animus_network

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[After a long month spent gathering information, pouring over the guide to the Tower he found, and generally just trying to gather his bearings, Mello decides to turn to the network at long last. He never did like the idea of a completely solitary investigation.]

How's it going, Tower? Everyone been having fun? Great. Down to business.

First off, let me say that you're just about the craziest bunch of kidnapping victims I've ever had the displeasure of living with.

I mean, come on. Weddings? Birthday celebrations? I know that people have an innate need to try and make unmanageable situations as normal as possible, but surely there are better things you all could be doing with your time.

Now, this might come as a shock, but I'm not content to sit here and leave myself to the mercy of my kidnappers. I've already read that guide that some of you have put together, so don't bother explaining how dangerous the place is to me, or how there's no way out, or blah, blah, blah. However, if anyone has info on hand that hasn't yet been added to the guide, feel free to cough it up. If our hosts have allowed you to write up that guide in the first place, I'm sure they won't mind my asking for a little more elaboration, right?

Information is key, especially in a place where nothing seems to make sense. I fully intend to make use of it and find a way out. You're free to join me, if any of you are up for it.

All right, now time for a question.

I've heard that we all come from different worlds. That isn't normally something I'd believe, but since I've arrived here, I've seen a ton of strange things, so I'll bite. In the interest of finding out which "universe" I'm from, give me an answer: have any of you heard of a mass murderer named Kira? He kills people - criminals - with heart attacks. Just in case any of you are from one of those "alternate timelines" and Kira hasn't yet reared his ugly head, have any of you heard of a detective named L?

Regards.

-M

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[There's a long moment of blank feed and silence until the feed corrects itself and reveals a totally trashed area; bits of flowers and torn chiffon strewn about the terminal, chair, and some of the visible stacks in the library.

Nobody seems to be present, however.]

[Mello cocks his head, staring at the feed while running his tongue over a bar of chocolate. For the moment, he doesn't type or do anything. He's content to watch, half-wondering if this will turn into another freaky sight like the one he saw when the administrator video was leaked.]

[Instead he gets a white haired kid running into the scene.] Reno! Wha... [He looks at the feed and is silent a moment as he reads the text post his red eyes getting angrier as he does so.

Why does everyone try and spoil this? So what if it is insane, if getting married in a place where you might be forced to murder each other, or one of you might disappear forever, or then return with no memories, not even the same person.

Where their lives were so far out of their control that the small times of calm, of happiness, a birthday or a wedding was all they had. And why not get married? The odds of them escaping were so long, it might be defeatist but it was hard not to be when he had been here more than a year. What was wrong with two people wanting to get married, even in a place such as this.

Not even No. 6 had restricted marriages.]

What is wrong with you? Can't you just leave them alone? How long have you even be here? A week? A month? Have you been through the archives? Do you know how long some people have been here? Don't you think if there was a way out we'd have got out by now? Or did you just think we were stupid and you'd wander in here and free us all, be our savior. [Someone has been taking lessons from Reno, and Rat, on how to give scathing lectures.

Normally he'd never say anything like this. But you hurt Reno. No one gets to hurt Reno.]

[Oh, woah. All right. That's what this is about. Mello pops a crick in his neck, sticks his chocolate bar between his teeth, and begins to type, neither looking nor feeling any worse for the wear.]

Didn't know an offhand comment would cause so much stress. Forgive me for being a little too concerned with trying to figure out how to get out of this place to give proper consideration to everyone's feelings.

[Even through text, he does not sound sorry at all.]

[The boy on the screen seems to be even angrier, his hands are balled in fists and he seems to be concentrating on his breathing. It's probably a good job this is over the network.]

Well you should learn, we get hurt enough without hurting each other.

[He begins to clear up the mess, trying to find anything salvageable.]

[Mello wears away at his chocolate bar with his tongue, watching the white-haired boy move around on the screen. Truthfully, he didn't expect too much out of this post, but his attempts are crashing and burning far quicker than he'd expected.

He's going to need to re-think this.

Though he doubts the boy will pay much attention to him, he types up a quick reply.]

Hey, look, your friend's just in search of whatever happiness he can grab onto in this place, and he doesn't wanna hear any trash-talk. I get that. But that's not really the point I was trying to make.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not my style to sit around and pretend while the people in charge have God-knows-what planned for all of us. I'd just like to make up a plan of escape and put that on the fast track, all right?

[He's still not sorry.]

[Shion glances at the text quickly and reads it before going back to tidying. He's had enough arguments with stubborn people to know that arguing his point is useless and will just make him more angry. So he goes with what he knows best.

Facts. And by facts we mean babbling, as he continues to pick up ruined decorations] There are no openings in the tower until the eleventh floor, if you have looked out of any of the windows you would have seen that we are surrounded by a fog on the lower levels. This is no mere fog, if was described as a barrier by our captors, it shreds anything that passes through. A whale did manage to break through, with a lot of injuries to crash into a tower. A whale that was actually some kind of ship, carrying monsters. We are unaware if they are common in the outside world.

The administrators can control us, including our minds and bodies. They can turn us into monsters or force us to kill each other without even trying. They can kill at the press of a button though a few of them enjoy more creative means of torture.

There have been escape attempts, all which failed, and attempts to take over. Attempts to free people taken away from experiments. They all resulted in the death of those that attempted it. Death is not permament though after a while strange things seem to happen, things that our captors weren't prepared for. There is a group led by Zelda who are currently trying to form plans of escape and survival, a vast majority of the tower are members. So as you have seen we have not been sat around partying.

So far in the seventeen months of recorded tower history us captives have had one success against our captors, with help from another captor, and we cannot be sure if it was a true success or a trick to gain our trust.

[Mello stares at the screen, hanging on every word. He commits everything to memory, then spends a few moments trying to process all of the information he's been given. The news of a group formed with the intent to escape is comforting; if nothing else, it means that he won't have to go to the trouble of forming a group of his own to conspire with. He knows about the administrators' power to kill from reading it in the guide, and it isn't surprising, but the information about the fog is new.

However, it's that last bit that Mello finally decides to respond to. He darts his tongue out to lick melted chocolate from his lips, then switches to a voice feed. He figures it'll be more convenient for the both of them.]

What sort of success was it?

[It was easier, it meant that Shion didn't have to turn back to the terminal and could continue to tidy up, separating salvageable materials from things that were too damaged to be repaired.]

Last September Jason, one of our captors, experimented by swapping people's bodies. It was done using our collars and the coloured liquid held within. People woke up in the wrong body, and began to forget who they were. Another administrator, Dax, leaked a tape of one of these experiments giving the key to switching everyone back.

A couple of people still died, those that weren't swapped back in time, but for the most part everyone was back in their own body therefore cutting Jason's experiment short.

[He disappeared off camera for a moment, coming back with a box that he began putting the salvaged pieces into.] He rewarded us by cutting the food supply, it's not the first time that's happened. Luckily it was in September, and before that in June where there were foragable foods in the forest. Seeing as he happily turned off all heat sources last month it would not be too much of a jump that he would not hesitate to do the same even in Winter months where there is no alternative food to be found.

[Switching bodies? The colors of the liquid in their collars? Mello's hand comes up to scratch lightly at the skin around his collar, which is filled with yellow liquid. Orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, clear... Those are the ones he's seen, and he read about red-collared workers, but he's never seen them with his own eyes.]

If you're telling me the truth, then... No, I doubt you're lying. So, what did you figure out about the collars? There has to be some sort of pattern they follow when they put these things on us.

[And then there's the matter of the administrator that leaked the tape, Dax. While Jason is the one Mello's heard the most negative things about, Dax seems to be held in rather high regard. He supposes that, if he did something like that, it would be only natural for the people he was holding captive to think of him as a beacon of hope, but it doesn't sit right with Mello.

He speaks again, his voice a low mutter that barely makes it to the mic.] I see... So Dax is the good cop, and Jason is the bad one, huh?

[Yeah, he doesn't trust Dax even for a second, and he's never even met the guy.]

I'm not completely sure but it has to do with what powers we have. Those of us with orange collars have no magic or supernatural powers, wheras those with Violet do. But this isn't always the case.

[There was a few more moments of quiet while he took the completely destroyed pieces to the bin, before returning.] Early last year there was an experiment, or accident but I think it was most likely the former, where the liquid in our collars was mixed up. Mine. [He gestured to his orange collar] Turned Violet, I felt like there was a great weight on me, I couldn't move, talking was difficult and I feared that my body would just stop breathing.

Those who switched the other way reported that they felt lightheaded and their powers went out of control. So I believe there is more to it than just affecting and controlling any magic we may have.

It has to do with our powers...

[Mello's voice is nothing but a low mutter as he thinks this over. He's just a normal human, but he has a yellow collar. Could it be the Death Note? It's strange to think that a person's possessions could help determine what sort of fluid they need in their collars, but it's the only explanation he can think of. No matter how impressive his intellect, he doesn't think it would change his "ranking," so to speak, from orange to yellow.

He raises his voice to a more normal volume.]

If that's the case, then it might have to do with how much... Let me say "pressure." With how much pressure is required to keep our abilities in check? Yeah, if the violet ones who went to orange lost control of themselves, I'd say that's probably what it is.

The question now is, just what is the stuff in our collars that's keeping us all in check? And how is it affecting us from outside our bodies..?

I guess so yes, there was a time in June where we had no collar checkups, the liquid wasn't replaced, we got dizzy and light headed and I believe for those with powers their powers began going out of control.

I have no idea what it is now... but I believe it is going inside our bodies and not affecting us from the outside.

Inside..?

[Mello's hands fly back up to his collar, and he tries once again to squeeze his fingers underneath it. They slide around the edges and over the tubes flowing with liquid, but he can find no leeway. If the liquid is going inside their bodies, though, it would have to be through some sort of puncture wound, perhaps something like an IV. Is that what the collar check-ups he read about in the welcome notes are for? Replenishing a supply of liquid that's being slowly fed into their bloodstreams?

He doesn't like that idea at all. The very thought is enough to make his skin crawl, and a scowl falls over his face. He doesn't want some foreign substance inside his body, he doesn't want to imagine how the Death Note effects his status, and most of all, he doesn't want to be in this tower.

He tries to keep his voice even and measured, but there's a notable tremble in his tone when he speaks again. It's not at all scared, though; it's easy to tell that Mello is angry.]

How the hell are they getting this shit inside us? [He takes in a breath to try and calm himself (it doesn't work), and goes on.] That guide said that there's overwhelming evidence that taking these collars off will kill us. Do you know why?

I didn't see it myself. [It had happened just before he was given the Turk pin, when he had been drifting and barely living, not able to deal with what had happened after the labyrinth.] But Reno saw, over the network someone asked Jason to remove their collar, they died immediately, crumpling up like the pressure here was too much for them.

They did have puncture wounds around their neck, though as far as I could tell when I was in my dead world I wore no collar and my neck had no marks.

But it is difficult to tell truth from illusion here.

[Mello stares at the terminal like it's committed some grave transgression against him. His hands, which are hovering over his collar, are trembling lightly from barely-concealed anger. Anger at being held captive, anger at being collared up like a dog, anger at not knowing whether or not to trust this secondhand information from a complete stranger, but a stranger who's been here longer than he has.

Anger at the hopelessness he's starting to feel.]

Yeah, well, let's hope this is an illusion.

[Mello pauses for a minute, and it's a pregnant pause, as a million different things fight for attention in his mind. None of those thoughts make it to his mouth, however, and instead, he sits up from the terminal in a way that makes the chair slide noisily over the floor.]

I gotta go. I have some thinking to do.

[And he flicks off the voice feed without waiting for a response.]

[Shion blinked wondering what he had said to upset him. But he didn't try and contact him again, merely concentrated on finishing tidying up the mess, before going and searching for Reno.]

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