zerotohiro | Some Legends Are Told, Some Turn To Dust Or To Gold [CEREALIA INBOX]

Have you tried to discard it?

Every time I leave it somewhere, it keeps finding me in another room. Yours doing the same? [Considering what he knows of the masks now, he's very wary of these things. He'll get around to explaining it to Adelina soon.]

Yes, that's correct. Is there anything else strange about your mask?

I grabbed the thing this morning to run some tests on it and I found something a little weird on the backside of it. Do you know what a barcode is?

No, I don't. Did your tests uncover anything?

See that's the part I don't get. --oh wait let me...[Give him a second and soon the call switches from audio to video. He's flipping the mask around and showing her the glowing barcode printed right on the mask in the back.]

So this is a barcode. In our world and a couple of other worlds it's a picture that represents a bunch of data that's assigned to one specific thing. If you go to the stores here a lot of the things have barcodes, that's how clerks know how much each item costs. What I don't get is why this barcode isn't attaching itself to anything.

[she looks at the barcode, curious, before switching the feed back to voice]

Perhaps it's only a symbol designed to look like what you're describing? I don't know why such a thing would happen, of course, but...

That's not the only weird thing going on with the masks. It might just be there for show, it's pretty light. But a friend of mine brought me his mask he got from the fortune teller so we could check it out. It did some pretty weird stuff.

Tell me something. Things that are broken don't automatically fix themselves back up after that, do they?

Perhaps they're magic, and that's why strange things are happening to them? Some of them did originate from a woman who claimed she could see our futures, after all.

There's technology and there's supernatural but magic's pretty low on the list of things that happen in this colony. We cut the whole thing into pieces and it reformed by the end of the day except for one solitary crack.

[...though there's a question.] You didn't tell me what your mask looks like.

It's covered in blood that won't seem to wash off. It's rather inconvenient.

[so nonchalant.]

What do you think it might mean that it reformed?

Edited (i forgot the second part go me) 2016-02-07 03:33 (UTC)

Blood. You're sure it's blood? Whose blood is it? [Hold it.] I mean you probably don't know that part but it just showed up like that?

As for reforming...all I can say for sure is that it has some kind of sentience to it. And that definitely isn't a good thing.

It could be artificial in some way, but it's obviously meant to resemble blood, at the very least. Would you like to test it to see if it's real blood?

You mean to say that these masks are capable of thought?

If you wouldn't mind actually that's not a bad idea. I can probably throw together enough stuff for a make-shift forensics kit. [Don't ask him how he obtains things, Addie. It's a long story.]

I mean to say they might very well be alive somehow. Especially since they're able to move around and float on their own.

You live with Tadashi, correct? I can be there shortly.

You think the mask itself might be bleeding?

Yes, and possibly. [A pause.] Wait you know where our apartment is?

Oh - no, that's right, I came to his workshop instead of where the two of you dwell. I'm afraid I don't.

The workshop might be easier. We work in the same building but we have different shops...and all of my tools and stuff are there. I can meet you there in fifteen minutes? [An inventory of his home lab shows he doesn't have exactly everything he wants on-hand anyway.]

Of course. I'll be there shortly.

See you soon. [And he'll disconnect the call.

Roughly fifteen minutes later she'll find him at the tech shop, waiting outside with a small red rolling suitcase at his feet and waiting for her. When he spots her, he grins slightly even though his expression's quasi-grim.

And, of course, that mask is following right over his shoulder.] Adelina!

Hello, Hiro.

[she waves as well, offering him a smile even as the mask covered in a thin layer of blood trails behind her. she steps aside so he can glimpse it.]

You see? It's rather strange.

[He manages to keep his eyes on her for a bit at least before he finds himself staring right at the mask.]

"Strange" is putting it pretty lightly. How long has it been like that?

Several hours, perhaps? I spoke to a few other people, and one of them said that their mask had bloody fingerprints on it, but it wasn't completely covered like this one is.

Fingerprints huh? [That's a new one. But he turns and gestures for her to follow him inside as he leads her through the space back to his personal workshop. His mask happily follows along while Hiro rolls the suitcase behind him.] Who'd you speak to, if you don't mind me asking?

[she follows after, and the bloody mask does as well.]

I don't mind, of course. Rock Lee said his had bloody fingerprints. Alice's had a frowning expression, and yours had a barcode... It's all very peculiar.

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice -> video;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice -> action;

action;

action;

action;

action;

action;