Private Edge of the Abyss

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

"Can do." He said it while he was taking the woman there for a moment. He was moving as the trek was easier once they were getting into the city further into the island. Aya was looking at her as she spoke. "It will be fine, Kono will want to know somethings but the beauty of being lost and desperate we can claim trauma to avoid having to explain everything all at once." She said it while she was looking over some parts of it and they would be better able to present it." She said it while she was going and looked. "Seastone go and find us a ship in case, we'll use some of our contacts." That got a nod as the twi'lek was going off and Aya continued leading the way through. "WOrse case scenario I call in a favor and we can get a boat on credit."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana was quite happy to let Aya lead the way through the city, particularly now that their surroundings looked increasingly like somewhere people actually lived rather than another stretch of wilderness waiting to produce a new variety of predator. The suggestion that they could invoke trauma to delay Kono's inevitable interrogation earned a small smile. "I don't even think we'd have to pretend." After everything that had happened, needing some time before recounting the entire experience seemed perfectly reasonable. "Although I suspect eventually he's going to realize all of us are using the same excuse and start separating us so he can compare stories."

She watched Seastone disappear on her assignment, then turned back toward Aya at the mention of getting a boat on credit. That word caught Ana's attention immediately. Credit itself wasn't concerning. Favors, however, had an unfortunate tendency to come with terms that weren't written anywhere.

"On credit?" Ana repeated, giving Aya a curious look. "At what cost?" There was no accusation in the question, merely caution. "Because if you mean credits later, that's one thing. If you mean the sort of credit where somebody gives us a boat today and six months from now reminds you that you owe them a favor, I feel like I've learned enough recently to ask what the favor is before getting aboard."

Ana continued alongside the others, glancing toward Mistral with a faintly amused expression. "I would very much like to get home, but preferably without discovering we've accidentally committed ourselves to another adventure in exchange for transportation." She considered that for a moment before adding, "Especially since Aya has apparently decided adventures are what make life worth living. That makes me deeply suspicious of any debt she considers reasonable."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

Mistral looked at her for a moment and gave a nod. "While I agree, for the moment we do not have many options. We have to be patient and wait it out to see what might happen." He said it with a look on his face before he was moving with them and the pathway to the hospital was nice and paved. The trees trimmed while there was an alcove and Aya looked at it. "Hmmm old." She said it and looked for a moment while sniffing it. "But still being used, no one has worshipped the old gods forr thousands of years." Mistral was looking at it so he didn't stumble as the hospital was small with a look over everythign that they could do when Aya was rushing ahead to start filling things out.

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana accepted Mistral's answer with a quiet nod. He was right that there wasn't much point in worrying about the price of a favor before they even knew whether one would be necessary. Waiting wasn't particularly satisfying, but they had spent enough time dealing with immediate problems that she could manage patience for a little while. Besides, the paved path beneath her feet, trimmed trees, and buildings ahead were already a considerable improvement over most of the places they'd been walking lately.

She slowed when Aya did, watching her approach the alcove with growing curiosity. The sniffing in particular earned a puzzled look from Ana. She glanced toward Mistral as though he might have some idea what Aya was doing, then back toward the older woman when she mentioned the old gods. "What exactly are you doing?" she asked, more curious than concerned. "And how can you tell somebody is still using it?" Nothing about the alcove meant much to Ana on its own, and ancient religious practices were very far removed from anything she knew enough about to guess.

The fact that people apparently still used something associated with gods nobody had openly worshipped for thousands of years was interesting, but Ana's attention soon returned to Mistral and the woman he was carrying. Whatever mystery Aya had just discovered wasn't going anywhere, while the hospital was finally within reach. Ana continued alongside them, relieved when Aya hurried ahead to deal with the necessary forms rather than leaving them all standing around trying to work out what came next.

As they approached the small hospital, Ana glanced back once toward the alcove before looking ahead again. "I feel like I've accumulated enough mysteries for one trip that I'm allowed to leave that one unexplained for a little while." A faint smile appeared as she looked toward Mistral. "Right now I'm much more interested in seeing what happens when we finally put someone who actually knows medicine in charge of the injuries."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

"The dead fish is a fishaway, if it is in use that is strange. Most barely rremember the old gods or less remember the rituals. Giving a catch to the gods was important since it was your food and it had more value at the time as opposed to just riches and excess." She =said it and going inside she was looking. "It was also for calm seas, bountiful catches and to not have sickness from ill prepared food." Which Mistral was looking at and that could be beneficial for all of them if they were going good about it.

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana glanced back toward the alcove as Aya explained the significance of the dead fish, and suddenly the earlier sniffing made considerably more sense. It wasn't simply something left behind or discarded. Someone had deliberately sacrificed part of their catch according to a ritual that apparently should have disappeared thousands of years ago. "All right, that is a little strange," she admitted. "Not necessarily the fish itself, but somebody knowing enough to put it there for the right reason."

The reasoning behind the offering was easier for Ana to understand than the belief itself. Food would have mattered far more to people who depended upon the sea for survival than some decorative object or pile of credits. Giving up something necessary carried a kind of weight that sacrificing something abundant didn't. She could appreciate the logic, even if she didn't share the faith behind it. "I don't really believe in gods," Ana admitted as she continued alongside the others. There was no judgment in the statement, simply an acknowledgment of where she stood. "But giving up part of what kept you alive because you believed it might help protect everyone the next time they went out? I can understand why that would have meant something to people."

She glanced toward Mistral and caught the thoughtful look on his face before a hint of amusement touched hers. "And before anyone suggests we should have done this before taking that boat through everything we just survived, I'm going to point out that nobody told me there was a ritual for calm seas." After storms, murderous seaweed, questionable food, and everything else the ocean had provided, the list Aya described sounded almost suspiciously tailored to their recent experience.

Ana looked back toward the old alcove once more before continuing toward the hospital. Whoever had left the offering clearly believed enough to remember something nearly everyone else had forgotten, and that was perhaps more interesting to her than whether the gods themselves existed. "I'd be curious who taught them," she said. "Thousands of years is a long time for a ritual to survive if almost nobody even remembers what it means anymore."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

"It is too long, most of the old gods were dangerous and it was less to honor then appease them. THis has been sitting out in the heat so it is rotten which makes it stranger." She was looking at it though as she went further and further into the hospital. THe droids were still there and functioning as Aya motioned for Mistral and they grabbed a repulsor gurney and laid the woman out. Mistral freeing himself at least as he spoke. "Hello?" There wasn't anything there for the moment and he was looking at Aya. "There are people here right?" She gave a nod of her head. "There should be the droid said everythign was fine."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana's curiosity about the offering followed her only as far as the hospital doors. The absence of people became considerably more noticeable there. She stepped aside while Mistral and Aya transferred the woman onto the repulsor gurney, relieved to see her settled somewhere more appropriate than being carried through the streets, but Mistral's unanswered greeting made Ana glance farther down the empty corridor.

"The droids seem to think so," she said, looking toward the nearest medical unit. Unlike Aya's old gods, machines were something Ana understood. She moved closer to one of the functioning droids, studying its indicators, movements, and responses rather than interfering with whatever medical routines it was performing. Nothing about it immediately suggested a fault. Its motions were precise, status indicators normal, and it wasn't repeating itself or showing the hesitation she would expect from corrupted instructions or failing hardware.

"I don't think the droids are malfunctioning," Ana said after watching for another moment. "At least, not obviously. They seem to be operating normally." That made the quiet hospital somewhat stranger, not less. If the automated systems believed everything was fine, then perhaps there was an ordinary explanation for why nobody had appeared yet.

Ana looked toward Aya and Mistral, then down the corridor again. "Maybe the staff are somewhere else in the building?" she offered. "I can check whether there's a directory or reception terminal that tells us where we're supposed to go." That, at least, was something she could actually help with without pretending she knew anything about medicine.

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

Mistral finished with the one and the wookie with the other. The gurney having synth flesh as they affixed a coverings and seal to staunch the blood once they took the binding off of it and she was noticeably paler in her skins pallor. Mistral looking over more for the moment. Aya was checking and Seastone came in finding them as she narrowed her eyes. "SOmething strange is outside." She said it and looked. "I figured we would see someone but no people just the droids around the marina and some of the foot paths for boats." SHe gave a look for a moment until she was standing with Aya as Mistral was looking around. "If the droid is functioning normally then it might be literal in everything is fine for itself."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana's attention lingered on the woman as the binding came away, and the change in her complexion was enough to make Ana uneasy even without any real medical knowledge. At least the hospital equipment was doing something useful. The synth-flesh covering and seal looked considerably more reassuring than what they had been forced to rely upon before, and Ana tried to take some comfort from that. "Well, at least we're not on a moving boat anymore," she said quietly. "She can stay somewhere stable now and hopefully actually start recovering instead of being carried from one disaster to the next."

Seastone's arrival drew her attention away from the gurney. Hearing that the marina and paths were just as empty as the hospital made the silence harder to explain away. Ana frowned slightly. "So it isn't just the hospital." She had hoped the staff was simply elsewhere in the building, but an apparently functioning settlement with droids going about their routines and no people visible anywhere was considerably stranger.

Mistral's observation made her look back toward the medical droid. "That's possible. I was looking at whether it was functioning properly, not whether its definition of 'fine' matched ours." Machines could be frustratingly literal without being broken. If its diagnostics showed no faults and whatever conditions it was programmed to monitor remained within acceptable limits, then as far as the droid was concerned, everything genuinely could be fine.

Ana glanced between Aya, Seastone, and Mistral before looking down the empty corridor again. "I can see if one of the terminals has anything useful on it. A staff schedule, recent activity, messages, even the last time somebody actually used the system." That was finally a mystery she had some chance of contributing to. "I'm not going to start digging into anything protected, but there might be enough ordinary information to tell us whether everyone disappeared five minutes ago or whether this place has been running on droids for days."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

THere was a moment and Mistral gave a nod of his head. "Sounds good." He was motioning with Aya to move the gurney's for the two while going around. "We can set up at a station and hopefully it is just a staff meeting... a very awkward staff meetingthat has everyone attending a town hall somewhere." He said it while he was going and looked at Aya. "So what do you know about this island?" SHe was moving and got to the nurses station while opening it up to push the gurney's in. "Not much, it is close enough to the dark islands but opposite then anyone wants to go. Almost the last area you would reach before going itno the open sea and towards what were at the time the far shores. Now it is just a transport away."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana was perfectly content to let Mistral and Aya handle the gurneys while she finally gravitated toward something she understood. Once they reached the nurses' station, she slipped behind the counter and woke one of the terminals, giving the system a few moments to respond before doing anything more intrusive. "All right, let's see how normal you think today is." She started with whatever ordinary information the hospital made available to its staff, looking for schedules, recent activity, admissions, or anything else that might explain why a functioning hospital appeared to have misplaced every living person working in it. For once, sitting in front of a computer felt wonderfully familiar.

Mistral's hopeful explanation earned a small smile. "I would happily accept the galaxy's most inconveniently scheduled staff meeting as the answer." Ana glanced toward the rooms beyond the nurses' station and then back at him. "Actually, while I'm checking this, see if you can find a comm unit. Hospitals usually have one in every patient room, or at least something nearby for contacting reception and outside services. If the local network is working, maybe the communications are too." It would also give Mistral something useful to look for without separating him far from the injured woman.

Aya's description of the island made Ana pause briefly over the terminal. "So we're basically at what used to be the edge of nowhere, except technology made the nowhere considerably easier to reach." She looked around at the empty hospital again, then looked back at the screen. "That somehow explains both a lot and absolutely nothing about why nobody seems to be here."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

Aya looked at her. "Just one of the many mysteries of the sea, in old times colonies would go missing all of the time, sometimes overnight. With nothing there except maybe a word or all of their stuff." She said it as Mistral was going and looking in some of the rooms. Aya checking the screens while she looked it over. "Looks like transponders have them near the interior of the island." She was touching the screen and tapping for the bio signs. "This is us here, the largest concentration is here, near the old mines." She said it as Mistral was coming back and looked at it one of the comunicators. "THe rooms have them but it is just connecting me to the nurses station."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana stayed at the nurses' station while Mistral checked the rooms, working through the usual hospital systems before trying anything deeper. What she didn't find was almost as interesting as what Aya had. No obvious emergency notices, evacuation orders, lockdown warnings, or staff messages told everyone to assemble somewhere else. Nothing on the display suggested the hospital had closed unexpectedly either. As far as the mundane administrative side of the system was concerned, no explanation sat there waiting for her.

Aya's mention of the transponders drew Ana away from her own screen. She leaned over enough to see what Aya was indicating, following the concentration of signals toward the island's interior. "Near the old mines?" Her expression tightened slightly. The story about colonies disappearing overnight had sounded like exactly the sort of cheerful historical fact Aya enjoyed sharing at the worst possible moment. Finding most of the island's population gathered somewhere around abandoned mines immediately afterward did nothing to improve it. "So they haven't vanished, at least. They've all apparently decided to go to roughly the same place."

When Mistral returned with the communicator, Ana glanced from it toward the nurses' station. "That sounds like an internal line. It's probably doing exactly what it's supposed to do, unfortunately." She looked back toward the terminal in front of her. "I'm not finding anything here explaining why the staff left. No evacuation notice, no emergency alert, nothing telling them to report somewhere else." That left Aya's transponder information as their best indication of where everyone had gone, and Ana studied the display again. "Does it show whether they all moved there recently, or only where they are now? Because an entire town being near old mines is strange enough. Everyone going there at once would be stranger."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

Mistral was looking at parts of it and he shrugged a little. "Other cases I would say in case of an emergency. Depending on who made the mines,s ome of then are reinforced and designed to handle stress from an attack, some of them have their own filtration systems and power allowing them to be sealed in there is a viral attack. The risk of poisons in the air can be real in a warzone but there are usually more signs of such a thing." Aya was looking at him and she shook her head. "There isn't a time table but it is a displacement." She pointed to the screen for Ana and the others." Over here is a small lake that has geothermal vents, the runoff of it is pure poison if you inhale it but it is trapped under the water by a layer of cold but during storms if a large enough rock can fall in it the layer gets displaced and the gas will escape and poison an area usually for a few hours."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana listened to Mistral's explanation while looking over the display Aya had indicated. An emergency shelter made considerably more sense than an entire population spontaneously deciding to spend the day around an old mine, particularly if the tunnels had been reinforced and equipped to isolate themselves from outside air. "So the mines might not be where whatever happened started. They might just be where everyone went to get away from it." That distinction made the concentration of transponders considerably less ominous, although it raised the much more immediate question of what had driven them there.

Aya supplied a possible answer before Ana could ask. Her eyes followed the woman's finger from the lake toward the displaced area on the display, and her expression changed as the explanation sank in. "Pure poison," she repeated. "And we walked in here wondering why nobody was outside." Ana glanced instinctively toward the hospital entrance before looking back at Aya. She couldn't smell or sense whether something dangerous was in the air, and she wasn't about to guess based on the fact that none of them had collapsed yet. "Would the droids even consider that an emergency if they're not affected by it? That might explain why everything automated is carrying on as if nothing happened."

She looked toward Mistral, then back at the two injured women. At least they were inside now, and the hospital itself had presumably been built with the environmental hazards of the island in mind. Ana turned her attention to the terminal again, this time with a much more specific idea of what she was looking for. "If this happens often enough for people here to know what to do, there might be an environmental monitor connected to the hospital system. Air quality, atmospheric warnings, something like that." She began looking through the ordinary displays rather than trying to force her way into anything restricted. "I'd feel considerably better knowing what the air outside actually looks like before any of us decide to go wandering toward those mines."

Mistral

 

[Mistral]

Ana Rix

Aya looked at her. "At the time of it sure, if it happened like that then it would have been dangerous for a handful of hours and then the wind would have spread and disperse it. If it isn't in a large enough concentration and has enough room to expand it isn't going to be nearly as dangerous. It would just make you a little woozy or light headed eventually and then nothing after that but it would have been something to get away from and then try to wait it out." Aya said it as Mistral was looking around a little more but he had returned with a smaller medical kit as he grabbed a rebreathed. "In case, we can search around but so far the droids just seem to be going about their day."