@stephen.strange

[rehandle]

I believe I've been gone. I'm back. Update me.

Comments

@leo.fitz

[retravel]

Nice of you to ring.

[ "asshole" ]

[rehandle]

Who knew you'd miss me.

[retravel]

I wouldn't go that far.
How's your chest?

[rehandle]

The telltale ache. Had any other disappearances while I've been gone?

[retravel]

[ He sends one link to Kara's post about disappearing, and Jason's post about one of his own going missing. ]

@ciri.lla from the first wave recently stopped responding to messages.

[ His heart aches over that one. ]

@vanessa.ives has returned after the longest disappearance to date.
@gaby likely knows better than we do re: the overall numbers.

[ as their hostess with the mostess. ]

[rehandle]

[ those links are opened for reading between responses but - ah. ciri. the woman who saw too much in their very first days here.

vanessa surprises him equally as much, in reverse. ]

Sorry to hear it. And thanks for the thorough information.

No more city-wide catastrophes?

[retravel]

You picked a halfway decent time for a nap, Strange.

[ "you're welcome" ]

There was a gaudy "ball" in the underground caves, used as a screen for the last drop-off, which our resident technological oracle discovered uncharacteristically late.
It would seem as though our kidnappers are refining their act.

[rehandle]

Time is my forte.

I suppose from now on we just have to assume that if anything remotely unusual is happening, we're either going to need more beds or more med supplies.

[retravel]

You might have noticed before I did, but we've also lost @tony.stark

[ Hard to be sure of the precise dates of either of their disappearances, but they were in the vicinity of one another. Two of the heavy hitters, gone. ]

Couldn't agree more. No more from our side of the multiverse, however.

[rehandle]

[ ah, shit. Tony isn't back. ]

Again, yeah. If they bring a metal suit into play within the next few weeks at least we'll know whose brain they're mining.

Intake, you mean?

[retravel]

[ mining their brains... horrifying... ]

I’ll try to fit a nap in before then.
Losses, sorry. Intake to be decided. They’re still trickling in from the ball.

[ And he’s not gonna nark on the founder of SHIELD, but he doesn’t want to be caught in a lie to Strange, either, as his organisation’s most vocal representative. ]

[rehandle]

[ ah, good. he'd thought they were past trying to paint over reality with each other, and it appears he was right. coincidences really don't seem to be happening anymore, and he's curious - so no word is as much confirmation as he needs from fitz on this.

not that it really makes that much of a difference since he's bound to be introduced formally eventually, but it's nice to Know, you know ]

Wouldn't bother, you don't wake up feeling any more refreshed.

Feeling a little salty that a) you've missed a ball and b) somebody got to show up during a ball instead of an explosive street firefight maybe, but not refreshed.

@gaby

[vns]

24, by last count. Four are unconfirmed.

[ Aloy will be among them soon. she isn't yet. ]

[rehandle]

[ oh, hey

also: 24? that really doesn't bode well. ]

How are you tracking these? Is there a way of keeping tabs of active implants without making contact?

[vns]

Morningstar network access.

And my eyes. People don't move out right away.

[ so El + a headcount for anyone who doesn't access it regularly.

it's not foolproof. hence the lack of absolute confirmation on some. ]

[rehandle]

[ god damnit. living in the future, neural implants installed, and snapchat still had more effective tracking systems than they do. ]

Okay. Appreciate the help.

Out of curiosity, how many of us have you registered since all this started?

[ does he really want to know the percentage the disappeared make up? no. is he going to find out anyway? sure is. ]

[vns]

69.

[ there is a joke here but Gaby is not the type to make that joke. ]

[rehandle]

[ god ]

Not the best product recall rates.

[vns]

No.

Though let it be clear that I don't know that you are being recalled. All signs point to know.

Joke or not, I don't want to confirm that and let it feed through the grapevine that it's just that way. We don't know where you go.

@leo.fitz

[retravel]

Thanks for the update.
Do you send that information up the chain?

[ just out of curiosity. ]

[vns]

They know how many people have access to our safehouse.

[retravel]

Fair enough.
Any thoughts from up top or to the sides about our waxing and waning numbers?

[ Does it worry them? Do they think their numbers are growing too unwieldy despite the disappearances? Do they say anything back, when Gaby provides updates on their unstable assets? The inner workings of Morningstar are endlessly fascinating, in light of their decision to help this ragtag group of multiversal interlopers. ]

Or your perspective, for that matter, as the eyes and ears in our most frequented space.

[ Has she seen something that they haven't? ]

[vns]

If you're fishing for a clue, no one has one.

[ this is beyond anything Morningstar has ever dealt with, and it's fucking terrifying.

Gaby counts herself lucky that she's kept a cool head throughout all of this, but it's too much. ]

You're in my care. You disappear. Who knows where you go? What's going on?

We don't even know for sure that you aren't being brought in as a check up. That the walls in the safehouse are even doing their jobs.

That doesn't even touch on the superpowers and touchy feely bullshit whenever you hold hands.

So. No.

No answers. No suspicions. No ideas.

I advise you to keep looking.

[ she's not hopeless, per se, but fuck, if she hadn't been on shift that night? the night they all came in? now she gives a damn about these people, but they're frightening and needy and rightfully so because they got fucking stuck here. ]

[retravel]

[ You're in my care, she says, and he thinks he underestimated how much responsibility she feels for them. Ah. ]

I had to ask, but I appreciate your candor.

[ She helps narrow his focus. A check-up, a recall, an uncontrollable side effect. Still plenty to explore. ]

Katelin and I have implemented a check-in system on a trial basis. Maybe it'll catch on.

[ So they can see if any stretches of time go unaccounted for in smaller intervals and provide a faster means of clocking disappearances. He doesn't expect a comment on it; just thinks it's worth mentioning. ]

Regardless, I'll keep looking and report back.

[ to his fellow displaced and Morningstar both as Leo "throws theory-darts while blindfolded and spinning" Fitz. Over half his queries and ideas are dead ends, but he throws himself into each one all the same. ]

[vns]

I'll tell you one thing.

We've dealt with powerful people before. The scale of what's happened to you doesn't compare.

We're scrambling as best as we can while taking care of the systems already in place. We're trying.

[ it's a lot of vague bullshit, but she knows people don't trust them. she's seen it. Gaby isn't here to win people over.

but – this is a lot. it's a lot. ]