Too Many Plans
Jul. 30th, 2013 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aaaaaaaagh_skyWell.
That had gone… interestingly.
What Ellen didn't know about Desmond Lockheart could fill a Vault, she was sure. What she didn't know about this Professor Calvert could fill an even bigger one. They both gave the impression of being fairly awful people, and she wished that she'd never stumbled into their conflict. As far as she was concerned it was something they should have been left to sort out between themselves.
Unfortunately, there were Whydah and Morgan involved. Calvert had said they were alive. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was lying. She didn't know. But he had no reason to care whether she thought they were alive or not, so why would he-
(Unless psychic domination also allowed him to read thoughts at a distance. Which was a possibility. Who knew what that machine was if it wasn't a holoprojector?)
And Desmond, well- Desmond seemed to know enough about Calvert without being prompted for her to assume that he was giving her at least some measure of the truth. At least about what Calvert was capable of, and what he wasn't capable of. It wasn't as if the tribals were in any kind of condition to be ideal allies. Surely Calvert would have used any other resource in the world instead if he could have, right? Did that mean he was really as limited as Desmond said? Did he have more capability that he was holding in reserve?
At any rate, the way she saw it, Calvert had a pretty good chance of actually holding Whydah and Morgan prisoner. (Unless he could read her thoughts and make references to them off hand to lull her into a false sense of security.) (Unless he'd actually killed them already.) (Unless he was in the process of extracting their brains to put them into robot bodies, the way Desmond had said.)
Agh. Some days Ellen wished she hadn't found out just how many liars there really were in the world. Trying to pick her way through all of the possible half-truths and manipulations gave her a headache.
She reached up with one gloved hand to rub at her temple. She had Desmond's word for the situation, and what might have been the word of a hologram of a disembodied brain or might have been the word of a psychic projection of a disembodied brain, and no real way of sorting out whether she could trust Desmond properly or not- and no way of finding the brain without trusting Desmond. What she had was a box that should cripple the professor's psychic efforts (which were real enough, if the frustration she'd heard when he'd tried to talk sense into Jackson was anything to go by), and a walled compound to mount it in.
Getting in there in the Chinese stealth suit (honestly, it was kind of creepy the way both the brain and Desmond recognized its origin on sight) was possible. Getting to the highest point without someone spotting the blur of the stealth field was… somewhat less likely. She'd gotten away with it in the Pitt because nobody had thought her patch of distorted air meant anything beyond a little problem with their eyes. With these tribals trying to transcend earthly existence with all the chems they could muster, she was in real danger of a Toad scenario repeating itself. Oh, sure, she didn't have to talk to whoever spotted the 'spirit', but what guarantee did she have that they wouldn't decide she was a hostile entity? Or that- and she wished the idea hadn't occurred to her- or that Professor Calvert hadn't told Jackson that he'd sent the person in the suit after their hated enemy, and what the suit might be capable of? True, it was Jackson and he'd probably misinterpret every word, but-
Well. There was one other option. The gatekeeper had sent her off to the Sacred Bog to get them their stupid seeds, and he'd only ever seen her in her power armor. If an armored figure came back to them with a bag full of punga seeds and said 'I've done your ritual, let me in', they'd have no reason to connect the event to Toad's little epiphany with the invisible. And it would give her the opportunity to find whoever it was that was performing brain surgery on these people, now that she thought about it, since whoever it was would probably be on the lookout for the gatekeeper's latest postulant…
Hm. Brain surgery. If what Desmond had said was true, maybe this person was another of Calvert's associates. Where one ghoul existed for two centuries, there could just as easily be two.
Well- she'd find out soon enough who and what she was dealing with. First things first. She had to go change back into her armor, and then she had to find the tribals' compound again so she could ask the gatekeeper for directions to this Sacred Bog. Lots of marshes had a west, after all.
That had gone… interestingly.
What Ellen didn't know about Desmond Lockheart could fill a Vault, she was sure. What she didn't know about this Professor Calvert could fill an even bigger one. They both gave the impression of being fairly awful people, and she wished that she'd never stumbled into their conflict. As far as she was concerned it was something they should have been left to sort out between themselves.
Unfortunately, there were Whydah and Morgan involved. Calvert had said they were alive. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was lying. She didn't know. But he had no reason to care whether she thought they were alive or not, so why would he-
(Unless psychic domination also allowed him to read thoughts at a distance. Which was a possibility. Who knew what that machine was if it wasn't a holoprojector?)
And Desmond, well- Desmond seemed to know enough about Calvert without being prompted for her to assume that he was giving her at least some measure of the truth. At least about what Calvert was capable of, and what he wasn't capable of. It wasn't as if the tribals were in any kind of condition to be ideal allies. Surely Calvert would have used any other resource in the world instead if he could have, right? Did that mean he was really as limited as Desmond said? Did he have more capability that he was holding in reserve?
At any rate, the way she saw it, Calvert had a pretty good chance of actually holding Whydah and Morgan prisoner. (Unless he could read her thoughts and make references to them off hand to lull her into a false sense of security.) (Unless he'd actually killed them already.) (Unless he was in the process of extracting their brains to put them into robot bodies, the way Desmond had said.)
Agh. Some days Ellen wished she hadn't found out just how many liars there really were in the world. Trying to pick her way through all of the possible half-truths and manipulations gave her a headache.
She reached up with one gloved hand to rub at her temple. She had Desmond's word for the situation, and what might have been the word of a hologram of a disembodied brain or might have been the word of a psychic projection of a disembodied brain, and no real way of sorting out whether she could trust Desmond properly or not- and no way of finding the brain without trusting Desmond. What she had was a box that should cripple the professor's psychic efforts (which were real enough, if the frustration she'd heard when he'd tried to talk sense into Jackson was anything to go by), and a walled compound to mount it in.
Getting in there in the Chinese stealth suit (honestly, it was kind of creepy the way both the brain and Desmond recognized its origin on sight) was possible. Getting to the highest point without someone spotting the blur of the stealth field was… somewhat less likely. She'd gotten away with it in the Pitt because nobody had thought her patch of distorted air meant anything beyond a little problem with their eyes. With these tribals trying to transcend earthly existence with all the chems they could muster, she was in real danger of a Toad scenario repeating itself. Oh, sure, she didn't have to talk to whoever spotted the 'spirit', but what guarantee did she have that they wouldn't decide she was a hostile entity? Or that- and she wished the idea hadn't occurred to her- or that Professor Calvert hadn't told Jackson that he'd sent the person in the suit after their hated enemy, and what the suit might be capable of? True, it was Jackson and he'd probably misinterpret every word, but-
Well. There was one other option. The gatekeeper had sent her off to the Sacred Bog to get them their stupid seeds, and he'd only ever seen her in her power armor. If an armored figure came back to them with a bag full of punga seeds and said 'I've done your ritual, let me in', they'd have no reason to connect the event to Toad's little epiphany with the invisible. And it would give her the opportunity to find whoever it was that was performing brain surgery on these people, now that she thought about it, since whoever it was would probably be on the lookout for the gatekeeper's latest postulant…
Hm. Brain surgery. If what Desmond had said was true, maybe this person was another of Calvert's associates. Where one ghoul existed for two centuries, there could just as easily be two.
Well- she'd find out soon enough who and what she was dealing with. First things first. She had to go change back into her armor, and then she had to find the tribals' compound again so she could ask the gatekeeper for directions to this Sacred Bog. Lots of marshes had a west, after all.