Scene #8243: Inoculation ~ Czernobog

Owner	Pose
Dimokratia	Mobile City Czernobog, in the Ursus region, had been at the center of a Calamity that had rendered the crawler-landscape of Eastern European concrete and steel and wrought iron and brick and mortar and gratery across an anachronistically modernized and shattered neon landscape. A place that was, then almost-was, then was not, then was destroyed, and now, dined only on ashes and the distant roll of thunder. Dark crystalline growths from obsidian-like meteors sit in craters at the corner of parks. Crystalline artillery, rained from the sky, send furrows along shattered roads and mulched blacktop, settle into ditches, throb in plain sight. People-sign is thin, in the blown-over dust that comes after flesh rots and the bones scatter in the storms. Tremendous loss, in a place. Here and there, scavengers move between points of cover in ruined buildings, picking over a city that has been picked so clean the carrion birds have long moved on. Rhodes Island, a medical cooperative and radical interventionist group of Calamity-averters and paramilitary operation, had been quietly supportive of Watch operations in the world that SilverAsh and the Karlan group had hailed from, and in turn, the Karlan group handled some of the more combat-expected deliveries to the more dangerous zones for Rhodes. It was openly known that Rhodes was an Infected mission-of-mercy group, and that Rhodes fought for the life and dignity of all the Infected (those who began to experience the degenerative condition associated with Originum infection, a type of energetic crystal mined for energy in the world. Oriopathy, as it was known, at times granted powers, but generally was a long crystal-cancer like death sentence in a sword slowly driving itself into your heart and spreading through your organs until insanity, death, or 'otherwise'. 'Otherwise' was always worse. Having been given a ground approach vector into Czernobog due to a powerful magnetic storm overhead rendering both communications difficult and air approach with cargo extremely dangerous, the Karlan team - representing the Watch - is expected to courier the goods (medical supplies, food, and Oriopathy suppressors, necessary drugs for any sufferer) to the remaining central ex-Ursus Government medical facility to resupply the branch aid efforts. For Karlan Limited, a milk run. The threat profile expects light to medium corrupted-Infected in the area (those that had lost their minds to untreated Oriopathy) and no Reunion members (a terrorist cell of Infected accellerationists).
Candy	A diesel-powered, brutish thing of hard angles and considerable bulk growls through the picked-clean streets of Czernobog. Thick machined and riveted plates protect the great great grandfather of armored cars, from the long front end to the shuttered driver's window, to the two cylindrical protrusions behind the cabin. Each of those protrusions is tall enough for a Karlan twin to stand in, to man the water-cooled heavy machine guns mounted before them, or the adjustable searchlights just beside them. Behind them, a spacious cargo compartment is packed with those aforementioned supplies. At the wheel, Candy reaches for an early-model telephone connected to speakers in the gun emplacements, one hand still on the wheel after having changed gears. "How much farther in, ah? I could do with a stretch," he asks with a small smile, hooking the talkpiece back into place. Barren streets stretch out before him, displayed in panorama through the shuttered windshield. It's one of the least hospitable places he's seen thus far.
Karlan Nobles	For those coming from the mountains, driving through the city of Czernobog is a painful reminder of what could happen at home. Although they're protected from the bulk of it physically, just seeing the place is somewhat sobering to those crammed around the ancient armored vehicle Candy's provided for today's milk run. All the more reason, then, to try and keep spirits up with lighthearted chatter as Pramanix and SilverAsh relax in their spots nearby those mounted guns. "You could've stayed home, you know." "I really would have preferred you did." "And stay cooped up inside all day? No, thank you." "Besides, it would be shameful if shied away from our duties over a few bumps and scrapes." Those newer voices come from a mountain of a man (who's still shorter than SilverAsh) and a shorter wiry-looking man (who's still taller than Pramanix) packed into the back with all their precious cargo. Between the four of them, Candy should have an easy enough time just focusing on the road rather than having to worry about any Infected or Reunion members jumping out at them from the shadows, but they're all looking a little sore from hanging around by now. "Not too much longer. Our destination is up ahead, and then we'll be able to head back faster without the threat of anything breaking if we take the scenic route." "We could take the simpler route, too. Simple's good." "I'm sure Sir Candelario would like to rest after such a long ride, too." "Can this thing go fast enough to ramp off some of those hills we passed? It'll be a while before we're back here, after all."
Dimokratia	It's correct to bring a big, dumb tank and hang four elite Operators out the side of it on heavy machine guns. The Infected (and no Reunion) took being bowled through with a mindless, screeching rage, lunging towards the moving cargo as if they sensed the relief for others and spitefully wished it destroyed, and being handled by the pintles and the incidental abilities of the team. It truly is a depressing drive, even within the armored breadth of diesel-belching force projection. Their target, thankfully, is supposedly in an allied-controlled area, and after another several cratered blocks and upended intersections, Candy can check the gridmap and understand his relative position. It should be close. There should be some signal, at all. Instead, there's just white noise and untuned radio sonographics on the airwaves, the whalesong of a sine wave. The Karlans on the outer structure hear it first, Originum Arts battle. Then, around a skyscraper that had half-toppled across to another shorter building like a bridge, open battle. As the tank passes beneath a large unnatural 'hillside' of broken glass and bent metal that spans above their view and litters the street with detritus that's ground beneath their path, the area opens to a large inner city park, an internal common space with ruined paths and overgrown planters, riddled with more of the obsidian crystal, a broken square with a fountain that still stubbornly has all but the head of a metal statue of a woman in armor astride a copper griffon, and what is clearly a government building in the bare state of functionally upkept post-Calamity. There is currently a battle, and it is not Mild, and may be on the upper end of 'moderate'. Once again, the threat assessment lies openly and relentlessly, but you can't retret-reset-retry in real life. Maybe. Most people can't. A 'zombie press' gang of weaponless Infected beat generally against a defensive perimeter, milling about and wishing themselves forward that the Karlan and Candy team-up are approaching the rear of. From the ruined park, a flower-like structure of extremely non-local material has unfolded. Clean and reflective and nobly metallic within the grit and concret haze of Czernobog, the building-sized collection of mechanical petals are out of scale and out of place. A clear spread of some effect, shown by veins of right-and-clean shot through the cracked landscape, has pushed beneath the surface of the ground, and what the 'zombie'-press beat on are more walls of anachronistically placed white and nobly metallic and clean. Grown, spread like foliage, an ivy of plate-leafed protection that chokepoints the riot. Funneled into one approach, the Infected are being battled by a single mystery 'Operator', but with all the bodies and landscape it's hard to see. Driving a whole tank into the area to see, though, draws a large amount of attention from the otherwise idle rear and middle quantity of insane, broken civilians and strangers that can still hold weapons and direct hate. From some of the windows in the square, more-sane But Still Very Mad Infected direct spikes of energetic obsidian at the tank from above, while more rush the tank's front to try to tear at the plate with ripping claws of rock-growths and climb up the sides, suicidally. It's bad.
Candy	The armored car rolls up to the site of the battle, thick tires crunching rubble beneath as Candy floors the accelerator and changes gears. For such a bulky thing, it's able to go fast Enough--certainly, fast enough to smash into the Infected on the way there. Candy beats a fist on the back panel, warning Matterhorn and Courier of the infected with the simple gesture. He's no expert wheelman, and his maneuvers largely amount to a firing pass, a wide circle across the battlefield that gives Pramanix and Silverash plenty of targets to employ those water-cooled machine guns on. "There's RM20s in the cabinets on the wall," Candy says through the archaic intercom system, his voice piped into the cargo container. "Big guns with tripods and the funny pan magazines. Open up the slats on the back and let those assholes have it any time you see 'em through the opening, ah?" His brow furrows as his hands laboriously circle 'round the thin, wide steering wheel, bounced up and down by the uneven terrain. "Pramanix, SilverAsh--was that big flower shit always here? It don't look like the rest of the city." Hanging the receiver up, he extends his right hand. Into his waiting hand appears a burning rag stuffed into a bottle partially full of acrid, flammable liquid. On one of those wide passes, the firebomb mysteriously finds itself flying through the air towards a group of Infected, despite the fact that neither the door nor the window seem to have opened. Barely audible beneath the din of battle, the only clue as to how it happened is a fastforwarded -whumpwhump- sound.
Karlan Nobles	To their credit, the SilverAsh siblings are pretty good about not just shooting goddamn everything in sight and even maintain proper trigger discipline by not keeping their fingers on the trigger. It may just be a side effect of not having their hands on the guns at all, though, especially since things appear to be going relatively well with just Candy's vehicle armor handling the Infected with occasional swings from the elder's sword to dislodge the more annoying ones off of it. The lack of a signal is concerning, though, and SilverAsh has to doublecheck the coordinates on his phone a few times before letting out a troubled noise. "No sign of our contact. They may have ran into some trouble themselves, so be on the lookout." He warns, then raises his hand as an eagle soars far above Czernobog to get him a bird's eye view of what they're all about to run into anyway. When they hear the familiar sounds of an actual battle taking place, everyone riding Candy's dummy thick car get into position all over. SilverAsh and Pramanix swing the HMGs forward to get ready to actually fire while Matterhorn (the big one) and Courier (the 'short' one) draw their swords, and the whole lot of them tense up when they see the source of the noise. "A flower? That wasn't here before, no. Is it..." "It may be an Originium Art, or... No. This doesn't look quite like that." "We haven't seen anything like that around Kjerag, either. This is new!" When attention comes their way, then, the four get to work rather quickly. SilverAsh and Pramanix have to duck in their gunnery compartment to take cover from the brunt of the falling spikes, and SilverAsh soaks up the rest while his regenerative abilities clean him up before he can start bleeding too much in there. SilverAsh and Pramanix don't have to move much as they get to work with those mounted guns, at least, both of them aiming for center mass to maximize accuracy instead of trying anything fancy. That leaves Courier and Matterhorn to handle the back. Matterhorn's shield and big boy body keep the cargo relatively safe, and he shakes off the minor injuries as Candy introduces them to the RM20s. The sight of those chunky guns have the former whistling briefly, and they both take a moment to get used to the heft of the weapons before deploying them across the surface of the vehicle and getting their own shots in. Unlike SilverAsh and Pramanix, though, these two are far more conservative with their shots, almost as if they're trying to make each one count with careful upper-chest shots or blowing out knees when they can. The whumping noise doesn't go unnoticed, but it'll have to go ignored until it becomes a bigger problem or the coast is finally clear.
Dimokratia	The chokepoint is not a battle in the strictest sense, even if the Infected are trying very hard. From the wilding slat-view that Candy is privy to, the Infected leap and wail and do their level best to spend themselves against Candy's armored car and reckless driving, but make little progress at the 'gate'. It's a mess, and as SilverAsh notes, their contact is competely silent. Candy's onboard radio continues to sing white silence. Team Rambo Leopards (ft. Courier and Matterhorn) sweep brass-cased bullets through the onrushing threats, and just like a normal Operation, the steady flow of enemies are cut down thanks to well-prepared defensive positions. That drive around like a drunken lunatic from 1938 in a buggy. The longer time goes on, the more the Ruined Park shifts to just 'a Park'. Plants begin to take on a sheen of fresh life, small errors correct themselves, planters shift themselves back into position. Old growth and unkempt wild thins and falls to the ground. The groundcover sinks into the surface layer, loaming over in ripples, and flattening out. Fingers of influence - from the building-sized metal and reflective white flower settled intot the park - scatter like roots and condense connections like spiderwebs. Though above is a dark grey and purple-orange soup of thick sun-obscuring clouds, and nearby alights the soot-tinged chemical flame from Candy's quick-thrown bomb, beneath, the restored areas around the flower - and extended through to the government building's perimiter - shines with a daytime light. It makes everything much easier to see! In a moment of clarity - Candy can pick and choose, so there are plenty - the figure at the chokepoint can be seen in bright silhouette - tall and heroically built, graceful in a smooth motion of grabbing Infected with open hands, applying some force, and then forcing them back or away. Infected the figure comes into contact with don't get back up fully, staying grounded but living and mobile. The circumstance doesn't really allow for complete nonlethality but the large figure has an uncanny grace. And then Candy sees the figure see him, or becomes aware of their focus. Tangible, like a weight against the shoulders and forehead, a heavy ball against the film-surface of the psyche. He operates the vehicle, so he is Seen, and then the figure leaps-- The Karlans certainly see and hear the figure, but her arrival is like a meteor crashing down atop the front of the armord car and stand there for a moment. Eight feet tall and feminine-presenting, the woman on the hood holds a left-heel back, right foot forward side profile, clad in tight bands of shape-conformed silver up her legs and midriff and down her arms. Her boots drop from capped knees to the ankle-joint, and expand into complex manipulators that collapse into boots between motions. Across her top, the hoops break for a cloth appearance, or simply a contoured front. Her face is couched in the L-bucket of a jaw-and-ear couched helmet, and framed with shoulder-length platinum-white hair. Seams and panel lines are gently visible in her face, clearly and shamelessly artificial and uncannily shaped into a humanoid ideal. She looks at Candy, and then raises a white brow at the crowd, curious as she balances during the swerving. "Are you. . . scavengers?" Asks the tall woman. Reaching her hand out pantomiming a thrust, a length of silver metal forms in her black textured gloved grip and continues to extend, spearing a big, sudden threat into the driving path. Or the wheel well!
Candy	"Hello? Hello?!" No answer on the line, nor the telltale crackle of interference--just the empty, droning nothing of dead air, over the growl of the armored car's engine. I don't like this. It looks like somebody set up and kicked them out-- A figure in the distance leaps, at the precise moment she notices him noticing her. 'Are you scavengers?' Time stops. Trails of bullets halt in their tracks on their way to Infected. Shell casings hang in frozen arcs behind the gun emplacements. Precious cargo stops in mid-bounce with Matterhorn and Courier, straining against mesh straps in danger of breaking for the sudden slam of Candy's foot against the brake pedal. t The figure, perched atop the hood, holds a spear in danger of turning the car over, and with it, the cargo. Candy unbuckles his seatbelt, opens the driver side door, and steps out, circling around the car with a playing card in hand. He flings it--it travels a foot, impacting the extending spear, then joining the frozen portrait all around him just as it begins to burn away. t Stepping over the motionless, grasping hand of an Infected to climb back into the car, he shuts the door, and time resumes. -Whumpwhump. Crunchcrunchcrunch. -A jet of water, as if loosed by cannon, knocks the spear momentarily aside. -Rubber grinds against rubble which rapidly gives over to greenery beneath the car as it brakes. "Just the opposite," Candy answers, eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Only the person we was delivering to ain't answering the doorbell. Would you have something to do with that, Ms. Pigsticker?"
Karlan Nobles	If anyone's concerned about Pramanix just blasting the maddened Infected away when they rush the vehicle, they're not about to say anything about it. To her credit, it's not like she's enjoying it or anything, and there's even a distinct look of discomfort when she's firing. Everyone but SilverAsh does, even, although Courier and Matterhorn have their own reasons* for that. Somehow, though, they're able to hold onto Candy's truck even with all those sick maneuvers, shooting down the charging Infected however they can until it seems like the ruined park is changing. It's a pleasant change, to be sure, but it's a rather suspicious one considering how time and plant growth generall works even to those with the most basic knowledge of such things. "It's... Brighter now? And not just from Candy's explosive." "" "It smells nice. But it's not any kind of perfume, is it?" "Whatever it is, we need to remain vigilant. There... Incoming!" Matterhorn shouts out a warning as the mysterious platinum-haired figure crashes down towards the armored car, giving the group only a second to back up against-they're still in the truck. When they see the spike coming out of artificial woman's hand, the Karlan Krew is ready to bail. Before they can even get that far in thinking, however, the spearing thing doesn't smash into the car nor send them all flying out of the vehicle. Instead, they just end up getting themselves smashed into the vehicle from that sudden braking, and they have to recollect themselves before disembarking as a defensive precaution against the new unfamiliar figure. "Ow, ow, mmn...! That was dangerous. There's better ways to ask that sort of thing!" "It's a reasonable concern, but no. I'd wager any scavengers would have left the moment they saw you. And who might you be, if I may be so bold?" "We're with Rhodes Island. The people here need help, and you're... Who are you, anyway? Are you with Reunion, or...?" She doesn't actually finish that sentence, instead just sort of staring at the stranger with a cautious hand still resting on the bell at her waist. Matterhorn and Courier, for their part, are still standing guard in front of the white-haired siblings, but they seem to be waiting for a signal rather than just rushing this imposing figure down. The dark-haired duo do keep themselves in between her and their bosses, though, as if steeling themselves in case they do need to intercept and get back to fighting. There's still a clear tension in their stances, however, even though SilverAsh and Pramanix both seem to be angling towards ~~diplomacy~~ identification first. *Guns and ammo are expensive in this world. Stupidly expensive, for reasons.
Dimokratia	Someone did set up here. The eerie part is that there's nothing 'forced out'. Rather, there doesn't seem to be anything missing at all from the park except that it no longer fully belongs in the stretch of ruined Czernobog. The Infected, broken by the lightning attack and riot-clearing sweeps of heavy machine guns, either disappear deeper into the park or cordoned-off Government Building. The windows stop being full of flung Originum corruption and obsidian crystal magicians with harmful purpose. The 'scavenger birds' fade away, as hydraulic pressure flings clear the female figure's spear. Having generated as a silver rod with a simple pointed tip and extended like a telescoping baton from there, the water blast goes through the length and blasts out the substance, leaving the material that makes the front of the sudden weapon to splash out as a liquid against the side of the vehicle instead. The braking yaws the front of the carriage forward and hard-stops the woman that had lept on the front of the truck. A metal screech howls as grippingly stabilized feet try to attach to the front of the tank and fail in the moment, so she leaps again backwards, floating down to the ground in a smooth descent. The carriage rolls forward, the woman lands, and as she holds out a hand to brace against the onrush, whether or not it stops or she forces it to a standstill with the screech of brakes... She is uncannilly looking up at the Karlans and that wide slit in the armor that hides all but Candy's eyes. "They asked for help. I have given it. Now these sick people are being attacked." The woman answers, expression almost pouting. "I am Dimo." The woman's hand on the front of the tank compresses, and she pushes herself back up onto the front, to stride right up the slit and approach the Karlan group in the guns above. Confidently hiking a leg into the front flap of the 'window', Dimo stares down the Karlans. Sliding off SilverAsh and Praminix, Dimo's pout falls on Courier - and Matterhorn - who she lets her pout turn into a little sultry smirk. "You can offer it to me. I'll accept it, and distribute the resources."
Candy	"Dimo, ah? Dimo who? Dimo with who? Dimo from where?" When Candy steps out of the door, there is a breech-loader, pump action shotgun resting in his hands, which hadn't been there before. "Not that I don't trust you, but I don't trust you, understand? If I am giving out stuff people broke their asses to make, I want to know who I am giving it to, and more than a name. And today, I want to see my friend with my own eyes so I know he is okay." He gestures with the butt towards one of the incapacitated Infected. "As for them being attacked... when someone is drowning and you are pulling them out of the water, you have to make sure they don't pull you under, too, ah? Even if that means a pop across the jaw." He shrugs. "I give you what's in the back, that costs you something. A tour of the brand new little city there and a visit with my friend. Otherwise," he says, frowning at her from beneath the brim of his newsie cap, "I give them out by my lonesome and see for myself."
Karlan Nobles	"You're... Helping them?" "You've certainly had an effect on the area, that much is clear. I wonder, though, how long this will last, or how much this will aid the Infected." Another tense moment passes as the four from Kjerag keep their eyes glued to Dimo, clearly not quite sure how to actually handle this situation despite showing no inclination of actually giving her anything. They stop short of actually getting back into Candy's truck, though, and Courier and Matterhorn have yet to sheath their weapons even though Pramanix and SilverAsh have already lowered their guards for the time being. The staring, too, gets notably different reactions from the four. SilverAsh and Matterhorn seem the least affected by it, with SilverAsh just wearing his usual pokerfaced smile while Matterhorn projects just about nothing with a dull, neutral look. Pramanix's smile, too, is a polite one, but with a hint of hope, as though she's expecting Dimo to actually let them continue on their way. Courier, finally, has the trademark '''genuine''' smile of a long-time customer service rep that just really wants the conversation to end as soon as possible. When Candy plainly states his own position on the matter, though, Courier finds a bit more energy in his gut to power through the awkwardness! "I'm afraid we'll have to refuse, Miss Dimo. We have our own people counting on us to handle this delivery." "A contract is a contract, you understand. Our refusal here is no reflection on you as a person, but on maintaining the trust we've built with our partners elsewhere." "That's right, friend... Being interested in helping the Infected is a great sign, though, so I'm sure we'll be able to work together well in the future, yes?" Courier just doesn't actually say anything. He'll leave that to the bigwigs.
Dimokratia	"Dimo, ahh." Replies the tall 'armored' woman, responding to the questions in a measured order. She purrs the 'ahh', throatily chuckling as she remains conveniently atop the armored car, and thus threatening the whole of it, the Karlans, the cargo, and the Candy. The cordon-area and the park's periphery quiet, sounds ceasing in their frequency and bouncing echo one by one. The battle ends. The burning crackles down. The sounds from the barricade dim to a hum. The engine of the armored lorry idles. Much of the groaning ceases, from the bodies near the gate and in piles around. Those that were shot repeated with high-caliber bullets or burned simply cease to make noise. "Dimo, of the Silver." She continues, turning her gaze towards the captivatingly complex synthetic-white flower the size of a building 'restoring' the area around the Government Center park. "This place requested aid, and so I was sent to ensure the need was addressed." Dimo directs to Pramanix, lifting her chin as she speaks and softening her tone a bit panderingly. "I understand other groups aren't as capable as us in helping their neighbors, but don't apply your assumptions to us." Her pout turns to a slightly more self-assured smile, her gaze canting and flicking down to Candy, with his gun, beneath her. She doesn't adjust her stance on the vehicle, but the shift in her attention - from the Karlans all gathered up atop the vehicle to Candy - is palpable. It's just that everyone here is used to a certian Level of bullshit, and the Watch are Built different. "I don't understand, no." She pouts again, light and airy and 'ah, it's your problem, not mine'. "Because I know what I've done, and you're so clearly..." Her expression falls, and then she makes another breathy laugh, and-- No sale. A hard no. Nothing doing. With a mildly performative tromping step, Dimo transitions down with a sway-out of leg motion to step besides Candy, still looking down at him, but now turned to look down the barrel of his gun and smile at the opening. A textured-glove hand presses the side of the barrel away. "Their bodies are too infiltrated with foreign crystal to remain viable platforms for life. A replacement of the broken parts with ones that will support a viable platform for life, and mind therapy to correct what their plight-" Sad, and not performative, pity-sad, deeply kittens-with-broken-legs sad, emotively rising before levelling off, being tapered down by choice and circumstance. Pity-sad. "-and conditions had taken from them. Their souls were still worthy. And yours. . ." She cants back to the Karlans, a dip of the chin and a blue-opticed gaze, sticking to Courier of all of the Snow Leopards, sensing the Pleaser in the group. Throaty, she laughs (pity and confidence and isn't-it-funny warmth) again, chin falling and arms raising in a broad gesture. "It could all use some love. But I'm happy to provide. Your friends are fine." Warm, sunny. "They're now my friends."
Candy	"Never heard of you," Candy says with a blunt tone and an annoyed squint. "Sent by who?" Candy climbs atop the hood, jabbing a finger repeatedly into Dimo's personal space. "Who, who, who, who who? The Silver, whatever the fuck that is? The Concord? Who?" >Your friends are fine. They're now my friends. "Really?" Candy says, brimming with contemptuous sarcasm. He hops off of the car, then reaches a hand through the driver's side window, turning the volume of the CB up to allow her to hear the dead air. "You hear that?" he asks. "That is the sound of bullshit. If they're so fine, how come they don't answer the radio, ah? What, you help them out once and all of a sudden they're too good to answer the goddamn phone? My friend, I was not born yesterday." He opens the driver's side door again, with an irritated briskness, then hops in and tosses a playing card into the passenger seat. "I'm going inside and seeing for myself," he concludes, gunning the accelerator and heading for the walls of the complex. "You better open those front doors, 'boss lady,' if you don't want to find out why they invented the seat belts."
Karlan Nobles	Of the four animal-eared folks on Candy's armored vehicle, only two of them are starting to show real signs of getting worn down by Dimo's stubbornness: Pramanix, whose polite smile is drooping ever so slightly with her waning patience, and Courier, whose customer service smile is cracking from wanting to leave more than anything else. Instead of letting that guide their words, though, its who Dimo mentions that gets their attention. "'Us'? You're here with allies, then? But I don't see anybody else arund." "It does sound like you've done your research on the Infected, and well at that. I am certain we'll have time to discuss a partnership soon, but for now, we must be..." SilverAsh trails off, still listening closely once she reveals what it is she has planned for the Infected here. "Mind therapy? You were able to come up with that so soon?" Sharing some of that caution building in SilverAsh's mind, Pramanix finally lets some of that out in her voice directly instead of just giving that vibe through gentle words. "What... Exactly does that involve? If I may ask." Their suspicion's growing by the moment, but there's not enough to work with there beyond that discomforting gut feeling. The SilverAsh siblings know all too well that it'd be difficult to act on such things without more, so they're actually kind of trapped right now! Matterhorn isn't exactly the talker of the group, either, and Courier... Courier getting stared at in particular has the deer man straining just a bit more to keep up that ever pleasant and too formal smile going on. He's avoiding eye contact, too, deliberately trying to look past Dimo towards those bodies, towards the plant life, and noticing Dimo's eyes still on him only to resume staring past her again. "It's... Been a pleasure! But yes, we should really be going." Eventually, he just has to be the one to break protocol and lean over towards Candy's window, mouthing a silent thank you. "They're still probably waiting for us, right? And all those other deliveries after this aren't going to handle themselves." Candy being so much more direct about all of this is rather reassuring to him, too. It's a good opportunity to get his hands on one of those mounted guns again, using the (technically already subdued) threat of further ambushes as a convenient way to look way over there instead of anywhere but here.
Dimokratia	Slow, unbothered, Dimo moves past Candy, intentionally cutting across his forward arc to walk towards the cordon around the Government Office for a few steps while Candy reacts to her. "And I've never heard of you, little man." She purrs the last two words. Candy re-approaches Dimo, this time brandishing a device. Effortless and above the measure, she turns to regard Candy's cranked up radio. Her too-perfect lips don't move, but the whalesong of the sinewave's white noise background frequency clears out to a now-easy-to-place roll of amusement, drizzled over thw white noise. <"They're busy. Resting after treatment."> Dimo's radio-vioce purrs. <"In my culture, being born yesterday is a wonderful thing. It's such a shame."> Pouting, now. <"That you're so insistent on not seeing a beneficial relationship I've done nothing but offer."> Candy storms off and Dimo follows his backside all the way back to flinging open the door. He can, of course, feel her intent, all the way up to that adorable briskness of ripping the cab door open again. The Karlans ask questions and the radio, returned to the cabin, answers while the heroically sculpted metal woman continues to gaze with a verging-on smug amusement. <"Us."> Firm and declarative, the radio momentarily is warmly clear, the white noise constructive and all crackle just highly calculated vocal fry and the buzz of the radio her voice pours pleasantly from. <"But only I am necessary to be present. There is my sister, and many others besides. Would you like to meet them? You can, if you spend time getting to know me."> The offers come smooth and directed, velvet in the uncaring and please-ma'am-this-is-an-Ursan-waffle-house (we-are-in-an-armored-truck-please-ma'am) atmosphere. Candy, threatening, just makes reality and drives his whole vehicle into the barricade, barely dodging downed Infected to smash into a wall of pressing-close metal plate-leaves and synthetic white constructions that had been already weakened by the Infected, bringing the whole crowd into the Government Center area where. . . 'Infected' sit in various states of cybernetic augmentation. The ones that Dimo had pushed around or thrown bear light to moderate conversion from corrupted flesh to simulacra seamed and cleanly fitted to their remaining mass. The ones behind the bursted wall all have earpieces or torcs of silver, and these are more lucid and active, moving calmly out of the way. At the top of a set of (mended) steps, your contact (sporting a new, dark low-impact bionic arm) is there to greet you. There is nothing wrong with his mind, but the communications have been down since around the time Dimo arrived. In the metal flower. That crashed here, like a calamity meteor, and bloomed outward. The radio continues to speak for her, though the woman herself doesn't approach or re-appear. <"Mind therapy. There are certain things that are useless for a mind to experience or be burdened with. There are weights that shouldn't be held, or conditions that would be treated with drugs and counciling and barbarism."> Like explaining religious truth, the radio hums with that hot buzz, set to max volume becuase of Candy's decision so it's eerily piercing in its audibility. <"Good synapses captured by terrible patterns. Reformatting them is a mercy. Replacing that dangerous content is much kinder to society and the individual. Problems of flesh are trivial to correct. Complexify yourself, please. I'm sure you can learn so much from me, and I can gain so much from you."> The supplies are well-accepted, but the local aid co-op had a startling friend come help! And now the tragedy of the attack was completely smoothed over, and even some of the critically wounded Infected might make partial to full recoveries. However... Something was left, planted in the Ursus square.
Karlan Nobles	Treatment. What should be a relief is just creating more anxiety in the back of so many minds, Pramanix and Courier especially compared to their older and taller counterparts. Those two even go as far as exchanging uneasy glances towards each other when Dimo mentions it, but they're withholding judgment until they start to see it for themselves. They're just not leaving the car yet, making sure instead that Candy's back and that they're not going to be attacked by any other ambushers when when Dimo mentions that she's the only one there. "If our schedules line up, perhaps. Let's hope it would be under better circumstance, hm?" "That could certainly be arranged. It would be foolish to eliminate any chance of cooperation over a single meeting." "I-I'm sorry, but I think I'll have to... Pass." "Video conferencing would be easier to arrange." Clearly, reactions to her offer are wildly mixed in this group. Nobody objects to Candy just ramming the car through, though, and they wisely duck down briefly to make sure stray ceiling tiles or metallic flowers don't hit them on the way in. Some of them, however, look like they might be regretting not getting mildly concussed before seeing what they do inside the government center. "What happened to them? What's been replaced?" "I don't know if cured is the right word, but they certainly look different. I wonder if this might even be a more cost eff..." SilverAsh doesn't finish that thought. He notices long stare from Paramanix, directed both at him and at the contact (but especially at him). Instead, he disembarks first to get started on moving those supplies, trying not to let the tension make things any more awkward. Courier is still looking rather uncomfortable himself, but in more of a 'trying-not-to-draw-attention' sort of way. It's going to be an awkward ride back, probably.