[EVENT POST] I FEEL STUPID, AND CONTAGIOUS.

[dishearten]

CHARACTERS: Open to all!
DATE: 3/11-3/12, ICly
WARNINGS: Zombie attacks? Violence? Shopping???
SUMMARY: Lockdown at the mall! Grab your CDs and your soft pretzel, it's about to get bad.

LET'S GO TO THE MALL LOCKDOWN Business has been rough for Woodhurst Shopping Center ever since riots and unrest about the Bristol Virus have shunned most to their homes. Perhaps ill-advisedly, in attempts to draw a few more customers back into the polished halls of the grandest shopping experience Woodhurst has to offer, a weekend of big sales, great bargains, and fun family activities was widely advertised in the Woodhurst Watch. There was even a scheduled public concert, performed by the University Choir. The turnout was smaller than hoped, yet the air was quite optimistic. Shoppers enjoyed the day of activities and fun, and the sense of security was bolstered by the increased security detail. There was even some members of the press on hand to document this return to normality in a troubled time. Everything was going well, until a scene broke out in the food court. Security tried to quietly remove members of the choir that suddenly seemed to snap, plowing into one of the food stands and starting to feed on raw meat. However, a good handful of them escaped instant confinement, and while many of the visitors fled the mall as soon as they could, soon Police Detail arrived and put the entire building on lockdown. Nobody in and nobody out until the situation was resolved. 18:00 TO 23:00 HOURS Anyone unlucky enough to be trapped in the mall is left to their own devices, with very little knowledge to go on. This includes many civilians, as well as a small number of Audentes agents. This also includes a small number of infected, more than just the university choir. There's a voice over the loudspeaker imploring people to hide in stores, barricade doors, and stay put until help arrives. The majority of the infected seem to linger in the Food Court especially. Bad news for anyone trapped and starting to get hungry as the hours pass by, without any obvious assistance from the outside. The members of ALASTAIR have a choice, help protect or just do their best to avoid the infected themselves. Characters can get into the Security Office for a camera feed on what is happening in the mall, and potentially use it as a base of operations to work from. 00:00 TO 02:00 HOURS It becomes apparent that the number of infected in the mall are somehow increasing, despite the lockdown. It means that those that have squirreled away into stores and outlets are growing less and less safe as infected numbers multiply and they begin attacking barricades. To make matters worse, anyone that hasn't found cover will find the infected extremely reactive, and willing to give chase around the mall. The security feed indicates the infected seem to be coming in from the Parking Garage. Investigation will reveal a sewer outlet on the bottom floor. Characters will have to decide whether they should utilize the tunnel as a means of escape, or if sealing it off would ultimately leave the remaining hours of lockdown a little less violent. 04:00 TO 09:00 HOURS It's been an agonizing 12 hours, and with surprisingly little aide from the outside. With time to make preparations and put plans in place, now it's time to end this lockdown once and for all. Audentes is tasked with neutralizing the remaining infected as well as escorting any remaining civilians to safety, by any means they decide on. It is up to Audentes to decide how the end of this event plays out, be it removing or otherwise drawing away the lingering infected, or putting them down once and for all. There are plenty of civilians that have been bitten and attacked, leaving the question in the air as to whether they are infected as well. What should be done with those that could be bringing the virus back to their families? The team is going to have to decide on the answer to that.

Comments

[unholey]

[Fugo twists the cap off of the water and takes a long sip of it. He knows he needs the water, but what he needs more of is time to think. Giorno is off balance. He needs to do something to make time; moreover, he needs to do something to make Joseph think they're less scared than they already are.]

Who eats peanut butter with carrots? [He takes it anyway, though, along with the carrots. Because he doesn't trust himself not to accidentally knock it over, Fugo twists the cap back onto the bottle. Even though he still feels nauseous, he fumbles to open the little ziplock of carrots.] It's probably supposed to go with the apple.

[Once the bag is open and he's fished a piece out, Fugo sets the bag aside with the water to free up one of his hands. The closest arm to Giorno sneaks around his side; Fugo rests his hand on Giorno's back, palm open. He doesn't know why the name Joseph Joestar makes Giorno so afraid; he doesn't have the strength to stand between them, either, so he'll have to settle for helping Giorno stay balanced.]

... from the Speedwagon Foundation. They're really big. [He nibbles on the carrot stick, watching Joseph with sharp eyes to see how he takes it. What comes next is the harder part: the lie. The Speedwagon Foundation is a common name, but their association with the Joestars isn't as widely known. But he surrounds his lie, which he'll say with the same confidence as the rest of it, with pieces of the truth.] And everyone knows they work for the Joestars.

It's freaky, running into a name like that in a place like this.

[digiorno]

Mm. It's quite unsettling, yes.

[What a good lie. A great lie, grounded in truth. He even manages to give Joseph a reassuring smile and actually mean it, even though he means it for Fugo.]

It's easier to pretend there aren't any connections to home in a place like this. It takes some of the danger away, you know? Like all this awfulness can't get back to the people back home that I should be protecting. A reminder like this is just--jarring.

[And that's true, too. The reminder of all the work he isn't doing to build up relations with the Speedwagon Foundation makes him worry for the safety of his people. None of it's a lie.]

[He glances sideways at Fugo.] Americans do, I think. [About the peanut butter. Obviously.]

[nextlineis]

[Joseph tries to keep a straight face, but the more the words they work for the Joestars keeps running through his mind, the stronger the urge gets to laugh. He doesn't end up laughing, but he does grin wide and plainly amused while he continues munching on the potato chips.]

Work for the Joestars? [Joseph shakes his head a little.] If Granny Erina heard you talking like that, she'd box both your ears. Uncle Speedwagon's fortune and foundation are his own. The only connection between the Speedwagon Foundation and the Joestars is Granny and Speedwagon have been friends since before even my father was born.

[Which isn't to say Speedwagon hasn't helped Erina out throughout the years, of course. Joseph and Speedwagon both would probably say that Erina's done all of it -- raising a child and a grandchild -- on her own, but she'd insist (and Joseph would too) that some of what she did wouldn't have been possible without Speedwagon. Even if Erina did most of the heavy lifting in more ways than one, Speedwagon was still there and he still helped in whatever way he could or Erina wanted.]

[It's just a stretch to say that he or his foundation work for Joseph and his family. That's never been the relationship, not once. Speedwagon is a part of the family, not an employee.]

I get the feeling you haven't heard good things about my family though. [Joseph looks between the two of them. Unsettling or not, that was still a fairly strong reaction. Strong enough that the physically weaker of the two felt the need to reach out and support the other.] I can promise you most of it's probably not true. Wherever you heard that stuff from isn't a good source anyway if they're telling you Uncle Speedwagon works for us. Granny's a good person, and so were my grandfather and parents.

[Joseph distracts himself by looking into the bag of chips to see how many are left, but his smile still turns a little brittle.]

The worst thing you can really say about us as a family is that we tend to die young. [There's a pause as his smile finds its strength and he pulls out a particularly large chip from the bag.] Well, and some of us have a bit of a temper.

[He does. He's the one with a temper. But he's not going to call himself out directly, okay. No, he's gonna eat this potato chip instead.]

[unholey]

[Ah. Good. His gamble has paid off; Joseph is from the past. The name "Speedwagon" isn't just an organization to him: he knew the man who founded it. And although he thinks Fugo's impression of the foundation's relationship with his family is wrong, he's at least accepted how the two of them recognize his name.

The rest of it, though... well, that's not the sort of conversation he can navigate. But that's fine. He bought the moment Giorno needed. Fugo doesn't offer any more information to Joseph, instead busying himself with making himself eat the carrots. He doesn't really want to. His stomach is in knots and the smell of blood makes him feel nauseous. He does not dip them in the peanut butter, because he's pretty sure Giorno is bullshitting him about Americans. They can't be that disgusting.

But Giorno is better at this sort of smoothing-over than he is; Joseph might be canny, but he wants to trust them. He wants to leave them with a better impression of the Joestars than they started with. Fugo doesn't move a single millimeter from where he's sitting, wedged underneath Giorno's arm, carefully watching Joseph's reactions and tracking the flexibility and unexpected honesty of his smile.]

[digiorno]

[We have a tendency to die young.]

[It leaves a lump in his throat. Of course it does. He's not a monster. He has--regrets. He has guilt, he has sorrow even for people he doesn't know. There's no deep emotional connection to the Joestars, and honestly sometimes he hates them, but that doesn't mean they deserved what happened to them.]

[What his father did to them. He sighs, shifts a little, and leans on Fugo's shoulder.]

I suppose there's probably a lot of misinformation that I've heard, yes. I don't expect everything that I know is true.

[No, he expects that most things he's heard are false, or at least colored by bias. He tries to remember who Erina is and can't. It makes him a little sick to try to sort it out.]

I believe you that your grandmother is a good person. I . . . wouldn't mind hearing about her sometime, if you were interested. I'm sure you must miss her a lot.

[nextlineis]

Yeah, [Joseph says with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulder. It's not really that smooth of a lie when he says it that casually after everything he's just said. But while it's unquestionable that Joseph loves his grandmother and cherishes her perhaps more than any other person in his life, like most boys, he doesn't want to seem too dependent on her either. Which is why there's a subtle redirection in the conversation, too, and not just the flimsy lie.] So how do you guys know the Speedwagon Foundation, anyway?

[unholey]

How don't we know them? [Fugo rolls his eyes. This, at least, is true: time marches forward, the influence of the Speedwagon Foundation grows wider. They're a powerful ally. Or foe.] They've got their fingers in all kinds of research. They show up on the news a lot.

[Fugo shuffles his shoulder. It's not to displace Giorno; rather, it's to help him get comfortably settled. He murmurs something, a little too quiet for Joseph's ears: it's a quiet reminder that Giorno shouldn't forget his apple.]

[digiorno]

Mmhm. Research, business, some real estate. It's actually quite impressive.

[Oh. His apple. He looks down at it in his hands, as though surprised it's still there. After a moment, he dips his head and mutters grazie in response before taking a bite. His heart isn't in it, but he's got to set a good example.]

Mister Speedwagon was--what is it? A captain of industry. [Something like that.]

[nextlineis]

[Joseph knows that Speedwagon's the sort of guy that's got a number of irons in various fires, so that part doesn't come as any sort of surprise to hear even if it's surprising to hear that it's managed to catch a little more public attention than private interests. What gives Joseph pause, mid-crunch of a chip, however, is the word was. Manners are always a forgotten thing with Joseph so after his moment, he simply asks around the half-eaten chip,]

What do you mean was? Speedwagon may be an old man, but sometimes even I have a hard time keeping up with him.

[That's not completely true. The sentiment is — very little has slowed Speedwagon down over, and time is not one of those things — but Joseph could still exhaust Speedwagon easy enough. It's just a little unfair when it's Joseph's energy that's acting as the comparison.]

[unholey]

[Good. Giorno is eating the apple. He probably doesn't want to, but he's still eating and that's what matters.]

Because that's what the history books call him: "a captain of industry," for creating one of the first international organizations dedicated to medical and scientific research. [Fugo punctuates this statement with a crunch of another carrot.] Back home, the year for us is 2001. Robert E. O. Speedwagon has been dead for... [He pauses, eyebrows pinching together while he rifles through his facts to try and remember the date.] ...almost fifty years now, I think?

[digiorno]

I'm not sure, exactly . . .

[It wasn't the first thing he thought to memorize, if he's being honest. He knows a lot of things about the Speedwagon Foundation, but not nearly as much about Robert E. O. Speedwagon himself.]

[He glances at Joseph curiously. That curiosity should easily pass as uncertainty about Joseph's surprise, but really he wants to watch the next reaction--Joseph's reaction to knowing that they're from the same world, but a time long past his own.]

[nextlineis]

[Joseph paused before. This time, he comes to a complete, grinding halt.]

[It's not . . . Well, it's not a lot of things, but to name a couple, it's not that Joseph isn't aware that at some point Speedwagon won't be there anymore, and it's not totally impossible they're from well into the future beyond Joseph's time.]

[When it comes to the idea that Speedwagon won't be there anymore someday, it's kinda like how he knows there's a point in which Granny Erina won't be there anymore either. These are things he knows. He does. Sometimes age rears its ugly head for just long enough that he's a little more aware that he knows. But on the whole, they're not things he puts much thought into because he doesn't want to. Who would? That's his family. The only family he has.]

[The other thing is less important, but with everything else that's happening around them, it's a little hard to call that strictly impossible.]

[The chip in his mouth's lost its flavor for more reasons than just lingering in his mouth. He remembers how to swallow. He lowers the bag from shoveling range to down by his waist. His appetite's gone while his mind fumbles around with something to say.]

Oh.

[That's all he says. That's all he can or wants to say. It's not that he can't remember how to speak like he forgot how to swallow, but he doesn't want to know. Whatever he might say or ask that would spark an answer, he doesn't want to know that answer. So, he leaves it at oh.]

[Joseph lightly tosses the chips onto a nearby shelf, a few leaping or threatening to from the journey and impact. He jabs a thumb in the direction of the gate.]

You know, I should probably go check to see if that horde's lost interest yet. You two, sit tight.

[He doesn't wait for a response one way or another, and heads back out toward the front of the store.]