to her on the shoulder, smiles, and puts her pipe back between her teeth, as if it'd just been a friendly exchange- the guard doesn't react as anything different happened, thankfully. She directly addresses him, readied

"My apologies for keeping you waiting. My Office's associates are all accounted for now, won't you please take us inside?"
"Yeah? We've got another car coming, are they with you, too?"
"Excuse me? No. As I've said, all my associates are here. Are you listen-"
"Hm." The guard touches an earpiece, "No, we've got to wait for the car. It's one of your group."

    Getting nowhere, Moses, exasperated, and having already stretched-thin the necessary grace to actually protest and contradict the corporate guard's instructions, just turns to watch an unmarked limousine follow along the campus pathways out to where the group stands, to let off whatever passenger it holds.
Veronica     It's a corporate business park - not an unfamiliar concept to Veronica, but this one is more clerical than industrial so she's still a little uneasy. Especially given this is an active company whose practices and norms she *doesn't* know. Instead of showing up in her usual streetwear she's wearing an approximation of a business suit. The slacks don't match the jacket, but her slightly-too-loose necktie does. Give her a clipboard or briefcase and she could almost pass for someone who actually works here, if there were any such people around.

    Something's clearly off about this place, and to Veronica it's not just due to the lack of evident personnel. The psychic background noise has a strange texture to it, one Veronica decides to investigate further. While she appears to be just leaning against a fence to relax and wait for other arrivals, she's really tapping into the local psychogeography, the landscape of feelings and impulses that any community generates through its physical structures and living inhabitants. In particular she keeps a metaphorical ear to the ground for signs or rumors of Distortions, which tend to stretch the emotional fabric of a place like a bowling ball on a trampouline.

    Hearing the mention of another car, though, stirs her wandering attention. "I guess your old coworker's decided to send someone along? Or show up himself," she adds, a little grimly.
Petra Soroka     The limousine comes to a stop right up behind the group, broadside on the exact point of the street closest to where they're standing as if a car could intrude on their personal space. A couple seconds go by before there's any motion beyond the impermeably-tinted windows, until the door smoothly slides open without a click and a pair of matte black loafers step out.

    Wearing a completely unremarkable suit besides one single gold button on a breast pocket, shaggy hair tied into an extremely small ponytail, with no visible weapons or anything else on her, is Petra Soroka. To Moses, of course, the fact that there's a person there is only broadcast to her by the scraping of the balls of her shoes on the pavement, until her attention is drawn to the vaguely humanoid-shaped refractive frame overlayed on reality. There's a momentary twitch on her face at seeing Moses, but it smoothes over right afterwards as if it was never there.

    In one hundred times speed, having reached for Angela's psychology by flinch reflex, Petra runs through an entire train of thought in the time it takes to take a breath. If *this* is who she's meant to be overseeing-- and really, it's hard to assume anything else-- then she's simultaneously been given way more reason to worry about Moses, and given Moses way more reason to be worried about her. It recontextualizes everything she's seen Moses do so far, her fixation on her 'mission' with the Distortions, and as long as *Moses* doesn't have the same parity of information, then Petra can use that to her benefit.

    Because, like she was told: Moses is an *asset*.

    A hundred times the chance to react isn't quite enough time to prevent Petra from making a little self-satisfied smile at that, which she covers up with the back of her hand before it fades. No handshakes extended to either of them-- technically, she's only even met Ezra in person before-- Petra greets them before simply waiting for them to get the group's way past the guard.

    "Hi again, Ezra. So that means you're the Detective, right?" Identified, of course, without the need for Moses to say anything for her voice to be recognized. "Well, let's head in, right?"

"I guess your old coworker's decided to send someone along? Or show up himself,"

    Veronica being someone she recognizes too makes Petra just a little bit more offput. Not because she's worried about Veronica herself, but because the more people, or even worse, the more *Watchmen* are here, the more nervous Petra will become about her company.

    "Old coworker? Nah, you and I have met before too, haven't we?"
Hibiki Tachibana     "...Four whole days without word back is pretty bad. Especially for the City..."

    Kindly ignore this is coming from a girl who's dropped off the radar for longer than that in the past, and more than once at that. Hibiki, hands in her jacket pockets, gives a raised eyebrow in the direction of Ezra and the security guard, before it shifts to a furrowed brow at the emptiness of surrounding environment. Given that a Distortion is supposedly involved...

    "...I don't have a good feeling about this."

    She grimaces and shakes her head, planning to stay silent and keep her thoughts to herself after - but before that can happen, they get the news of another car incoming. It'd not be /that/ strange of a thing in of itself, at least to her, if not for the fact that Moses also seemed entirely unaware of this turn of events.

    "One of /our/ group? But then wouldn't they have..."

    She trails off, just in time to blink at the... /limousuine/ pulling up? That can't be anyone in the Watch, so it has to be someone inserting themselves into 'their group', right? But who...

    Huh.

    "Huh?"

    Huh? The layered interaction between Petra and Moses completely goes over her head, as it does, in favor of a much more straightforward question about all of this. Hibiki probably lags behin the rest enough that she needs to play catch-up a bit, at which point she does a little back-and-forth motion with a finger between the detective and the new arrival, though it's Petra her confusion mostly focuses on.

    "Uh. Not that I'm complaining or anything, but-- aren't we kinda skipping past the explanation of what you're doin' here...?" It's not like Petra Soroka makes a habit of joining along on Watch operations. Often. Usually. There was the L. Corp bank heist, but that was, like. Something /she/ came to /them/ for.
Regulus Regulus sometimes needs to be let out and have some kind of adventure. Cats and pirate djs are identical in this regard. She's a little uneasy about The City in general, but she has good feelings about Ezra, and more importantly she and Moses are TOTALLY the best of mates now (ie: Moses liked it when she called Han Hee-joon a bastard). Making a good impression with the Watch is good for Vertin and Regulus does literally owe Vertin her life and also, for that matter, her room and her board. And she does like the Watch, even if it seems like a lot of its membership is shy to the point of it interfering with their Watch work ... but hey, what is Regulus if not great at dragging people kicking and screaming out of their shells and in the cold harsh world of music-hating bureaucrats and goo.

Regulus has brought APPLe along, just in case she needs backup, but otherwise she seems to be in a decent enough mood when she arrives though there's only so lovely your mood can be when you are also knowingly walking into what is probably a trap.

"Sure. Just let me know if you need a disappearing act. I brought some Picrasma Candy so I should be good for a while." Regulus says, keeping her voice low. She CAN be subtle enough when the situation demands it though she might be unaware that her fashion is inherently a little loud for The City. Is she the type to overdose on it like Vertin? Stay tuned and find out!

''It's one of your group.''

Regulus turns slowly to Moses and gives her a half shrug. "That does feel ... a little trap-esque." She admits to her. She brightens a little at the idea of getting to meet the Bastard, though, because she's heard so much about him! She can even call him a bastard, that's fine!

And then ...

"P...Petra?" Regulus asks, eyes wide. "...What're you doing here?" She blinks twice. And then lowers her voice again. "Are you involved in The City too? Did ...The Bastard sent you?" Regulus she doesn't know The Bastard nomenclature.

''Aren't we kinda skipping past the explanation of what you're doin' here...?''

"I'd like to wait for an explanation too, but I don't think they'll let us in without her so..." She gives a half shrug. "Not like she's going to tell us anything. Best way to find out is through right?"

She pauses again and adds, "Oh but you know Petra too? ... I mean if we all already know each other..." She gives a full shrug this time. This IS weird but what are they gonna do? Have a fight about it in the lobby?
Distortion Dets.     By whatever texture of a sensation Veronica's psychic scouting gives feedback in, the outcome is the analog to nearly seeing infrared, to nearly hearing a dog whistle- the 'geography' of this area, the company tower at its center, is a scoured-clean glacial valley, roots first cracking through in primary succession. Something is missing from it, something has been pulled back and away- even a deserted factory should, in a way, read as a 'community', but this doesn't. That's gone, ground away and dragged off with the ice.

. . .

'...Four whole days without word back is pretty bad. Especially for the City...'

    "Yes," Moses says, her time with words free from the guard's attention nearly spent- "If we're lucky, he and his are still alive. I hope to find out, but first, I hope to not die."

    Regulus's presence draws a bit of attention from YuRia, surprisingly- "Hey! Hey, you in the glasses- is your friend coming, too? With the suitcase?" YuRia forgot Regulus' name. She won't ask for it again. "You've got to say yes, you've brought the suitcase, and they're there in it, or something! Don't leave me hanging, I still haven't gotten my hands on it!"

"Who? Who is that?" Moses asks, voice immediately four levels more tense, and she beckons both Ezra and YuRia over. "Hm? Out of the car? Just some girl. She looks boring." Ezra elbows past Yuria, "Hey, that's..." A finger-snap, "That's Petra! Huh? Why's she here..?" "What? You recognize *her*?" "Yep-yep, yeah, she was at the big Workshop expo, a while back, 'fore we picked up that weird stray-" YuRia gives her a light kick, Ezra pretends she doesn't feel it "I kind a thought you knew what she looked like, though! Don't you?" "No. I can't see her."

    Moses stares roughly in Petra's direction, as Ezra and YuRia gasp a little bit- Simultaneous, "At all?" "Is anything around her?", to which Moses brushes both off- helpfully, Ezra gives her boss a quick run-down- black suit and gold button, as a sole, individual fixture of her style, makes Moses' expression visibly sour.

'Hi again, Ezra. So that means you're the Detective, right?'

    "Detective *Moses*, yes." Snark won't do her good towards someone that, she at least assumes, is an Arbiter, and yet, the empty air refusing that little bit of respect in her address annoys her too much not to. Moses is, frankly, anything but self-preserving. Gravelly, exhaling pipesmoke in Petra's general direction, "Care to explain what's drawn you out here? I'm curious. This isn't an every-day sort of attention, mm."

    It's a good thing Petra doesn't try to shake hands. Moses would miss. Ezra, still, gives her a neutral little wave.

'aren't we kinda skipping past the explanation of what you're doin' here...?'

    Despite just asking why Petra was here herself, Moses glares at Hibiki. "Do you really expect to get an answer to that?"
Petra Soroka "Uh. Not that I'm complaining or anything, but-- aren't we kinda skipping past the explanation of what you're doin' here...?"

    Okay. So it's definitely a Watch operation. That'd have been really good to know *before* she showed up, but at least she's got some Watch cred in the City... and also the Watch tried to kill her a week ago in the City too, so who's to say whether her rep is good or bad.

    It's bad. Definitely. Petra's precognitive instincts are in overdrive, thrumming like heartbeat in her ears and twitching at every motion in the corner of her vision, and she slides her hand into a pocket inside her suit jacket surreptitiously. Rita and Liza aren't around, but that doesn't mean the others in the Watch haven't been told...? But then again, she knows the Watch. There's the terrorists, who are terrifyingly competent and extremely driven but very few; and then there's the suckers, who are Hibiki Tachibana and Regulus.

    Petra shrugs. "I don't think we really need to. The Detective's the one leading the op, right? Let it be up to her." A moment later she decides that she really shouldn't push her luck, and adds, "You don't need to worry about me fucking with anything."

"Are you involved in The City too?"

    This kind of question boosts Petra's confidence back up enough that she's shocked at herself for being worried about the *Watch* for a minute. Of all things! It's the Watch! "Sure, you could say that. I live here."

    Well, 'lived'. Of any place in the multiverse, it's still the most 'home' to her, but she sleeps in the woods in random worlds most nights. Probably the fact that the place that she can most call home is the City is why she ends up in the woods most often.

"Did ...The Bastard sent you?"

    Petra combs her mind for any person this could possibly refer to, with Regulus's audible capitalization. She stares at her blankly, fidgeting with the cuff of her jacket, and then ventures, confusedly, "The martial artist...? No...?"

"Care to explain what's drawn you out here? I'm curious."

    Petra tilts her head at Moses, intimately and immediately aware of having her face missed so widely by Moses's eyes. It's like trying to make eye contact with *Qetra*. "Would you? I figure we might as well walk and talk."
Regulus ''Hey, you in the glasses-''

"Hey I've got a name you know. I'm Regulus. And if you're ''super helpful'' I'll be sure to tell Vertin all about it, but she's not here today. She's got other stuff to be doing today." Like maybe figuring out what the deal was with that wheel in the lake, or work for the Foundation, or maybe just actually getting some sleep...

''Sure, you could say that. I live here.''

Regulus imagines the City and what she's heard about it.

"That's rough, buddy." Regulus says sympathetically.

''The Martial artist...?''

"Oh oops, haha, no, at least I don't think so, it's 'that bastard' not 'little bastard', totally different bastard." She gives Moses a look upon realizing in this moment that she hasn't actually ever learned 'that bastard's' actual name.

But she also...doesn't care!

''We might as well walk and talk.''

"Yeah true."
Vantablitz Remnants     If someone tells Ahn that she kept them waiting, she's just going to automatically assume that they're right. No matter how many times she frantically checks and re-checks the chunky military watch (is it stolen if he's dead?) on her wrist, her confidence that she didn't fuck it up somehow will not measurably increase. As if Moses actually meant anything by it, Ahn shuffles into line with a slightly squeezed "Sorry . . .", and keeps her head down until she's done.

    She almost doesn't, when the guard starts insisting facts contrary to Moses, but she only gets as far as opening her mouth before she decides that Moses will think she's a kiss-ass if she argues with him, and clams up again. 'Maybe someone else will get scolded for showing up late' is a stupid little baby pipe dream, but she can hold on to it even if it is.

    Given that she has about four point five outfits that are plausible to go into the City with, Ahn is sticking to the same one she showed up in Moses' office with (washed after one outing, for once) since it got a good reaction (none at all). The main difference is that she also brought a backpack with her that clashes heinously; only what passes for 'small' when you raid it from army lockers. Even if it's necessary mission equipment, she still feels witheringly scruffy by comparison when the extra hands pull up in a limo of all things, and get out wearing a--

    'Hi again, Ezra. So that means you're the Detective, right?'

    "Petra?" Ahn blurts out before thinking. She stares, blinks, tries very hard to believe, then . . . crouches down slightly, like trying to imagine Petra even shorter. "No way . . . Oh but you totally sound like her . . . Mmmh . . ." It's not as if Petra has the most distinctive voice in the universe, but it's not as if Ahn has really loaded many more of them into her memory stack since.

    'P...Petra?'

    Nope! Regulus confirmed it! Hooray! "Oh goodness! But didn't you leave the . . . ? Oh but that's so perfect!" Ahn decides all to herself, bouncing back up on her toes and clapping her hands together again in excitement. "'One of ours', haha, I get it~" Wink.

    'Sure. Just let me know if you need a disappearing act. I brought some Picrasma Candy so I should be good for a while.'

    Now in a much better mood, Ahn proudly announces, "I came much better prepared this time." and slaps the side of her big ol' backpack. "If you're looking for candy, then I've got all kinds!" by which she means, like, eight. She is either too excited, too not-paying-attention, or too something else to have her mood reeled back into line by Hibiki and Moses discussing dead people at all.

    'You've got to say yes, you've brought the suitcase, and they're there in it, or something!'

    "You could at least remember their names before you start saying that people have to show up." Ahn frowns at YuRia. Now that she has her confidence boost (and this isn't someone else's office), she looks at her like a disappointed babysitter. "You're making it really obvious you only want to touch her private stuff, and that you don't really care about the person at all."
Hibiki Tachibana     Oh but you know Petra too?

    "Well, yeah... we go kind of far back, actually." Bit of an understatement.

    Do you really expect to get an answer to that?

    Completely glossing over the fact that Moses /just/ asked the same question, Hibiki rubs the back of her neck. "Maybe? It's better than not asking at all."

    You don't need to worry about me fucking with anything.

    "I was mostly just wondering about the 'why' more than that..." As The Sucker(tm) she is, Tachibana Hibiki is indeed mostly just more immediately concerned with what Petra is doing here in the first place more than any worries over her mucking things up. In fact, despite many cases of mucking things up in the past, she doesn't have much reason to think Petra would take a situation here in the City with anything less than the utmost seriousness.

    Still, she more or less accepts she won't be getting a straight answer on that either way for the moment, so after an exhale, she puts her hands back in her jacket pockets and relents. She is, probably, unaware of the most recent events in the life of Petra Soroka like woods-sleeping and nearly being killed a week back - and given she arrived in a limo and a suit, she's only left with a vague sense that her initial reaction to the Watch being here was a little more intense than the usual.

    "...Well, either way," she murmurs, standing back at attention a bit. Regulus had a point that the only way to get answers is by progressing ahead. "Now that everybody's here. On we go, yeah?"
Distortion Dets. 'Hey I've got a name you know.'

    "Huh? Good for you. Chop chop, out with it, is she coming or not?" YuRia's eyes aren't on Regulus in the slightest, anymore. "Oh. She's not? Too bad. Lead with that and it'll be simpler, oh! Or tell me where she is and I'll go myself."

'You could at least remember their names before you start saying that people have to show up.'

    "What for?"

    'You're making it really obvious you only want to touch her private stuff, and that you don't really care about the person at all.'

    Completely, entirely unfazed, "Huh? No, that's not it at all! Someone's stuff tells you the most about them of anything, and when it's special like that, getting hands-on is the best way to study it and pick them apart! That way I'll know how much to care, it's the same reason why I'm tagging along with this old gumshoe, her pipe is like nothing else-" "YuRia. You're here to be helpful, getting to observe my work is a payment. Being helpful means behaving." "Hmmm. Sure, done." "Mm."

'If you're looking for candy, then I've got all kinds!'

    Ezra perks up at that- "Chocolates! Any of 'em chocolates? The l'il neighborhood store near us, it's all been out for a while! Distributor's having trouble, they said? Must be from another District... I'd really go for some..." "You ate a meal before this." "Nu-uh, I had food, but it's not a meal without something sweet!" "You're impossible." "Gueh- I'm not! I'm very possible, c'mon Detective!" Quiet, "Never change..."

'Would you? I figure we might as well walk and talk.'

    "No, I don't care to." She does anyway. "This is a job a rotten, thin-skinned, and detestable rat of a man thrust upon me, and it'll remove him from my hair to complete it as quickly as possible. A possible Distortion, to investigate as I see fit. How's that, for your report?" Moses doesn't know if Petra is writing a report, but surely, Arbiters do that, and she has to snark.

. . .
Distortion Dets. 'Well, let's head in, right?'

    "Mm." With Petra's words, and Moses striding towards the door, the guard presses a keycard up to a reader, and opens it up for them- as others go in, he stays firmly outside.

    Ushered into the lobby, the interior is wholly unimpressive- faux marble, glass, low planters, but low ceilings and a bank of elevators behind an empty reception desk. It isn't the type of lobby that would lend itself to echoes in normal conditions, but with the only souls inside being the group themselves, and one, suit-clad man standing by the elevator bank with a clipboard, footsteps ring like distant gunshots on smooth linoleum.

    Splitting off for a moment, YuRia, heels clicking in quick steps, wanders off the second she sees branching hallways to the lobby-adjacent wings, curious what the layout of such a windowless building, unable to see it from outside. Quickly, she's back to hovering behind Moses, eyes locked on her and her mannerisms.

    The single, waiting business-man waves, whole-armed- "Welcome! W-welcome, Tae-young Produce company welcomes you most humbly to the heart of our headquarters, I hope you enjoyed touring the outside grounds? Wait, no, there wasn't to be a tour- and come to think of it, wasn't it just supposed to be four of you? Four is what I was told, four is what I expected, this many, this many is- ahem, either way!" He bows his head, almost an overdramatic nod, Moses, the Watch Elites, and Petra's ways. "Senior Manager Kang Jin-sil, most pleased to make the acquaintance of the fixers who will certainly fix our little problem!"

    Moses' eyes squint, immediately suspicious of the awkward demeanor- whatever she sees on him, she doesn't immediately explain to the group. "And that problem is? Moses, of my own office, these are my associates. The more you say, the sooner you say it, the easier this will go." "Yeah, that's right-! Detective Moses, she's the best in the whole world, at figurin' out fixes to Distortions, so spill it, or I'll pick you up and squeeze it out of-" "Enough, Ezra." "Ehe..."

    Manager Kang balks. "Why- yes, of course, but it's far easier to simply show you, yes? I assure you it will be faster, simpler, and more- more comprehensive, yes!" He gives a wary look to Ezra. "Down in our basement, we keep on-site dormitories, for our essential staff, irreplaceable, each one of them, researchers, engineers, our best and brightest, but you see, they've fallen asleep, and not woken up! You'll- you'll see! Please, everyone, follow me, the main elevator, it's the only one that goes to the basement levels, it's large enough for all of you, I promise!"

    He fumbles for a keycard, and swipes it into a wall-console by the bank of elevators, and then just, stands, awkwardly and fearful, as slow mechanical noises summon it up. Finally, finally, it dings, and the oversized, metal-panelled cube opens up, fluorescent tube lighting within flickering to some unheard beat.

    "After you?" Manager Kang dabs a hankerchief from his suitpocket onto his shining forehead, and, with his clipboard, gestures in. "We'll have so much more time to talk on the way down."
Regulus ''I came much better prepared this time.''

"Oh! Yeah! Hit me up!" Regulus loves sweets and she puts on her best lost stray eyes and extends out a hand hopefully, nodding along to her chastizement of Yuria. She's a superstar dj! People should know her name! And they should know Vertin's too, though she suspects Vertin doesn't have that kind of pride.

''Or tell me where she is and I'll go myself.''

"Aw geeze I seem to be forgetting where she is right now... We're on the move so much, who could say o/~?" A o/~ actually does fly out of her mouth a little before popping into a tiny firework. She is using dreadful arcane energies to manifest this.

"But I'm really interested in how it works too... I guess we'll just have to hope we can reach an understanding or it may be a mystery forever..."

''It's not a meal without something sweet!''

"True!" Regulus agrees. She seesm happy to let Moses talk with someone who reeks of bureuacrat to Regulus. "Only one elevator...?" She siiiiighs, looking into her backpack and making sure she's brought along her tools. Just to be on the extra safe side, she even zips it up finally.

"Okey." She adds.

"That ''rat bastard''." Regulus adds with all her Moses loyalty. She still hasn't met the guy and still doesn't know his name but this sort of cheerleading is what Regulus loves doing.
Petra Soroka "Oh goodness! But didn't you leave the . . . ?"

    Petra's eyes pass over Ahn, and then double take at her voice. She takes a second more to process, looking her up and down, and then gasps. "Oh my god. *Ahn*?! Right, you joined the--!"

    Somehow, of everyone, *Ahn* is the one who suddenly complicates the situation the most. Not Moses, who Petra is explicitly sent here to observe while previously having an antagonistic relationship with, not Hibiki, who is responsible for a solid tenth of the complicatedness in Petra's past few years, and not even the mission itself. Ahn is someone that Petra would actually *like* to have a good reputation with.

    A vibrating wiggle works its way down her spine, causing her to hop a little excitedly. "Oh my *god*! It's so good to actually *see* you! Look at you!" Ahn's fashion is-- while not something Petra would *wear*, it's extremely up a particular alley of hers. Goofy military backpack that contrasts wildly with the knit top *included*.

    Well, it's been too long since they've seen each other to *hug*, and also, Petra's got a vibe to maintain. The wink, though... Petra's eyes shiftly slide to the side as she considers how to address that. It's kind of true, at least, that she's been working directly or indirectly with the Watch a lot in the City.

    "I'm... something, at least. But you'll see me around."

"Someone's stuff tells you the most about them of anything, and when it's special like that, getting hands-on is the best way to study it and pick them apart!"

    "You're actually *so* right." Walking just a little to the side of the group, sticking along with them as if she belongs, Petra finally notices YuRia when she starts talking about something interesting instead of just talking to Regulus.

    "It's kind of a big part of my work. Some kinds of it, at least. The things people have are kind of just a more crystallized existence of the people they are, right? A guitarist is a guitarist because of their guitar. But, like, *anyone* could have a *guitar*."

    Almost offhandedly, Petra adds, "What's up with the pipe?" She also pulls out a notepad from inside her jacket at the same time.

"Four is what I was told, four is what I expected, this many, this many is- ahem, either way!"

    Petra tilts her head and looks across the group. Four... Moses, Ezra... YuRia seems to be another one of her assistants that they picked up at that expo, which means that Moses wasn't 'invited' to bring the Watch along. Petra writes something down.

"Senior Manager Kang Jin-sil, most pleased to make the acquaintance of the fixers who will certainly fix our little problem!"

    "Hey bud. Nice meeting you." Petra smiles lazily and waves her fingers at him, with a pen gripped between her palm and thumb. She seems completely unphased by his demeanor. "Fallen asleep, huh...?"

    Oh thank god. If Ezra said something like that, then it probably *is* a Distortion, which she didn't actually know before. Knowing what she does about Distortions, though, her first gut instinct is that there's some fucked up meat monster causing people to 'fall asleep', because there's always a fucked up meat monster. She doesn't voice that out loud, though.
Veronica     Veronica figdets uncomfortably with her necktie as she 'reads' the psychic landscape. Her eyes only stray from that central tower when Petra gets her attention.

    "Old coworker? Nah, you and I have met before too, haven't we?"

    "Color me wrong, I guess," Veronica says with a shrug. She, at least, hasn't heard about what happened with the Blue Reverberation. "Yeah, I've met you, you uh..." Quick glance in the guard's direction. Unlikely to be wise to drop "hired us to do a bank robbery" out in the open like this, so she just tips her head in Hibiki's direction in the hope that it will be enough explanation - and with total obliviousness to any other history between Hibiki and Petra.

    Her sense of foreboding only grows as the crew of elites moves into the central building, the epicenter of the great scraped-clean absence in this place.

    "Welcome! W-welcome, Tae-young Produce company welcomes you most humbly to the heart of our headquarters, I hope you enjoyed touring the outside grounds?"

    Veronica shifts uncomfortably. She is *not* used to being on this side of Fixer-corporate relations. The folk of Firefly Dam were more likely to be the grass trampled underfoot; there hadn't been any hints of a labor union in her lifetime, but the stories of how older actions were put down sure made an impression on a young Veronica. "Yeah, thanks. Let's uh, just get to it?"

    During the wait for the elevator, Veronica has a question for the manager. "So uh, what's the last like... *thing* that happened here? I get it's probably against some policy to talk about Incidents, but this sort of- mass sleep-off doesn't happen out of nowhere. Especially if it's a-" She realizes the manager may not know what a Distortion is, "-strange event."
Vantablitz Remnants     'Well, yeah... we go kind of far back, actually.'

    "Oh wow. I never knew you and Petra were friends!" Ahn says, with the brightness of a thousand chat-she-doesn't-knows. "You always seemed a little . . . Haha, I guess that means you've known each other for that long! Did you grow up together or something?" Ahn pauses to reconsider something for just a second; unfortunately it appears to be repeatedly sounding out 'Soroka' next to 'Tachibana' and then deciding the former probably isn't Japanese. "Um, school?"

    'What for?'

    Well now she's back to frowning. It's actually kind of incredible how she can look like a teacher patiently dealing with a recalcitrant gradeschooler under these circumstances. "Because it's impolite not to, and people hate doing things for you when you're impolite to them, including letting you look at their stuff."

    'Huh? No, that's not it at all! Someone's stuff tells you the most about them of anything, and when it's special like that'

    Nope. Ahn's arms remain firmly folded. Her stare fixed on YuRia doesn't budge from 'come on now, really?' on the emotional gradient bar. "That's really interesting Miss YuRia, but that only matters to you. If you want things from people, you have to try and imagine what you have to offer them in return; and if you won't even offer 'remembering their name', then you can't explain your way out of coming across as a jerk with your own quirky ideology; that's still just talking about you." She doesn't even seem to be considering changing her position on this. The 1x Ahn menaces with the gravity of knowing what's normal actually.

    'Chocolates! Any of 'em chocolates?'

    "Why yes, I do!" Ahn declares, proudly. She unzips the back left side pocket (one above the bottom) on the military pack to get at an incomprehensibly branded slab of eastern european milk chocolate, having apparently memorized where it was, and says "You can have mine, if you promise to keep an eye on Miss YuRia and not let her touch Miss Vertin's stuff. Okay?" Yippee! Playing these two idiots against each other! How devilishly machiavellian! That smile is the smile of a master manipulator!

    'You're impossible.'

    Ahn shakes her head, though she wasn't asked. "If that's her rule, then that's easy. Small things like that are really simple to remember! And doing little stuff like that for each other gets huge returns on not much effort when we're talking about trust and coordination!" says Ahn, with an amount of passion that makes it sound non-theoretical.

    'Oh my god. *Ahn*?! Right, you joined the--!'

    "Hi! I'm so glad!" Ahn says, the most enthusiastically to ever mean that she's happy to see Petra. "Gosh, I kinda wondered what you looked like before, but you're actually really . . ." She does a shrinking motion with her palm down. "Cute? Haha, it's going to take me forever to get the ears out of my head! Sorry!" she adds, trying to wave it off with both hands out, laughing. "Me? W-well, I'm doing my best I guess. I can't just do the same thing in the same place forever, right? It's not exactly easy to get what everyone takes for granted when you live in a jungle with no ID, but I'm trying, haha~"

    'I'm... something, at least. But you'll see me around.'

    Ahn shifts her weight back and forth in a foot-to-foot rocking motion vaguely describable as 'groovy'. "I'm happy to hear that! You're really dependable!" she says, completely sincerely.
Hibiki Tachibana     Oh wow. I never knew you and Petra were friends!
    "It's, uh..."

    Did you grow up together or something?
    "Er..."

    Um, school?
    "...Nothin' like that, it's just sort of... complicated. Ups and downs..." Mostly downs, but she really doesn't want to say that out loud - or even think it, really. What's done is done, and lingering on it for too long risks lapsing into various Hibikisms that won't help much at all right now. "...Either way, yeah, we know each other. I just wasn't expecting to run into her here, is all."

    At least getting back to the mission is reason enough to not linger overlong - and the stakes are dire enough to straighten out her train of thought in pretty short order as the manager goes on and on. "Fallen asleep... they're not dead, then." That alone is enough to get her to let out a sigh of relieved tension, running her hand back through her hair as they progress onward towards the elevator. But when the immediate relief that the probable Distortion's victims might not be beyond saving passes...

    ...that sour gut feeling creeps back up. The hand sifting through her hair slowly falls down her face. "...If it was something as simple as 'just' going into an endless sleep, you wouldn't have to show us to get the idea. So there must be something way weirder going on, huh?"
Vantablitz Remnants     'Oh! Yeah! Hit me up!'

    Ahn reaches for another pocket, then squints at Regulus, and says, "Hey, didn't you just mention that you already brought your own? Finish that first! Or-- trade! Swapsies! Don't just beg for things for free when you already have them!"

    'Wait, no, there wasn't to be a tour- and come to think of it, wasn't it just supposed to be four of you? Four is what I was told, four is what I expected, this many, this many is- ahem, either way!'

    Be cool Ahn. Don't make a weird face. It's because of Petra. He's being pushy about the extra girl and not you. "Hey, she's with us." Ahn says, weirdly territorial about it, given she's looking at someone in a suit. "Isn't it part of your job to be able to deal with little unexpected things? That's what makes you different from a robot, right?" she continues, marching forward until the 'senior manager' scoots.

    'Down in our basement, we keep on-site dormitories, for our essential staff, irreplaceable, each one of them, researchers, engineers, our best and brightest, but you see, they've fallen asleep, and not woken up!'

    Ahn may be very positive, and a bit of a bipolar weirdo in social situations, but she is, apparently, not terribly reluctant to say things when they occur to her. Though it's maybe not a great look that she chooses Petra over Hibiki to gravitate to, and say "Isn't he, like, acting super suspicious right now? The basement even?"

    'After you?'

    Neither is Ahn much of a wallflower when it comes to this, actually. In direct contrast to the shrinking violet way she'd handled being scolded, Ahn says "Thanks!" ever-so-brightly to Kang, and squeezing past him, grabs him by the wrist and pulls him with her. She's not quite so smooth that it doesn't feel like she's kind of taking him hostage. "Sorry, my hearing's not super good, so can you stand next to me?"
Distortion Dets. 'That's really interesting Miss YuRia, but that only matters to you.'
'You're actually *so* right.'

    Given two responses, YuRia chooses the one that doesn't add any unnecessary-feeling hurdles of 'normal behavior and niceness and not being purely selfish' towards her approach to the world- Petra's! "Of course I'm so right! YuRia, Grade One Workshop Meister," There's no grading to that, she made that up, and she's not officially a Meister, "It's good to meet you!"

'What's up with the pipe?'

    YuRia looks like she's about to start explaining, and instead, receives a Glare from the Detective. Upset-tone, "Iiiiiiii, can't tell you." She pouts back, before trying to transparently look over Petra's shoulder at the notes she's pulled out.

    As the elevator doors close in front of them, Moses pulls Ezra over, whispering to her- "I don't like that everyone here knows Petra. Be my eyes-" Moses pauses, and takes the words back- "Keep her in your sight, Ezra. Gut instinct, something's deeply wrong."

'Isn't he, like, acting super suspicious right now?'

    Moses, blowing out a short puff of grey tobacco smoke, "Yes. Very. I don't yet know what to think."

'Sorry, my hearing's not super good, so can you stand next to me?'

    Manager Kang flinches at the grab, immediately trying to pull his arm out of it- he boards the elevator, of course, but does put up that manner of resistance. "I'll be sure to project clearly- please, allow me my personal space, Miss?"
Distortion Dets.     The elevator ride is long. Floors go by with conversation, questions re-brought up, asked, and answered. Lobby, -1, -2, -3, -4... Manager Kang stays by the console, keycard lanyard around his neck. The metallic whir of its mechanism quiets, growing more and more distant the further into the stacked layers of concrete and industry the that box descends.

'So uh, what's the last like... *thing* that happened here?'

    There in the elevator, it's odd that he looks as though he feels trapped in a corner- "No incidents, no. My assumption is... well, lately, we'd been asking a lot of our dearest staff-members, because an innovation of ours, it's being sent for singularity patent!" Halfway through, his tone switches closer to that of 'sales pitch', and Moses raises an eyebrow- at him, and at the empty spot of personal space in the elevator she assumes Petra might be in- that's Arbiter-type stuff, maybe that's why she's really here? "Er, so it's as I've said- they failed to wake, as if they'd fallen too tired! Perhaps, it is some spectre of overwork? Tae-young Produce Company has received regional recognition for its worker efficiency in comparison to health toll, so it may more be the fervor of coming so close to what may be seen as a widely-recognized breakthrough?"

He dabs his forehead again, and looks at the floor count. -8, -9...

    "The... the dormitories, they're on the lowest level accessible by the main elevator. Sorry, it will be any day now. We're passing through- through the experimentation decks, where our world-famous innovations in vertical agriculture all stem from, aha, maybe we'll be able to get you that cancelled tour after you've resolved our issue!" He sounds like he's joking. "You should see the tomato blocks..."

    -11, -12...

"Manager Kang." Voice cold.
"Y-yes?"
"We've never been in communication, and yet you never asked us our names. Is there a reason?"
"Oh, didn't I? I see, well, your liason, that's who set this all up in the first place, I'd certainly thought I'd seen it somewhere..."
"Mm. No, don't worry about it. Let a tired old Fixer wonder out loud. It just seems, to a paranoid detective, that you want to be rid of us. That's fine."
"A-ah, it's certainly not that!"

    Manager Kang adjusts his suit's collar, and nods. Another look up to the elevator's indicator: -14, -15. Ka-chunk.

    Motion stops, with that gradual heavying that the arrival always comes with, and as slow as it opened above, the doors open up, to a completely black space, open and empty to the point of nearly appearing as a void, if the hemisphere of light projected by the elevator's open door didn't reveal a plain white paneled floor. The air is cold, more like a refrigerator than some open common area of a dormitory block. Manager Kang holds the door-open button down firmly, a clear indicator to go on and walk out.
Petra Soroka "Cute? Haha, it's going to take me forever to get the ears out of my head! Sorry!"

    Petra groans good-naturedly, putting the notebook-holding hand on her head where the ears would be. "God, yeah. Sometimes I still feel like I've shuffled my feet on the carpet and need to zap out the static or I'll barf. Hey, actually, in reality, what's...?" Lotus, she means, but she won't out a girl's blob if she hasn't mentioned it already.

    Thinking just one moment longer on the Pokemon world causes Petra to sigh, hand slipping off her head. It's really been *that* long since she's met Ahn, and most of her memories back then are centered around Cinder. "Funnily, I'm a lot less cute now than I was back then. Lost the jacket, too-- that was actually a real jacket I had, you know."

"It's not exactly easy to get what everyone takes for granted when you live in a jungle with no ID, but I'm trying, haha~"

    Let's not think about all of that, though! Living in the woods is girl talk, and that boosts Petra's mood back up. Really, compared to talking with the *manager*, she mostly just seems like she's here for this instead. "Gosh, me too. I mean, I've got the benefit of pretty much getting access to anywhere in the world in a couple hours if I put the work in, but for a long time, shopping and stuff was real touch and go. Even recently, a... mission of mine kind of got a lot of my stuff and documents and all torched, but I had help putting it all back together."

"I'm happy to hear that! You're really dependable!"

    Petra's lips twitch, halfway between a grimace and a smile. "I've been getting mixed messages lately. But I try."

"Isn't he, like, acting super suspicious right now? The basement even?"

    "Oh, definitely," Petra says casually, digging in the pocket of her suit jacket for something. "People in the City are always totally neurotic about something or other. Maybe it's something as innocent as his job being on the line, maybe he's got a bunch of dismembered corpses strung up like puppets downstairs, maybe he's just worried 'bout me. Hard to say. Hey, swapsies?"

    Petra holds out a bag of City-local Korean-branded gummies. It's an important little cultural exchange, you see. It's swapping food at lunch or trading notes when you both took them or ordering pizza for someone just for them to order pizza for you the next week. If she thinks about it, then she's probably actually internalized more of her philosophy from the Watch than she expects. There's really no reaction from her at all when Ahn basically kidnaps the guy to make sure he comes with them. That's just good planning!
Regulus Regulus says, "Oh sure, let's--wait you're not an arcanist right?" Regulus frowns. "Or are you? uh just to be on the safe side... APPLe! Emergency candy!"

APPLe floats over to Ahn, reaches into his tie, and draws out a butterscotch candy, like the sort that a grandpa would give out, and offers it to Ahn with the intend of trading this candy, for her candy.

"Most of my candy is actually for recharging arcane power, so I can't actually just use it in place of normal candy." REgulus explains to Ahn, though realizes maybe she could have gotten an extra candy if she explained this first before relying on APPLe's emergency butterscotch candy.

APPLe continues to be an apple and floats out of the elevator when they open up.

Regulus, however, lingers behind, watching Kang thoughtfully. He is being really suspicious. Getting a lanyard off of him subtly would be tricky, and she's pretty concerned about being locked down here without security clearance--But hey, she can engage in a bit of mischief.

Regulus smiles, makes to move iike she's about to step on out, and then promptly vanishes from sight.

And so does the keycard on the lanyard.
Vantablitz Remnants     'Of course I'm so right! YuRia, Grade One Workshop Meister'

    Ahn is Frowning Deeply. She can totally tell that YuRia blew her off because she was feeling Uncomfy and has the luxury of pretending she doesn't exist. She also doesn't really know what to do about that. Social isolation doesn't really arm anyone for it.

    'God, yeah. Sometimes I still feel like I've shuffled my feet on the carpet and need to zap out the static or I'll barf. Hey, actually, in reality, what's...?'

    "Oh. She's back home." Ahn specifies, very helpfully. "She had a lot of stuff to think about. She's been 'working on herself', so . . ." Ahn shuffles again. "Well, she's ready when she's ready! She's actually way better at not running out of steam than I am, haha~"

    'Funnily, I'm a lot less cute now than I was back then. Lost the jacket, too-- that was actually a real jacket I had, you know.'

    "Oh no! That jacket was so-- it's part of you-- do you want help getting it back?"

    'I mean, I've got the benefit of pretty much getting access to anywhere in the world in a couple hours if I put the work in, but for a long time, shopping and stuff was real touch and go.']

    "I knew you'd get it! 'Oh just get a credit card' well what do I need to get that, genius?! There's like, steps and steps and steps; it's all so enmeshed and picky and slow! And like who wants to take sovereign responsibility for some crazy lady with no documents, right?"

    'Hey, swapsies?"'

    Despite the wild difference in the topics on parade, Ahn doesn't seem to perceive any meaningful swerve in tone. All of it is under the umbrella of 'catching up', which means anything goes! Another memorized pocket offers up a bounty of coconut, coffee, and sticky fruit candy bags, from which Petra is meant to pick one.

    'Most of my candy is actually for recharging arcane power'

    She looks a little misgivingly at the butterscotch offering, but APPLe is being niceys, so she gives Regulus fruit candies either way. "Oh, so it's a . . ." Ahn has now decided that Regulus is a sugar-powered wizard.

    'I'll be sure to project clearly- please, allow me my personal space, Miss?'

    When it comes to the man in the elevator, thought . . .

    "Mm? Is that so? Thank you very much~" Ahn says, cheerily; perhaps pushing it towards 'ditz' country on purpose. It's tough to tell if it's out of rustiness or if this is a social skill she has etched into the bone. "Sorry, could you try that again? Something about overwork? You keep stuttering!" she show-whines, pulling on his sleeve again, and definitely not letting go. "You said 'Singularity'! That's super duper interesting! I want to know all about it, so can't you stop trailing off like that?" She even shakes him by the wrist a little bit. "Tomato. . . ? Hey aren't you changing the subject? You really expect to give a tour like this?"

    When the elevator hits the bottom floor, and finally opens up, Ahn commits effortlessly to what she's been doing so far. In fact, she yanks on Kang hard enough to have him stumble out in front of her, smiling sweetly about it all the while.
Distortion Dets.     Ezra takes point for Moses and YuRia, at least, her gloved fingers drumming on her gigantic weapon's case. She hums, as the other two are silent, and immediately looks for a light switch on the walls- there isn't one by the elevator, there isn't one ten feet from it, but nearly twenty on, in the dim-hazy halflight, "Ahah, found one, Detective! Bingo! It's light time!" A heavy fist hits the buttons, and the lights within the open room flip on,

        One,
                By one,
                        By one,
                                By one.

    The room is massive, tall, and entirely empty- a stark-white paneled floor one might expect rows and rows of equipment or storage to lie in, but instead, neatly organized, foot to head, and head to foot, is a geometric row of dozens, and dozens, of bodies.

    "See-? They won't wake up- go on, have a look at them! They aren't dead! They're breathing! Please, wake them up-" He sounds fearful, not worried. A pause- "Wait, no, no, are we missing one of you? The girl in the bright outfit?"

    Regulus disappearing distresses the manager a lot- perhaps because this is an campus filled with sensitive information, and people out of his sight, who he's responsible for supervising, is a bad thing?

    Moses, Ezra, and YuRia, close behind, make their way to the edge of the arrayed sleeping bodies. "Suits, lab jackets, normal business wear... these look like the company's employees- but where are their badges? It's... strange." "Hey, hey, Detective! What kind of Distortion d'you see on 'em?" Moses pauses, and kneels down to one of them, trying to force the man's eyelids open- to rolled-back whites, only. "I don't see anything out of the ordinary... partially progressed, individual per, this isn't one Distortion, perhaps these are victims?"

    Manager Kang, in the elevator, frets over his invisible keycard- fumbles, and can't seem to find it to grab it. Under his breath, he curses, as something, somewhere, starts to whirr.
Veronica     "My assumption is... well, lately, we'd been asking a lot of our dearest staff-members, because an innovation of ours, it's being sent for singularity patent!"

    Oh God, it's about *crunch time*.

    "Tae-young Produce Company has received regional recognition for its worker efficiency in comparison to health toll"

    Veronica frowns, and does her best to turn away from the manager for the rest of the ride down. She shuffles closer to Hibiki, seemingly doing her level best to transmit "get a load of this weirdo" directly into Hibiki's brain.

    When the elevator finally comes to a halt and its doors grind open, Veronica waits for the manager to step out of the elevator - then raises an eyebrow as he only gestures for the *Elites* to leave. "You're not coming with us? Or even going to turn on the lights?" The rush of cold air hits her, coming with a dread hypothesis. "You don't- you're not keeping them in *tubes*, are you?"

    The lights flicker on, on, on, on. "Wait, this- doesn't look like sleeping quarters. Did you really have them all moved down to cold storage? And... why are they all in day clothes?" Ahn shoves Manager Kang out of the elevator, and Veronica steps out behind him. "Did they fall asleep on the job?"

    "This isn't one Distortion, perhaps these are victims?"

    This close to the psychic glacier-scar, Veronica is clearly uncomfortable. "Victims sounds right... I'm not feeling *anything* here, it's like we're in some kind of emotional desert. I think whatever the Distortion is, it might've picked up all their minds and left." Not such an alien concept for someone carrying a whole town in her head!
Vantablitz Remnants     'Hey, hey, Detective! What kind of Distortion d'you see on 'em?'

    Once she has Kang out of the elevator, Ahn abruptly loses interest in holding his wrist. And in him in general, really. The lowest floor still looks fake as fuck and like a dystopian sci-fi trap, not a dormitory, but she has a way of simply going about that, including reaching to shuffle a hood she isn't wearing and then adjusting her backpack instead as she makes her way over to Moses and Ezra.

    "Hey, um . . . I've really wasn't going to ask, but, what exactly . . . ?" Ahn scrunches her lips together, rethinks, and barely rephrases. "What are they even looking for, when people ask that? I know that everybody looks weird to you in some way, but, not to them, right? Does it mean something when someone is one kind of weird or a different kind? It seems more important than it did before is all."
Petra Soroka "My assumption is... well, lately, we'd been asking a lot of our dearest staff-members, because an innovation of ours, it's being sent for singularity patent!"

    If that's Moses's assumption, then Petra doesn't do much to dissuade it. Really, it's because she was told that 'larger motions' hinge on this company, and even though she's strictly not here to actually help them, the implication of Moses's involvement is that she's *probably invested in seeing the company succeed. Maybe they're in someone's pocket, maybe they're being set up to be sabotaged later for some plot... Petra honestly doesn't care!

    Doesn't care about their fate, that is. This man shivering in the elevator might as well be a sprite on a little handheld bespoke console that she can shake up and down in order to escalate his stress meters. She's interested in his position as a *domino*.

    "Oh, congratulations. I bet legal's been in lots of talks with S corp, huh?" Petra isn't literally filing her nails, but her tone sounds like she should be. In fact, her hands are busy doing something much worse, which is writing on her notepad. When anyone looks at it, though, it's seemingly complete nonsense words and letters strung together, along with doodles.

"Er, so it's as I've said- they failed to wake, as if they'd fallen too tired!"

    "The spectre of overwork..." Petra muses idly, leaning back on the wall in the elevator. "I mean, *I've* never seen it. So there's no such thing, right?"

"It just seems, to a paranoid detective, that you want to be rid of us."

    Seized by an utterly incorrigible urge, Petra is compelled to correct Moses the same way she corrected Petra earlier. "To a paranoid detective *Moses*, you mean."

"She had a lot of stuff to think about. She's been 'working on herself', so . . ."

    "Oh." Petra can only imagine the weird pink blob just actually being an accurate depiction of Lotus. There's no *Pokemon* that looks like that, probably! So maybe Lotus is just like that and didn't get transformed. "Well, good luck to her."

"That jacket was so-- it's part of you-- do you want help getting it back?"

    "An evil queen took it from me." Petra closes her eyes solemnly. It's impossible to tell how much she's joking, because she sounds very serious about it, and actually isn't joking at all. "... But, well, I'm cursed to never act against her. So I can't get it back until she wants me to."

"There's like, steps and steps and steps; it's all so enmeshed and picky and slow!"

    "Yeah, yeah!" There's nothing Petra likes more than commiserating with a girl whose struggles she technically has also experienced but with so many qualifiers on the circumstance as to make her more of an oppressor than a companion! "Really, it's all so fake. I've, like, stopped believing in money. There's just so many other forms of power out there that matter so much more, you know?"

    "Anyways-- how have those guys--" The Watch, "Been treating you? Shouldn't they be helping with that kind of stuff? And also, in general... how *have* they been treating you?"
Petra Soroka "They aren't dead! They're breathing!"

    "Huh." Petra slowly ambles out of the elevator, obviously not all that concerned with actually helping these guys. Her eyes stay on Moses, rather than on the bodies, while she writes some more stuff down on her notebook, lingering nearby the manager. "You know, if you went through all the effort of stacking 'em like tetris blocks, why not do it somewhere with beds?"

"The girl in the bright outfit?"

    "Who?" Petra looks around, first checking to make sure Ahn's still here, and then wracking her brain for who else it could be. "... Oh. Huh."

    From within her jacket (how *is* she fitting all that stuff in there? (it's mirrors)), Petra pulls out one of her toyetic ratbots, setting it on her palm for it to hover upwards. It starts tracking around the room, less to really *find* Regulus, and more to give Petra another set of eyes to see if Regulus is actually doing anything important, and maybe to peek around at Moses too.
Regulus Regulus gets fruit candies! This ends up revealing her location eventually as you can hear her crinkling the wrapper on the fruit candy wrapper and, yeah, she did forget to invisible the fruit candy wrapper. So it's just sort of floating there until Regulus pops it into her mouth.

Regulus is a little bit a sugar powered wizard.

Regulus probably would be very good at industrial sabotage or corporate espinoage if she cared about those things, but in this case she's broadly interested in seeing what Kang will do or maybe spill out in that period. She's lingering near Kang, quietly interposing her body in between Kang and the elevator. Nice job, Ahn! Regulus isn't as good as shoving as Ahn is, she's got to handle it to her for that.

APPLe is floating further out, watching the bodies with some distress. Regulus, some distance away, does at least manage to not get hit by the full force of the distressing sight.

"This is quite peculiar, I've never seen anything like it." APPLe admits. "Is this some sort of strange arcane ritual? I can't imagine it leading to anything proper."

Petra is saying a lot of world building stuff that REgulus is struggling to keep track of. Ess Corp? What a weird name. Actually some companies do just go by letters? Maybe it's just S Corp. But that doesn't really tell her what S Corp does, does it?

This world needs more rock and roll, Regulus decides confidently.

There is a strange noise but for the moment, REgulus examines the elevator control panel, curious if there's a way she can bypass it's security or otherwise rig it so she can make it work without the keycard if it turns out to be neccessary.
Hibiki Tachibana     Veronica frowns, and does her best to turn away from the manager for the rest of the ride down. She shuffles closer to Hibiki, seemingly doing her level best to transmit "get a load of this weirdo" directly into Hibiki's brain.

    While a sort-of-magical-girl with an acute tie to connections, Hibiki is not a mind-reader. She's also socially as dense as a rock. Still, between Veronica being on the same general wavelength and her own thought on the situation, she furrows her brow in a very 'yeah, get a load of this weirdo' way.

    And finally, out they go.

    And the lights go on.

    "...The hell..."

    Stuck in place for several long seconds, Hibiki's mouth moves a few times before settling into grit teeth. "...On-site dormitories my ass, you just laid them all out across the place..." Before she gets any farther, she hurries ahead to the closest of the uniformly laid-out workers and takes to a knee, checking to make sure they're actually still breathing and sleeping.

    It's pretty clear she's far from comfortable, and maybe figuring out how she even feels about this whole arrangement. Eventually, she scrunches her eyes shut twice, then opens them up again at a comment from Veronica in particular, turning her head towards her.

    "...Took their minds? You mean-- their consciousness' might not even be here anymore, and that's why they're not waking up?" /That/ gets her to grimace even further, doing the same eye-checking trick as Moses just to quickly abandon that nearly as soon as she starts. After a swallow, it's Kang's way she looks towards, following up on an already-voiced oddity.

    "Where /are/ their badges? Or ID cards, or anything like that? Did you move them, or were they already gone when they ended up like... this?" That's not something she'd personally care about herself, most of the time-- but if it's any sort of clue as to their potential Distortion's motives, and something to keep her mouth from locking up, she might as well ask.
Distortion Dets. 'What are they even looking for, when people ask that? I know that everybody looks weird to you in some way, but, not to them, right? Does it mean something when someone is one kind of weird or a different kind? It seems more important than it did before is all.'

    Moses, her hands still on the face of an unconscious officeworker, as casually as if she's leaning on a desk, answers first with an exhale of bright-grey smoke, hanging funny in the chilly air. "Distortions, the aspects and iconogrophy of them, they say something about a person's needs, harms, a great matter of things. I see them in the people around me- sometimes, those progress, and those carve themselves into reality. But- if this all were a Distortion of these people... they would not look, simpler, tamer, and they would not look different, every one of them."

    Moses lets the body's eyes fall back closed and stands up, her pipe back to her mouth. "Hm. I could attempt to rouse them, but without knowing what has them like this..." Light, she kicks one of their sides with the toe of her heels, and, as it obviously doesn't work, sighs. "Manager Kang. Explain more, as to what exact conditions brought this state about in these poor victims? I'm very curious, and it is very important."

'...Took their minds? You mean-- their consciousness' might not even be here anymore, and that's why they're not waking up?'

    Moses taps the body again with a foot. "Dead to the world, but their consciousness, corpses don't have the Distortion creeping in. This isn't there yet." 'Yet'.

    By the time extra questions start to pile in, Manager Kang doesn't look like he wants to answer- outside of the elevator, he's even more nervous, he bats at the lanyard he has only to (wrongly) realize his keycard's fallen off- As minutes go by, he starts to eye the elites more and more, transparently hoping to make a break for it back to the elevator, which, unfortunately, requires a keycard to use- why he's so nervous quickly becomes apparent.

    The low, droning whirr is that of a panel in the center of the room's floor, directly the midst of the arrayed-out people, opening and rising up. A simple, smooth black slab is unveiled, itself utterly unremarkable despite its ominous appearance. Moses gasps, and curses- "They're vanishing- the signs of these distortions, they're fading away into-" At that point in Moses' words, visibly, faded streams of smoke start to rise from the catatonic bodies, towards the slab of material. For those at all attuned to psychic energies, it feels like a vortex, sucking inwards, a clear hazard to stay around- to Veronica, it's clear that this, whatever it is, is the metaphorical 'glacier'.
Distortion Dets.     To make it worse, each and every body's rolled-back eyes open at once, their mouths jerking into silent mouthing-through of indistinct words, like the air has been sucked right out of their lungs.

    Moses drags Ezra by the wrist back and away from it, shielding her face uselessly with an arm- "Get back!" She shouts, to the others. If only that slow-sucking vortex were all- the swirling smoke starts to congeal, at a center point above it, forming a skeletal gesture of a humanoid form.

    With more smoke, it thickens, lines of wispy smoke solidify like bones- and split, into bloody-red crossfibers, and split again, forming musculature, sinew, like a lame slashing lines in taut-kneaded bread dough. Eventually, without a motion, a split leaves it standing there on something amounting to legs, and eventually, the 'Distortion'? Can it be called that? Takes a meaty step, echoing around the room. Smoke continues to be pulled from the bodies towards that center point, but once the fleshy mass stumbles away, it starts to funnel upwards, in a solidifying stream, like the stem of some grisly, ashen plant, these empty minds its fertilizer.

    Manager Kang, no longer held, but unfortunately, outside of the elevator, makes a horrified dash towards it, as the first fast motion in the wake of the monster's appearance- Regulus, inside it, sees this- Regulus, inside it, elbow-deep in the control panel's wiring, sees the monstrosity of flesh turn, twist at its hips with a godawful snap-sucking noise, and charge at the manager- perhaps out of some remnant recognition of a boss, some vestige of animosity?

    Bodies, host and fuel to it, -pop- underfoot of its charge, each a noticeable, but insignificant shudder and loss of flesh-mass to the monster, as it incidentally kills a fractional amount of itself- but the charge is fast, and Manager Kang, cowering in the corner as he mumbles about a keycard, not yet even having processed Regulus' (invisible) re-arranging of electronics, is smeared into bloody paste on the opposite wall of the elevator by the fist at the end one (of six) of the monster's ten-foot long arms.

    As if by funny coincidence, the blow, hole-punching through the back of the elevator, erasing the Senior Manager, and shaking the contraption like an earthquake, happens at the same motion that Regulus' meddlings pop the emergency roof-hatch of the elevator even as the rest of its electronics spark fully out, for good. As far as anyone so far can reckon, that leaves it as the one way out of the empty room.

    Slowed, no longer taken up by that immediate bit of rage, and wholly unaware of Regulus, the 'Distortion' starts to meander back towards the group, no hint of emotion to its empty smoke-skeletal face, no hint of coherency in its design to warrant the assumption that this is a 'puzzle'-

    "Is there anywhere to run!" Moses shouts, strained, the pipe in her hand replaced by a jagged blade that would take a generous soul to call 'swordlike'.

    If Regulus gives warning, that little roof-top passage, with the monster between there and the room, is the goal- a quick, scary dash to some temporary measure of safety, the immediate investigation dead on its feet.

    Quiet, hissed, as she braces to run- "Han Hee-joon, you motherfucker!"
Petra Soroka "Distortions, the aspects and iconogrophy of them, they say something about a person's needs, harms, a great matter of things. I see them in the people around me- sometimes, those progress, and those carve themselves into reality."

    Surely this is common knowledge to Petra's boss, but *she's* never gotten such an in-depth description of it. She writes it down anyways, just to be thorough, and makes particular notes on the specific tasks Moses claims she's using it for. She looooves to get extra credit.

"You mean-- their consciousness' might not even be here anymore, and that's why they're not waking up?"

    "And who could've guessed that they'd all fall asleep one after the other while standing in neat lines." Petra remarks blandly, fiddling with the edge of her notepad. The ratbot flies around overhead, taking in the arrangement of the bodies from a bird's eye view, though if there's a pattern to them, she doesn't share it. It's a tiny bit frustrating, actually, that she *isn't* supposed to help, so she's busying herself mentally with trying to solve the mystery on her own, something that she has a hundred times as many chances to do.

"Where /are/ their badges? Or ID cards, or anything like that?"

    Petra chews on the inside of her lip. Why *would* the badges be gone? A Distortion that either takes or comprises the badges wouldn't be out of the question, but it's hard to square that with the careful arrangement of so many bodies. If they were taken off of the unconscious workers and redistributed to hire more, then that would be plausible for cost saving measures maybe, but they'd only do that if they were certain that they *weren't* waking up again. Maybe they're not employees at all, and are just cattle for the Singularity? Every Wing and Wing-aspirant needs meat for the grinder, after all, so it could be that these were clerk-tier nobodies who they just hastily threw sheets over to pretend they're real employees before calling for help.

    Or-- Petra's eyes widen. The keycards are gone, to prevent them from getting any.

"They're vanishing- the signs of these distortions, they're fading away into-"

    The appearance of an ominous black slab raises Petra's hackles more than anything else so far. Her instant gut reflex is to connect that to the 'Singularity', radiating menace, so when its arrival triggers the culmination of a Distortion, her mind races to figure out how a fucking *sustainable agriculture company* could possibly have developed an almost-Singularity that taps into the River. And why!!!

    Petra only flickers to backstep inches away from getting smashed into paste beside Kang, hands in her jacket pockets and frame-skipping to only have one heel clacking against the tile. The widening of her eyes and sudden intensity of her stare is completely at odds with the flat neutrality of her tone, like this is what she expected all along. "Oh. There's the meat monster. I was wondering."

"Is there anywhere to run!"

    Petra doesn't want to be the one to call it out, but she *is* right nearby the elevator. As the single most-skilled agent at fighting the Mountain of Smiling Bodies specifically, she makes the snap decision that she can afford to fuck around here longer than anyone else can, so she can zip around out of charge-lanes until someone else gives the directions to escape through, and then be the last one through. Meanwhile, the ratbot rapidly snaps pictures of the room and the monolith and sends them through her phone and a VPN, bouncing them to be saved externally on a computer worlds away. For extra credit.
Veronica     That strange slab rises from the floor, and all hell breaks loose as a six-armed giant manifests itself in about the grossest way possible. It's like, Veronica notes to herself, some fleshy parody of Baker and Seventh, building itself piece by piece from the minds of its... constituents? Victims? Hard to say. Either way, it is *time to go*. Veronica glances at the ceiling, and decides that even if everyone else could be counted on to stance up with her, a clash of the titans might bring fourteen sub-basements crashing down from above.

    Instead, she thinks quickly about her other options, and makes a choice. As she begins to backpedal at increasing speed away from the giant, she tries to reach for the slab with her telekinetic strength, testing if it can be pulled from its position in the center of the floor. If it's not fixed in place or just plain too heavy, she lifts it and drags it behind her as she turns for the elevator.

    Then the giant finishes its self-construction and dashes down the length of the room to demolish the manager. Veronica winces as she sees the workers crushed under its feet, and either hauls the slab around to her front, between her and the Distortion, or telekinetically raises some kind of small barrier from shattered floor-tiles. Holding her makeshift shield in the air (with her left arm stretched toward it to help her focus), she skirts around the edge of the room, picking whichever side has more people on it to offer cover to them as well.

    "Is there anywhere to run!"

    "I don't think we're getting into that elevator," Veronica calls. "Should we go deeper into the facility? I don't want to stick around here, but if it chases us to the upper floors it could cause a collapse!"
Regulus Regulus doesn't want to fall into a trap! She's fallen into so many and a bunch of bodies on the floor is spooky!

Hibiki's question is a good one. Were they removed? Are they fired for sleeping on the job? She doesn't know. She is glad she has candy in her mouth.

Meanwhile, APPLe is listening to Moses's explanation of Distortions. And her sight. He says, "I do not have your vision, but it's, aha, a bit unnerving they're all lined up like this." Is the apple sweating?? Best not to think too much about that. Either way he uses his tie to dab at about where his forehead would be if he were not an apple.

''Faded streams of smoke start to rise from the catatonic bodies.''

"Ah this is not... This does not seem good." APPLe is not attuned to psychic energies but bodies shouldn't start smoking either, though it takes APPLe a moment to realize it's not Moses's smoke.

"Bad ritual, bad ritual!" APPLe says. He doesn't have the ability to just see Regulus so he ends up hovering towards Hibiki and sort of hovering near her in a clear attempt to rely on her for some protection.

Regulus turns her head at the commotion and she breathes in sharply, hurrying her work and electing to forgo all elegance. sOmething, something--anything to get out of here...

Something distinctly unpleasant happens. The bloodsplattered keycard reappears as Regulus's control of her arcane skill stumbles at the horror of it (briefly, a vaguely Regulus-shaped blood curtain is visible before it vanishes again). Regulus coversher mouth with her hand so she doesn't scream. Her will to not be noticed by this creature is strong. There's tears in her eyes anyway. She's seen people die before, or rather has seen one person die before, and she never expected it to happen again. And this ... yeah this is worse than the other time. The black goo actually makes it a little better, she learns.

Her hand had jerked suddenly at the impact, rendering her attempts at finesse moot--but she hears the emergency roof-hatch open and that's...

Yeah she'll take that.

''Is there anywhere to run! Han Hee-joon, you motherfucker!''

Regulus bites into her palm until it bleeds. She can scream later. She can scream all she wants later. If she screams now she's dead so that's not an option. But she can't just go up the hatch by herself. APPLe is down here. And she likes these other people. Slowly she pulls her hands free from her face. She waits until the creature's back is to her and--

--she drops the invisibility. At this point it's a relief. Regulus is absolutely splattered with blood--soundlessly she wildly waves her arm around and then points up to the emergency hatch before leaping up to clamber up it. There's a monster in the way, of course, but uh. In the moment she doesn't think she can cast that arcane skill right now to help them. It was miraculous that she even held it long enough right then and there.

"The hatch is open--! While it's distracted!" APPLe suggests and starts flying thataway. He does hope it's distracted.
Hibiki Tachibana     "Yet," Hibiki mumbles, echoing Moses, sounding none too happy about that. Right as she's about to open her mouth again, that heavy droning fills her ears - and a glance that way has her eyes widen and her voice halt in her throat. The smoke is a first warning. The sudden jerking coming from all of the victims laid out is the second.

    And then 'it' finally takes shape. As much as smoke turned solid might.

    "...What... the hell-- wait..." She finds her voice, just to lose it again, and then have it flare up loudly enough to echo through the expansive underground chamber. "WAIT--!!"

    Against all common sense, she first moves /towards/ the charging monstrosity's path, as if to try and idiotically intercept it-- but she's too slow.

    Too slow to do anything but hear each /pop/ of defenseless body in the thing's wake, each one making her heart slam against her chest like it's about to burst, and too slow to save the panicked manager before he becomes little more than a bloody smear. APPLe might've chosen poorly looking to her for safety, because she's the last one who manages to catch onto the idea of 'escaping', after several seconds of stumbling just to stare listlessly down at a spreading pool of blood beneath her...

    ...before scraping her fingers against the stained floor to push herself up to a stand again, fists tensing and spasming as teeth clench and tears bubbling up at the edges of her eyes, looking like she's going to run the thing down on the spot for the glare she throws up at it.

    "We're /NOT/ going deeper!" Veronica gets that somewhat unfairly shouted her way, a casualty of not wanting any more of the Distortion's victims to get crushed underfoot if they even try to do that. No, that elevator hatch is the only way, even if the Distortion /is/ between here and there. "Get past that thing and go!"

    Veronica uses shattered tiles as a shield; she uses them as distracting projectiles, wholesale /flinging/ them at the thing to get attention so others can slip past, while she keeps a wide berth herself. If Petra is the last out, she'll probably be the second to last-- and she half-looks like she doesn't even want to pull her way through the hatch to escape when she gets there.

    She still does, though.