recolle | Trial Run (Closed)

Trial Run (Closed)

WHO: Chloe and Emilie
WHERE: The access stairwell of an undisclosed roof access in town.
WHEN: 5/2/2017
WHAT: A Clandestine Meeting to see if she can pull off something this basic.
WARNINGS: Actually, nope. Totally innocent. Might talk about murdering Jim in his sleep, though.

So, the hardest part about all of this was getting the note too Emilie in the first place. After all, she lived in a fairly posh part of town, the sort with security systems and the like. Still, Chloe wasn't terrible at being clandestine when she wanted to be, so she hunted down a way to slip her friend a note where nobody could see her do it, one she'd written with nothing on her person that was electronic or given by Retrospec. The note read as follows...

Emilie, meet me at 1520 Shady Bough Lane, at the top of the stairs.
Tuesday, 5 pm
Do not bring any electronic devices, or anything Retrospec has given you.
Burn this note and do not show it where an electronic device could see.
-Chloe

And, at the time, she was seated there on the top of the steps in jeans and a t-shirt, looking a little more agitated than usual, but otherwise none the worse for wear. Hopefully the offer wouldn't confuse or worry Emilie too much.

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Émilie decided to come after a moment's thought, even if she had to go without anything electric, now being used to it.

Sure enough, Émilie emerges from the stairwell and onto the roof...

"Chloe? I'm here."

Chloe sat there quietly, smiling up at her. "Apologies for not being exactly clear when I sent you the note," she said, bobbing her head. "I am... testing something out, trying to get myself into a habit. Jim and his company, they can see us when we have the app, but I want to try and make plans without them around, at least on some level."

Admittedly, given that they'd done things to her while off the network, she wasn't sure this would work at all.

"Well now that I'm here... What plans do you have for us?"

Perhaps Chloe might want to tell her more about the visions...

"I wanted to talk a little, about the things I've seen, and the things that have happened to my body," she said first, before looking upwards and sighing. "And then I want to start brainstorming with you, with others, about ways to try and find Retrospec, ways that might actually work."

"I suppose I do have resources I can use to help... What sort of changes?" Émilie hadn't had any herself, or at least not yet...

The plotting side could wait. Chloe slowly rose to her feet and looked around for one moment. A demonstration would be helpful. Of course, it was mostly a flat tarmac, so there wasn't exactly a jungle gym to demonstrate on. Instead, she held up a finger and walked back a pace from the doorway leading down.

With a running start, she kicked off of the ground and twisted in mid-air, tapping off of the frame next to the door to sommersault fully and land on the ground. It was still awkward, and she stumbled at the end, but she didn't hit her face. Soon, she had a feeling that she'd be able to do that easily, if she kept practicing.

A cough and she glanced at Emilie. "I am starting to move like that girl does, it would seem."

Perhaps so... Émi watches Chloe at work, doing things that really wouldn't normally expected of a florist...

"You just... knew how to do that one day?"

"Not quite. My... how do I put this? My body knew, and I felt the urge to move," she tried to explain, though it wasn't exactly easy. "Timing jumps has been trickier, but once I am in motion, it is deceptively easy to keep in motion. I am just... much more agile than I should be, really. I am agile, like she was."

"Some extra agility can't be too bad, at least..." Even if the whole thing sounded rather strange. In the end, though, it really didn't seem to bad.

"Well, it is what she used to use it for that is more bothersome than being healthier and more limber," she said, leaning back against the wall and shaking her head. "She... is terribly good at stabbing people. A lot. Bad people, but still, the things I've seen recently were a bit jarring to watch."

"Oh... Do you want to tell me about it?" Émilie was hardly that violent herself. Though the sound of this was troubling.

"I've been trying to avoid it, because you're my friend and I don't want to worry you, but I don't think I can keep doing that." And she shook her head, frowning and definitely troubled as well. "You're one of the few people in this town I truly trust, after all. We've known each other for years, and Minako at Blossoms has gone back to 'normal' again, without the app."

She grunted. "There were several visions, but ... one of them, I was fighting a whole group of people. I am not sure 'how,' but I knew that they were triads... a chinese gang. I was apparently fighting a gang to save someone from them."

"I met a girl with that name on the beach..." Probably the same young woman, which would kind of be a downer.

"I've only had a few so far, and none like that..." That sounded kind of bad, though.

She blinked and then tapped her head. "Sorry... Mikoto. I've been dealing with too many people, too many memories, though Minako is a sweet girl." She coughed. "Sorry about confusing you there if you knew her."

But back to the visions, she grunted. "Anyway, there was a spat of them, recently, that sort of changed my feelings. Before, they were creepy and a little weird. I kissed this Kirika girl in my visions, but everything felt disjointed, unclear. Right up until the last trio. It's not making sense yet, but there's a disturbingly violent side to her, and she's extremely good at what she does. And, when I say extremely good... I mean that she could probably kill six armed men bearing down on her with guns, using only a couple throwing knives. It was like watching a hong kong action flick, only I was the star."

(OOC: Sorry, Minako was a typo. Mikoto is her boss who has since dropped.)

"Oh, right..."

"Kirika? Who's that? Anyway, it's not you, is it? You're not someone that could hurt anyone for any reason."

"She is the girl that I took the fork from at the tea party, who I then kissed in another of the visions," Chloe explained, shaking her head soberly. "Mireille is the blonde that she follows around, who pulled a gun on me. And I do not think that I am either, but with the changes to my body, it feels very strange to move like she does."

"At least you have a name to go with her... My silver haired maid...? I do not know her name."

"It took several visions before I truly learned it," she admitted. "But not knowing would drive me even more mad under the circumstances. It would just be impossible to deal with, not knowing who she is supposed to be, and I'm sorry you still don't."

"I see... I suppose I'll find out in time." She wasn't at all sure how to feel about this mysterious maid...

"You probably will. As much as I want all of this to simply end, you probably are going to see more of them in time. But it is what it is, and I will figure out a way to cope with it." Eleanor had had some good advice, even if risky advice all the same. Take what she liked and leave the rest sounded good on paper, but it was a slippery slope and Chloe knew it. "But, to the point, I've seen the girl kill people, and saw her shoot someone to jog their memories back. I can't say whether I think she is a horrible person, or just someone doing an unpleasant but needed job." she wasn't going to say that the other Chloe was a good person, even if it had been the triad she was killing.

Well, Émi wouldn't exactly call killing good herself...

"This girl sounds... scary, to be honest. You're anything but, I'm sure of it."

Most people would not, even people forced to do it to protect others. "She feels scary, yes, and thank you for saying that. I like to pride myself on not actually being the sort of frightening person you'd rather not meet in a dark alley."

You know, ignoring the fact that a lot of days she wore a cloak and carried knives around in her back pockets. No, she wasn't scary at all.

Émi would suggest hanging up that cloak. What does a florist need with one, after all?

"I may be a bit biased, I must admit..."

Eh, fuck it. She liked the cloak. It was a fashion statement. A terrible fashion statement, but she really liked it. It made it hard to read her emotions at times with how much it covered her, and since they roiled a lot, that was helpful right now.

"You are, but ... it says something that this is how my friends remember me. You remember me as a florist, as a sweet girl, not as this ... Noir. And I am grateful to you for that fact."

That's some fashion statement, one that Émilie wishes Chloe would leave at home...

"And a florist is how I will introduce you as..."

"I prefer that, to ... well, whatever it is that the other girl did for a living. Besides stabbing chinese gang members," she said, shaking her head. "But to the point of why I brought you here. The memories, disturbing as they are, are bad. But, I am beginning to think we need to investigate more, and we cannot do this the normal way. They have that already covered, no?"

"Yes. How are we going to go about it?" She's wondering how much could be hidden from Retrospec...

"I want to find somewhere that I can get into, somewhere that might still have information, but that wouldn't be completely cleansed. Maybe the library or somewhere similar to it, old stacks." There might be a possibility in that. "It has to be somewhere most wouldn't look to find information right now. But first, we need to find people that we trust enough to do this with. Send messages by notes, perhaps in code?"

"Notes might work..." She wasn't sure about in code, but that could work too, couldn't it? In any case enlisting help from trustworthy people also on the app.

"I must say, all this is quite the distraction from the goings on in the rest of the world..."

"A simple substitution code. It would be something that they can figure out, but we're not spies," she explained, shaking her head. "I might even look for some of those old-fashioned decoder rings. It would be a way to accomplish this after all."

She smirked and winked at her. "It is, but it is meant to be more than a distraction, hopefully."

"Hmm... Who do you know who can help?"

"Several," she admitted. The list of people capable of helping wasn't exactly short. "There was a man the other day named Goro, interested. But normally I'd say that Arlene, Eleanor, Officer Togusa, Dave and a few others would all be good choices to call on. The problem isn't finding capable people, but deciding if all of them should be called on."

"Ah, I've spoken to Officer Togusa before. As far as American cops go, he is quite decent." Émilie has a low opinion of US police, mostly the small town ones, however.

"He seems competent even if his hands are tied a lot, much to his frustration," she agreed. Frankly, she didn't have a very high opinion of US Law or police either, but she tried to be respectful when she could. "He and those with him do seem to be trying to mount a case, though they are working in the light... and I don't know that we will ever find the answers there."

"Retrospec are... very much in the shadows." She's not sure with his way would even work...

"Not only that, but they make it so that the others who walk in the light without the app are in our way," Chloe frowned. "They make it harder to learn anything so I don't think legal, or normal for that matter, are the ways to go."

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Trial Run (Closed)

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