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EVENT

Reverted
The city of Recollé...have you looked beyond the city lately? It may be time to do so.

I.

The good news, perhaps, is that everyone is back in their original bodies. The last few weeks may have been trying and embarrassing for several of you, but never fear! You're all in this together.

The nice thing about returning to your original body is that everything else seems to disappear along with the unintentional swapping. Your dreams on the evening of the 16th and the 17th are unoccupied and you're blissfully alone. Hallucinations fade away and the city almost feels brighter and cleaner. The messy paint job from May and June slowly flakes off to reveal a sparkling almost-new landscape below. All buildings, landmarks, flora and fauna are back to their original colors. The sky, however, is still painted a strange wash of colors and symbols.

The other nice thing about returning to your original body is that it's much easier to feel the sudden, sharp pain on your palm at midnight on the 18th, a needling high-pressure pain that lasts for all of 30 seconds. Upon looking at your hand, however, you'll notice something new.

In bright red font there's a new marking that reads: 13 Days:23:59:59.

58. 57. 56...

The timer steadily counts down, each second synced with each beat of your heart. As the days pass by the timer will slowly shift from the red to a dark, ominous purple. The glow of the mark becomes harder to ignore, and there doesn't seem to be a way to remove it. Good luck with that.

II.

The Retrospec app doesn't seem to be much better. The scrambled messages and posting errors seem to have stopped and users are no longer receiving messages and pictures about themselves.

In fact, the app seems to be quiet for a while.

As users continue to use the app they will find that any post, comment or message that they send via the app will be tagged with a different ID. Instead of their name, all messages will be from Alpha##### or Beta#####. The string of numbers will be unique for each user and cannot be changed at any time. Individual mailboxes will be attached to your name, but the Alpha/Beta ID has made its way there, too.

Over the course of the rest of the month, Alphas (those who have had the app for at least a year from August 2017) will find that messages to other Alphas are sent more easily than to Betas (those who have had the app for less than a year from August 2017) and vice versa. Messages to anyone from the opposite "faction" may drop out half-way or appear blank entirely. It might be wise to find a better mode of communication in the meantime.

III.
Even if you're alone in your dreams, you're not alone in the waking world. No one is free from the timer on their palm, though they may come to find that it impacts some users more than others.

Some users will experience a steady pulsating in their hand as the timer counts backwards, each second ticking by. Standing still just long enough will send the pulse out of their hands and through the rest of their body, over their arms and through their feet straight into the ground.

The earth begins to shake under these unlucky users, little quakes and trembles that spread out and seek out anyone else nearby. Whether you know this person or not, whether you're alone or several of you are impacted by this earthquake, the ground beneath you splits open and you're pulled straight down into the crevice, falling aimlessly. Instead of finding your own life flashing before your eyes, you'll find yourself witnessing events, faces, and memories that are important to the user the pulses came from.

On the outside of things, the user will promptly collapse into a coma-like state no matter where they're at. Inside their mind, however, a scene begins to set itself to welcome you as you land. It isn't a memory and it isn't a hallucination. It's a construct of someone else's innerworkings that have trapped you and blocked you in.

As the haze around you dissipates, the puzzle you received earlier this month floats in front of you. Whether you have finished building it or not it is now fully completed and all of the words have faded except for "Gordian Knot."

Your cell phones will not work in these dreamscapes, and even Retrospec seems to be disconnected. It's up to you to venture further into someone else's mind and help them untangle whatever mystery is hidden within themselves.

IV.
So about that timer. As time begins to run out, more and more people begin to experience dream dives and encounter the knots of others that they must fix. Even inside the dreamscape, the timer glows just as brightly as it had out in the real world and it continues counting down.

At least it gives you a sense of time and just how many minutes, hours, or days you've been stuck inside someone's subconscious. You might even realize that the timer is directly tied to just how much time you have to unravel the knots of your friends, loved ones, and strangers.

Easy, right? Take caution, citizens. The monsters and demons lurking in the corners of someone else's psyche can manifest to something quite powerful. You will not wake up and be booted out of someone's dream if you are attacked, but your physical body and mind will shut down and remain unconscious for one week.

Be careful how you approach these knots, however! Should you change any part of them too much, the host will find themselves rejecting this new information. Too great of a change will result in the loss of an important memory to them and no way to recover it inside the dive.

Even with these possible losses divers are responsible for fixing what's gone wrong and relieving the knot wound tightly in the host's mind. Venture forward, explore, and break it apart to awaken then. You will be greatly rewarded for your effort.

Failure to break the knot and save the host from this comatose state will result in all parties suffering a loss. At first it may not be obvious, but over time it will be clear an important memory or item has left your possession.

Is it just limited to dives though? Some users will feel that even with successful diving they don't quite feel like themselves. It seems as though there's some further self-evaluation they must meet in order to fully recover who they are...or were, as it may be.

Tick-tock, Retrospecters. Mind the time.

BONUS.
Ever since he moved in back in February, the lights have always been on in Zee's office and home at the top of the Towers. Office hours are whenever he feels like making them and he's usually reachable by phone, email, or app.

However, beginning on the 18th, messages to his inbox begin to go unanswered. Checking the inbox itself will reveal a change as well.

Delta#02018329 is no longer receiving messages.

On the 19th, the lights go off permanently. Beginning on the 20th, anyone who ventures to his office will find the building empty and locked, no sign of Zee at all. Reaching out to him receives a bounce-back error message.

Any previous correspondences with him will remain, though his name has been replaced with his Delta ID.

It's hard to say what's happened, but after some time, all users will finally receive a message from Delta#68422.

Stop him.

No other messages will be sent or received from this account.

Welcome to

recolle's August event, part 2!

As notated in the plotting post, the dreamdives are now live! Players are in charge of creating their own unique dive experiences for characters to explore and play through. These can be as harmless or as dangerous as you'd like. However, please be sure to let us know here if your character will be failing a dive and what memory/item they will be losing!

For Prompt II, characters IDs will be comprised of the following: The date your character first appeared on Retrospec (so in Zee's case, that was 02/01/18) and the last four digits of your character's IC inbox as found in the HTML (in Zee's case, 8329.) These IDs will be more relevant in September, but for ease of playing/making sure no one ICly overlaps please use these numbers!

Friendly reminder that if your character will be keeping their new AUs, please reply to this comment on the OOC plot post! As per Prompt IV, characters who are failing to recover their original AUs will begin to notice something is off and will not be able to accomplish what is needed to regain their original AUs. What this is is up to you!

As per the plotting post, threading out successful dream dives will earn you a free memory! Qualifying threads must be at least five comments from you and can be from you either hosting a dive or participating in one. Please note that failed dives will not be eligible for freebies.

Any questions you have regarding this event may be directed to the mod comment here. Be sure to review the mods' question thread on the plotting post for important information as well!

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Holy shit. The data loads itself into her banks in the instant between Kara no-selling the strike and returning fire with her own, and A2 is strong, but she is shoved backwards hard while her feet dig in and try to stop her skidding off the back of the platform. If she weren't a construct, if her purpose weren't to defend the Knot and keep all others from it no matter what, she would be down and out.

She stays standing, because all the data main() has collected says that it will take more than that to stop her, but the metal of her chassis is dented in, the edges of it popping up and flaring outward along the seams at her shoulders, and if A2 were to look closely enough then she might be able to see inside her own body a little bit, at the point where the knuckles made contact.

Good trade.

She's undeterred, though; in fact, A2 only seems more willing to get aggressive. This time she rushes forward with her arm extended in front of her, bracing it with her other arm at the elbow. If slashing doesn't work, maybe stabbing will. (It won't. But she can't let herself be stopped by one attack.)

The unfortunate thing about stabbing is that she has to rush in, and Kara's reflexes are quick enough to let her duck to the side. There's no supernatural goings on here, just training and experience as a fighter. She spins to the side to avoid the blow and brings her hand down hard on the blade, aiming to crack it and break it apart.

"A2, back down. Let me get to my friend. You're not going to accomplish anything like this."

She assumes this isn't going to work, with as wildly aggressive as the killer robot has gotten, and after that speech about mercy but she'd rather not wreck something with a hint of resemblance to her friend. She does press the attack as gently as she can though, foot lashing out at A2's ankle to try and trip her up. Not hard, and telegraphed enough that dodging shouldn't be too hard.

The sword isn't supposed to break. She doesn't know what it's made of but it's supposed to be stronger than this. It's an extension of her arm by now and her arm is literally a super-robot, but the blade... snaps. The blade snaps under Kara's hand and it's fucking effortless and her momentum carries her a few steps past her target before she spins around with her bangs looking a little more wild and tinges of red flashing—very faintly—in her eyes.

If nothing else, she can step over the attempt to trip her, because she's not yet ready to lose everything in the name of anger, but the jagged piece of metal she's gripping isn't generating electricity anymore and the pieces aren't anywhere to be found on the floor, having disappeared into small white cubes of code as soon as they touched the platform. Her hand swings forward at close range and this blade is now just much worse off, all jagged and broken, but it's still not going to pierce Kara's skin and she knows that. It's why the long, frustrated noise she lets out as she swings has so much tied to it.

She knows all of this. It's foolish to keep fighting, but she has to. She doesn't have any other options.

The wild strength of the blow is different, and this time when Kara doesn't move it forces her to take a step back. She's not invincible, but her skin isn't easy to cut or penetrate. Blunt force trauma does work better. She grunts at the force and whips backward, cape flaring out around her.

Growling, she snaps forward, fist arcing down to try and smash the robot into the platform.

"Stay...down!"

A2 came into this fight unprepared, cocky, thinking—programmed to think that she's an unbeatable machine only capable of murder. And she's still going to follow that programming for as long as even part of her still moves. So even as she gets smashed face down into the platform hard enough to leave a small burst of white cubes that dissolve into nothingness, she takes only a few seconds before her arm presses back against the ground.

She's not... looking fantastic. The impact smashed her nose, mouth, and chin pretty badly, the artificial skin giving way to brushed black metal and the complicated inner workings of her machinery. Her voice is distorted, scratchy when she spits out her next invective. "Do better," she taunts, and if she still had full use of her lips she'd be smirking.

They're bold words from someone who's taking her sweet-ass time getting back up, lifting only her arm and her head so far, but they're no less serious.

"Better?"

Kara walks over and steps on A2's shoulder, pressing down with only marginal force. She looks at the machine with pity in her eyes. The anger's beginning to fade rather quickly at the almost sorry sight of her opponent. Clearly this machine wearing Anna's face had no idea what she was getting into, and the dreamscape hadn't saw fit to provide her with Kryptonite.

"This isn't a fight, A2. Does your programming allow you to back off for self preservation, or am I going to have to leave you a torso, Monty Python style?"

She can't not jape though.

"Get the hell out of here."

That's the only response she has; that's her self-preservation protocol, apparently. Now the flared-out metal from her shoulder seam has bent back in wrong and it feels... she wants mercy. She wants to know what mercy is. And part of her knows she's being shown it right now, but too much of the rest of her code needs to fight. To defend the Knot. To keep people away from it so they don't... change things.

"This is your last chance," she says, and she's so insistent on it that it's like she barely realizes the situation she's in.

"It is."

Kara leans down, not putting any more weight onto A2. She wants to meet the machine's gaze as she says all this. A memory ripples through her at the same time, causing her to shudder, but she pushes aside thoughts of Lobo for now. She can't think of A2 as Lobo. So...

"It's my last chance to show you mercy. Do you want that? Or do you want me to disable you more?"

A2 meets Kara's eyes unblinking. It's a wonder something hasn't fucked those up, too, even if there's snow playing at the edges of her vision. She's breathing heavily, and as much as she'd like to say she would rather die than be show mercy, exactly the opposite is true—she has a duty to fulfill and she's not leaving until it's done. She can't. This terminal is too important to leave unguarded; it's everything about Anna. Lines and lines of code, memories and desires and fears all perfectly replicated.

Anna would trust Kara with it. Annalise would trust Kara with it. A2 can't be remotely that charitable; it's not who she is. It's not who she's been written to be. If someone gets to that terminal after meeting her, they could erase Anna's memories of A2. Of anyone, but there's incentive to prioritize the murder machine.

"Get the fuck out of here," she orders. It's a sideways answer, but it's still begging for mercy.

"I will. Once I've fixed this."

Kara steps back, gently taking the pressure off of A2. She's still wary, leery of the machine lashing out again. she would really, really like to not have to fight any harder or hurt A2 any more. It's just so...sad...seeing her like this. She's not an enemy, not really. They both want what's best for Anna. Hopefully.

Floating slowly over, looking up at her friend, she reaches out for the console, still expecting an attack.

She should be. It's hard for A2 to struggle to her feet, and she knows the blade won't do anything, so once she's up and running at Kara, she's swinging with her bare fist. Which will do even less, but the angry plea that comes from deep in her mechanical throat, drawing power from her own artificial heart is clear. "Get away from that!"

She only exists in the memories of main(), after all. Doesn't everything want to keep surviving?

Kara looks back at the fist beating on her and shakes her head. She won't. She's already keying in the release sequence.

"A2. I want to help her. You. All of this. I'm not your enemy, and I'm definitely not Anna's. Please stop hitting me."

God hopefully that shuts her the fuck up. If not. Well. If we can't become friends by diplomacy we can become friends by punching.

What Kara punches in shifts the landing of the stairway behind both of them to a white rectangle of light. It's not marked with an exit sign, but it couldn't more clearly be one. A2, though... she's shocked, and not just because she'd gotten her entire ass handed to her. This isn't how the program is supposed to go. This isn't what her code...

"You don't even know what that is, do you?" she asks, trying to mask her disbelief. "You have everything she is right in front of you." If nothing else, she's stopped hitting Kara. There's no reason to anymore. "And you're just leaving me as part of her?"

Kara looks back at A2, reaching up to put a hand on the machine's tattered shoulder. It's gentle, kind, even friendly compared to what she's probably expecting.

"I am not going to hurt her. And I'm not going to erase you."

She pushes a final key, starting the process of freeing Annalise.

"It's not my place to remove you. You're as much a piece of my friend as anything else."

Freeing Annalise. What a quaint idea. She should have coded something into this, something as simple as a button press. She should've put in some kind of failsafe in case A2 began acting out of control, so focused on self-preservation that she slew everybody she came across. She should've accounted for Kara.

The light behind A2's eyes dims as her body begins to shut down. The Knot will be able to rebuild her, to bring her back to the way she was for more fighting and killing and dying, because all she is is code. All she's ever been is code. But there's something different in the expression frozen on her face, the last thing Kara will see before leaving. She was shown mercy by an opponent who could have easily torn her limb from limb. Her body wasn't in pieces, it wasn't destroyed entirely, and... and Annalise still remembered her. Annalise still had A2's memories pounding inside her skull.

She's as much a part of Annalise as anything else...? She's a subroutine, she's just bits and pieces cobbled together from memories, she's... not real. And destroying things that shouldn't exist in the first place is what she does. But this... this woman, Kara, she saw past that. She saw another fragment of Annalise. A2... A2 doesn't know what this means. There's so much she doesn't know. But one thing is certain right now.

"Thank you."

And her body kneels there, face frozen in gratitude, until the point when the Knot reawakens her.

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