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ahgasescenarios · 4 years

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Corrupting the Innocent Pt. 4- Dong Sicheng

Word count: 1.8k

Genre: angst

Plot summary: In which (Y/N) decides to “help” innocent exchange student Sicheng win over his crush. Except she has ulterior motives and Sicheng is too clueless to notice.

If Sicheng was the first guy you had taken such a strong interest in, he was also the only one capable of making your stomach churn as it had after Rosé’s update on their date. You weren’t accustomed to guilt, but it was now marking its territory, making itself known to you. And you had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last you’d see of the emotion. Sicheng had been MIA after the date, you hadn’t heard as much as a peep from him since.

When you woke that morning, you pushed the covers back over your head and delayed reality for just a little while longer. You half-heartedly made your way to your solace, coffee. Your measured cup of comfort was gone before you knew it, warming up your insides on this cold, rainy day. You looked outside, a distant look about you. If someone were to look, they might say there was a tinge of nostalgia to your features. But nobody was looking.

It wasn’t the best day to be running errands, but here you were debating between two flavors of ramen noodles. After deliberation, kimchi was declared victorious and with a grocery bag full of goods, you walked back to your dorm, whistling absentmindedly.

“(Y/N).” You looked up at the call of your name, the sight of Sicheng baffling you. He looked different. More serious, if that was possible. His lips were pursed sternly as though he was a parent on the verge of grounding his child. His attire made him look a few years older than he was.

“Sicheng.” Was all you could muster up. He gestured for you to talk inside and you complied. Only when he was seated comfortably on your couch did he speak up.

“Sorry I haven’t been in touch; I needed some time to think.”

“Is everything okay?” You asked, putting away your groceries in the next room.

“Yeah, I just had some things I needed to deal with on my own.” He smiled. Not so genuinely.

“Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do.” And surprisingly enough, you meant it.

“Thanks. Hey, are you doing anything today?” He pondered.

“Not really. You?”

“Would you want to grab lunch with me?” You quirked an eyebrow but accepted the offer.

Once you had changed into nicer clothes, you let him guide the way to his favorite Chinese restaurant. He was glowing when you stepped inside like he was exactly where he was supposed to be at that moment. The smile Sicheng bore from ear to ear was telling enough as he ordered for the both of you in fluent Chinese. Not once did he indulge in small talk, Sicheng was one of the few people who asked questions and cared to hear the answer. And because you were in a good mood that day, you let yourself reveal more than you were usually comfortable sharing. The conversation had somehow floated back to your family history.

“Is that why you have trouble letting people in?” You were taken aback.

“I guess it is, I haven’t had great experiences with people so I tend to keep my guards up.” You forced a smile and he got the hint, moving on to a different subject.

The following weeks were spent mostly in the presence of Sicheng, venturing to different restaurants and locations to spend time together. You were comfortable around him and that was saying a lot for you. Maybe it was the way he seemed to understand without you having to utter a word, or maybe it was how getting to know him had unlocked an entirely different side of him that kept you wanting to know more. Whichever it was, your original plan had slowly faded into memory. The lessons had been put on hold indefinitely and when you pondered about his crush on Rosé, the most you got out of him was a shrug. It was a thing of the past, then.

Today’s “friend date” had taken the form of McDonald’s, a much-needed escape from the confines of your apartment. You felt so cooped up in there, a big, juicy BigMac was perhaps the only way to get you in a better mood. But you could tell something was off with Sicheng today, he seemed distant- almost as though he was keeping something from you. He walked you home uncharacteristically silent and you drifted into your thoughts, wondering what could be on your friend’s mind.

You were already inside, waiting to bid him goodbye when something came over him- maybe this was what he had been holding back before. His feet acted before his mind could protest, he grabbed your face between his hands and crashed his lips on yours. You reciprocated the kiss; you had taught him well. You thread your fingers in his hair, pulling only to deepen the kiss. His hands found your waist again and he pulled you towards him so your bodies were flush against each other.

“What did you do that for?”

“I wanted to.” He stated matter-of-factly. “You know, to practice.” He blurted out, but you didn’t buy it one bit. “Well, if it’s in the name of practice, I have another lesson for you.” You toyed with him, gauging how far he’d take this.

“Sit on the couch.”

He did, like an obedient puppy.

“Now that you’ve mastered kissing, I think it’s time you master making out, yeah?” He gulped as you made your way over to him.

“Yeah.” Was all the confirmation you needed before you straddled his waist, moving your hair to one side tantalizingly slow so he was watching your every move.

“Now, what you’ll want to do is either A) rest your hands here,” you moved his hands to your waist, “or B) here,” you moved his hands lower so they were a squeeze away from grabbing your ass. His eyes widened. You smirked back up at him as you got settled in his lap. His hands rested where you had left them, showing no signs of budging. B it was.

“And when you’re making out, there’s going to be more tongue, still good?” He nodded vehemently. Gee, someone was eager. And it wasn’t you, how the tables had turned.

You leaned in and he met you halfway, lips colliding in a heated kiss. You played with his hair while he didn’t shy away from grabbing your ass like you had instructed him to. He was even guiding your hips, so you were grinding him. You made out until you felt dizzy from the lack of oxygen and your lips were swollen in the most delicious way which was when you deemed it long enough to conclude the “lesson”.

“How was that?” You inquired.

“Good, yeah.” He seemed slightly uncomfortable and as you shifted in his lap, you could feel why that was.

“Oh.” You smirked at him and he blushed a deep crimson, the memory of how shy he originally was resurfacing. You stood up and within the blink of an eye, a pillow was hiding his prominent arousal.

“I’m gonna hop in the shower if you want anything make yourself at home.”

You need space after that stunt, and you figured a shower would make for a good enough excuse. You had envisioned that making out with Sicheng would feel good, but butterfly-flutteringly good? You hadn’t seen that one coming. But the way he had been kissing you, so genuinely told a different story. And you had never felt more desired than when his instincts took over and started guiding your hips to his growing bulge, desperate for more. Lust at its finest. It had your mind going to filthy places and your self-control faltering. As these new feelings of lust and love intertwined with each other in your brain, you scrubbed any physical evidence off of yourself.

Sicheng was still frozen in the living room, finally getting up once his situation was taken care of. He felt the need for a pick-me-up and his trained eyes spotted your coffee machine from a mile away, that would do. He sang tunes to himself as he gave the machine something to do, brought out from his reverie by what he thought was someone texting him. He checked his phone, nothing. He skimmed the rest of the kitchen, eyes landing on your phone. He walked over, meaning to tell you who had left you a message until his eyes landed on your phone, more precisely on the words displayed across the screen.

Rosé: How’s it going with Sicheng? Gotten him in bed yet? 😉

His eyes must’ve been deceiving him, you wouldn’t do that to him. He blinked a million times in a desperate attempt to convince himself that he hadn’t read that right. But it was becoming convincingly harder to deny what was right in front of him. You picked just this moment to walk back in. The look on Sicheng’s face alone was enough for you to know something was wrong, very wrong.

“What the hell is this, (Y/N)?” He shoved your phone in your face accusingly and as you read your screen, your heart dropped.

“Sicheng, I can explain.”

“How the fuck could you possibly explain that?”

This was bad, really bad. You knew Sicheng didn’t get angry easily, but here he was smoke coming out of his ears and it was all your fault. Your phone was still in his hand and when you fell silent, he scrolled up. His eyes skimmed over your prior conversation with Rosé, it did nothing to calm his overflowing anger. You stood there with your head down, you should’ve known he was going to find out. Naively, you had hoped you’d be the one to tell them when the time was “right”.

“A game? Is that all I am to you?” He breathed through gritted teeth. “Even now? Jesus (Y/N), how could you?” The look of disdain that was directed at you made you feel worse about yourself than you ever had.

“I’m sorry.” You couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“You’re sorry! Yeah, ‘cause that’ll fix everything. How could you do this? I thought we were friends, at the very least. But this- you’re something else (Y/N).”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know I’d catch feelings for-“

“Oh, cut the bullshit. You knew damn right what you were doing and you’re only apologizing now because I found out.” He shook his head at you. “You disgust me.”

And with those last words echoing in your mind as though they were the only words to exist, he stormed out. It took a while for you to move out of the spot he had left you in. Your heart felt like it had been shattered by a hammer and only then did you allow yourself to admit that somewhere along the line, you had felt more than just lust towards Sicheng. But it was too late to think about that now because you had just ruined everything.

___________________________________________________

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

a/n: it’s ya girl again back at it with another part to this story! thank u to everyone supporting this story, it means the world to me that you guys enjoy the work of my imagination:) I’m ngl it feels really good to write again and I’m rlly glad to have a platform for ppl to read if they want u know. Okay im rambling thanks for reading ily, be well xx

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shon-ha-lock · 4 years

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Sweater Weather (harry/niall)

It’s that time of year! I had a blast participating in this year’s 1D Secret Santa. @silveredsound i hope you like my gift!

It was a super cheap flight, in Niall's defense. A real deal. So what if the connection was in a tiny regional airport? In Wisconsin. Three days before Christmas. In the middle of a week of record low temperatures and snowstorms.

Okay. In retrospect, maybe he should have expected something to go wrong.

Niall's plane is the last to touch down in Chippewa Valley before it starts rerouting its incoming flights to airports not currently being blasted by the polar vortex. This is also, of course, when it grounds its outgoing flights “indefinitely”, leaving him and around one hundred other travelers stranded.

The whole airport has just two gates, with one shared, cramped waiting area. A line has snaked itself around that entire space, leading up to the customer service desk, where everyone is waiting for a chance to yell at a single beleaguered United Airlines employee about their flights being cancelled.

Niall contemplates joining the line, but he’s more the type to wait until he can vent his anger by giving the lowest scores possible on a ‘how did we do?’ survey. And besides, just standing near the desk for a few minutes gives him all the information he needs to know, on repeat.

“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this is causing our loyal customers,” is the current opener every time someone storms up to the little old lady working the desk. Her reedy voice is placating and increasingly nervous as she assures everyone that United is “currently working with Chippewa to arrange accommodations for anyone whose flight has been delayed by the storm.”

This is comforting until Niall realizes that this means they don’t currently have hotel rooms set up for travelers with missed connections the way larger airports do. No shuttles, no vouchers, not a goddamn thing.

They’re only twenty minutes outside of the little city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, which probably has at least a few hotels with vacancies, but the odds of finding an Uber driver to brave the storm and get him there are slim to none.

Niall’s not really the type to just stand around in a crisis and twiddle his thumbs, but if he’s being honest with himself, he hasn’t a goddamn clue what to do right now. He flies relatively frequently but he’s never actually had to deal with a flight being cancelled because of the weather, and he’s struck by a childish urge to call home and ask his mother for advice about what to do.

At the moment, it’s looking like he might actually need to call her anyway, because she’s expecting to pick him up from Albany International in five hours, and that’s definitely not happening now. God, he hopes he’ll make it back to New York at some point within the next three days. He’s never spent a Christmas away from home in his twenty six years of life, and he doesn’t want to start now.

He’s well on his way to an anxiety spiral when he notices that there’s one other passenger besides him not angrily crowding around the service desk. He looks to be around Niall’s age, and he’s pawing through a backpack with a resigned expression on his face. After a minute, Niall figures that he must be searching for warmer clothes to put on; the man’s short sleeved shirt is well-equipped to show off all the strange tattoos on his arms, but isn’t exactly appropriate for December in Wisconsin.

Niall, by contrast, is dressed and packed for two weeks of winter in upstate New York. He looks down at his own backpack, aware that it’s stuffed with four different Aran sweaters, and makes a decision. It’s the season for doing good deeds, after all. Making a stranger a little less miserable surely counts.

“Hey there,” Niall says as he walks over to the man, who’s given up looking through his luggage and is now sitting forlornly on one of the waiting area’s cheap plastic benches. He looks up, and Niall’s breath -- well, it honest to God catches in his throat. This guy must be some kind of model, because he’s got just about the most gorgeous face Niall’s ever seen. Green eyes, red lips, the works.

“Hi?” the guy ventures after a few seconds of Niall staring down at him like a lunatic.

Niall can feel himself go red as he hurriedly unzips his backpack, feeling around until he grabs a fistful of wool.

“Here,” he says, pulling out a sweater at random and basically throwing it at the guy’s head.

“You looked cold, so.” He shrugs. He watches this ridiculously good-looking stranger hold out the sweater to examine it, smiling widely for a second before his expression shifts to concern.

“Oh, this is hand-knit, isn’t it? I couldn’t possibly take this,” he says, trying to hand it back to Niall, who takes a step backwards and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Really, I insist,” he says. “Seriously, you’d be doing me a favor. My grandma still thinks we live in Ireland and makes one for me every year; I’m drowning in the things.” This seems to make the guy only more determined to hand it back to him, but Niall perseveres.

“I’d feel guilty just getting rid of them, but if I tell her I passed one on to a chilly traveler I’ll be grandson of the year, so.”

Niall narrowly avoids pumping a fist in the air in victory when this makes the guy giggle, bite his lip, and finally, reluctantly pull the sweater on over his t-shirt. It’s a sea green that matches his eyes perfectly, which is great, because what Niall really needed was to be even more distracted by a random person’s good looks.

“I can’t thank you enough,” he says once it’s on, his chin-length hair now attractively rumpled. “I was worried I was going to freeze solid the second I went outside.”

He holds out a hand; Niall takes it. Soft palms, manicured and painted fingernails -- this guy might really be a fashion model.

“I’m Harry,” he says. He smiles wide enough when he says it that his cheeks dimple. Niall’s heart is in some serious trouble now.

“I’m Niall,” he replies, letting go of Harry’s hand a second later than is probably appropriate.

He’s not sure how, but he wants to keep the conversation going somehow, just so he has an excuse to look at Harry’s face for a little longer. Before he can come up with something, an ancient intercom crackles to life and makes them both look around.

“Attention, travelers. In two hours, the storm is expected to dissipate enough to start offering shuttles into Eau Claire. Chippewa will be providing vouchers for the following lodgings.”

The announcer rattles off a list of local hotels before repeating the entire message over again. This announcement seems to renew the stranded travelers’ agitation, and they start swarming the service desks with complaints about the wait. Harry and Niall both stay where they are, clearly on the same page about not bullying the elderly. Harry doesn’t seem any happier than the people yelling, though.

“I didn’t manage to sleep on the plane because I was so nervous about the weather and the turbulence,” he confesses to Niall. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to pass out before that shuttle actually gets here.”

“Where are you coming from?” Niall asks. They’re making small talk! Success!

“Well, I started out in Italy thirteen hours ago,” Harry says ruefully. “Then I had a connecting flight in Boston, and from there, I should have gone all the way out to LA, which is where I’m spending Christmas. But I had to book last minute, and the only flights left had an extra connection. So I took a chance on this one, and of course now I’m stuck here.” He pouts as he says it, and it should make him look immature but instead he just looks like he’s posing artfully for Covergirl or something.

“So we’re heading in opposite directions,” Niall says. “I’m coming from LA, and I’m on my way to New York.”

Harry’s eyes light up at this.

“Oh my god, do you live in NYC? I love spending time there, it’s one of my favorite cities in the world.”

Niall sighs and shakes his head in mock-disappointment.

“Everyone loves NYC so much but they always forget about the actual capital of New York.”

When Harry just stares at him blankly, Niall relents and laughs out, “I’m from Albany. My whole family immigrated there from Ireland when I was six months old."

Niall feels a bit awkward at first, talking about his life with someone he just met, but he quickly learns that Harry is the type of old soul who loves to make conversation with strangers. And by the time the shuttles start actually arriving he can't say that the two of them are strangers anymore.

He learns that Harry's lived in LA his whole life, and so traveling anywhere that's cold knocks him off his feet. Niall's only lived in California since he started attending UCLA (at first as an undergrad and now for post-graduate work) but it turns out he and Harry have several mutual acquaintances, which delights Harry to no end, and he seems more interested in Niall's classes last semester than Niall was, asking questions about what he learned and whether the professors were cool or boring.

He's in the middle of a rant about early morning lectures when the intercom starts announcing that they'll be able to start shuttling people into the city soon. Which of course means that the two of them are going to have to go their separate ways.

Harry starts fussing with his luggage again, seeming almost shy now, and thanks Niall again for the sweater.

Niall scrambles for something else to say to forestall a goodbye.

“How did you know it was hand-knit?” is the only question he comes up with, but it's effective.

"Oh!" Harry exclaims, going all smiley again.

"The pattern was really detailed, and I could see how tight the stitches were. Didn't seem likely that a machine made it," he says.

"Wow, you've got a real eye. Do you work in fashion or something?" Niall asks, wondering if his initial impression was right after all.

"Or something," Harry says, seeming embarrassed for some reason. "I um, do modelling work sometimes. Shoots for Gucci, mainly, but other brands too. It's why I was in Italy, actually."

Holy shit. There’s an actual Gucci model wearing one of his grandma’s sweaters right now. What a thought. His mom is going to flip when he finally gets to New York and tells her all about this.

"That's really cool," Niall tells him, scrambling to think of a segue into asking for his number that doesn't come off like he's just trying to hook up with a model.

As luck would have it, Harry provides one for him - by asking for his grandmother’s phone number.

“Or even just her mailing address,” Harry rushes on when Niall bursts out laughing.

“I’d like to personally thank her for making such a pretty sweater that’s doing such a good job of keeping me warm.”

“Well, I’m going to be seeing her for Christmas in a few days, if the weather calms down. You could call me and I could just hand my phone over to her.”

It’s not particularly subtle, but luckily Harry doesn’t call him out on it. In fact, his face goes a bit sly, and he looks Niall up and down for a moment.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Harry says, and then whips out an honest-to-god gel pen from nowhere to physically write his phone number on Niall’s hand.

“Text me when you get a chance, and we’ll have each other’s numbers that way,” he says cheerily.

A few minutes later, they go their separate ways - Niall with Harry’s phone number written in bright green ink on the back of his hand, and Harry with a signature Grandma Horan sweater to keep him warm.

As he passes the service area, Niall cheerfully plucks a survey card from the desk. Seems like he’s going to give United a glowing review after all.

#hs #narry #my fic #1dficsecretsanta #harry styles #niall horan #fic

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tanadrin · 4 years

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In the Noiseless Land

Anthropologists describe societies of this sort as possessing a ‘double morphology’. Marcel Mauss, writing in the early twentieth century, observed that the circumpolar Inuit, ‘and likewise many other societies . . . have two social structures, one in summer and one in winter, and that in parallel they have two systems of law and religion’. In the summer months, Inuit dispersed into small patriarchal bands in pursuit of freshwater fish, caribou, and reindeer, each under the authority of a single male elder. Property was possessively marked and patriarchs exercised coercive, sometimes even tyrannical power over their kin. But in the long winter months, when seals and walrus flocked to the Arctic shore, another social structure entirely took over as Inuit gathered together to build great meeting houses of wood, whale-rib, and stone. Within them, the virtues of equality, altruism, and collective life prevailed; wealth was shared; husbands and wives exchanged partners under the aegis of Sedna, the Goddess of the Seals.

--”How to Change the Course of Human History,” Graeber & Wengow

One of the schools of Tlön goes so far as to negate time: it reasons that the present is indefinite, that the future has no reality other than as a present memory. Another school declares that all time has already transpired and that our life is only the crepuscular and no doubt falsified an mutilated memory or reflection of an irrecoverable process. Another, that the history of the universe - and in it our lives and the most tenuous detail of our lives - is the scripture produced by a subordinate god in order to communicate with a demon. Another, that the universe is comparable to those cryptographs in which not all the symbols are valid and that only what happens every three hundred nights is true. Another, that while we sleep here, we are awake elsewhere and that in this way every man is two men.

--Borges

Report of Shurnamma Tirigan, former Captain of the Southern Expedition, 12 Ezenamarsin, 1674 AUC:

To the Lord Librarian of the City, Izaru Mahash, salutations and greetings; and may Bright Uru prosper forever. If you please, convey at your earliest convenience my greetings and my love to my nieces and nephews, and to your own husband and daughters.

I was dispatched by order of the Assembly to visit the southern countries beyond the Išaru Peninsula and Wormsgate, these far-off lands being little traveled by our countrymen, and there being some hope of establishing outposts on those shores for the purposes of trade with their people, and perhaps even for expanding our Empire. I have composed this message in the hopes of recording what transpired on this voyage, both as a matter of intelligence for the Library and the Assembly, and for the interest of Lord Mahash herself, who has expressed in the past eagerness for news of distant lands and nations.

We voyaged from the City along the coast for nine weeks, until a storm came up suddenly on the Sea of Rains, and several of our vessels were wrecked along the coast of eastern Hjaírsil. Though we lost many good soldiers and much of our supplies, were were generously taken in by the Exarch of Išaru herself. She is in person as noble and as terrifying as other travelers have said, and I shall not attempt to add to their portraits here. Yet she treated us with utmost courtesy, and addressed us fluently in our native tongue; whatever we desired while we were her guests, she commanded her servants to bring to us instantly, and it was strange to see the people of that land, known abroad for their boisterous and pugnacious natures, to bow and scrape before her, as meek as children.

Our object being lands much further west and south, we took our leave shortly after, generously supplied by the Exarch and furnished with maps and guides to take us as far as Tybran and the isles of Elibom. We turned north-west again after crossing through the Wormsgate, hoping to follow the coast further, and it was in this time, when we put ashore on occasion and had the opportunity to speak with the natives of the region, that we first heard rumor of the place in the desert, of Xil-Artat.

These rumors were greatly confused. Some of our interlocutors said that Xil-Artat was a state of great wealth, as great as Uru (of which, naturally, they had also heard); others said it was but a few huts made of crudely-hewn stones piled up amid the dust; others, that it was in fact below the ground, to shield it from the harsh southern sun; and still others, that anyone who spoke of a city beneath the ground within the bounds of Xil-Artat would be slain instantly, and their body left beyond the city’s walls for the vultures to consume. Each said when they offered their description that it was generally known and all these facts agreed upon, from the salt-marshes to the west to Hjaírsil in the east; and we could not persuade them this was not so, even when we said their countrymen not ten miles behind us had contradicted them completely. Intrigued by these rumors, and determined that if Xil-Artat was the place of wealth some said it was that I should secure some portion of this wealth for the Empire, whether by diplomacy or force, I turned our course decidedly west. We were not to continue south; our Hjaírsilian guides were dismissed. Xil-Artat was now our goal.

Oh! Lord Librarian, my patron and my friend! How I wish I had heeded the misgivings of my comrades when I gave the command. But as to my follies and my regrets, those we shall come to later.

Our first destination was salt-marshes that mark the northern border of the territory Xil-Artat claims for itself. Though the country has but one city, it names for itself in all of its maps an immense hinterland, which the neighboring peoples honor, for that land is almost entirely unpeopled and barren. The arrogance of such a vast territory should by rights be that city’s weakness, and ripe for conquest, but as I soon found, there is little to covet in that wide region. Though the northern coast of the Sea of Elibom is green and fertile, being well-populated but divided into a number of petty princedoms and city-states, one comes after two days’ journey by sail from the northernmost part of that sea to the swamps of Ul-Masim, where a long and nameless river spits out its muddy currents. These swamps are thick with flies and mosquitoes, and we desired to avoid them entirely. However, it was necessary to take on water and food, and we had heard that it was in the center of these swamps, through which a great road had been built, that there stood the market-town named for the swamps, and also known to the people of Xil-Artat as the Swamp Gate, the entrance into their land.

We put our ships ashore at the edge of the swamp, though the men complained bitterly about the heat, the stink, and the flies. I selected a number of companions to venture to the city with me, among them my second-in-command. We ventured north, slowly at first due to the thick mud and treacherous footing, until we discovered a narrow but well-maintained path that had been made of packed dirt upon a slender wall of stacked stones. Such paths, we soon found, crisscrossed the swamp from Ul-Masim itself. We were later told that the inhabitants of the swamp used them to bring their goods to market each month, and this seemed to us an eminently practical scheme, such as one of our own lords or princes might devise to make a marginal country habitable; yet we never saw another traveler on these roads, or indeed any of the inhabitants of the swamps so long as we were there.

After two days’ walking we came to Ul-Masim. It rises suddenly amid the overhanging trees, and its unmortared walls are climbed by flowering vines of every kind, so that the city seems an extension of the swamp itself. Though masked guards stood at every gate to the city, none challenged us as we approached, despite our foreign garb and faces. It was the work of an entire day to find an interpreter through which we could speak to the people, and when we had accomplished the task, we thought that at first we had failed again. For the people of Xil-Artat speak a confused tongue, and whether it is because they are deficient in the powers of the mind or their language has by long isolation twisted itself up in such a way that it inhibits the clear expression of thought, they seem often to contradict themselves, to offer paradoxes as solutions to questions, to suggest wild flights of imagination as solutions to pressing concerns. Within a day it became apparent to me that such a people seemed incapable of the great works of civilization, and I had already begun to form the conjecture that the grand boulevards and halls of Ul-Masim had been built by some previous civilization and that perhaps all of Xil-Artat was but ancient ruins which a tribe out of the north had adopted for their own.

The manner of commerce among the people of Xil-Artat is extremely confused. Though we carried gold and silver, they seemed reluctant to accept them; they did not desire our iron weapons or any other item of our gear, and the glass beads and colorful cloth which we had found so readily in demand to the north were here absolutely worthless. They had goods of their own to offer: swamp fruits, colorful and sweet-smelling, and elaborate masks, and wines and beer and spices which their traders say came from far to the south. They had many goods which they say hailed from Uru, a distant and exotic place; and when I told them that I was myself a Captain of that city’s army, that I had lived there all my life, and that I had never seen these things before, they ignored me, or said that perhaps I had just not been paying attention.

Although angered by this exchange, and the liars who call themselves merchants in Ul-Masim, we nonetheless managed an exchange for necessary goods: we gave them two books, though they could not read them and seem to have no writing of their own, and we gave them also seven good belts and a dull knife. As I am an honest woman, I offered them a sharper implement, but they refused. I do not know what they did with it. They also asked my lieutenant to remain behind for two days and tell them stories of our travels so far, and content that we had the things we needed to proceed further, I left him there with four others of our party, to return to the ships.

When I reached the ships, I found that disaster had struck. Some of the men, displeased as the location of the camp, had taken a ship to go back up along the coast. They had become drunk on the store of wine and plundered a village that owed allegiance to one of the largest states in the region, and I found in my absence that the camp had been attacked by the angry lord of that state. Though his forces had been repelled, all of our ships had been burned, and most of our remaining supplies; and now almost half the expedition was dead. We were too few in number to return to the Empire, and now the region between Ul-Masim and our home was converted into hostile territory, for rumor was spreading across the countryside that the soldiers of Uru were not to be trusted. I spoke to the men and rallied their spirits; yet I acknowledged our difficulty. Yet fear not, I said. We have heard rumor of the city of Xil-Artat; we are even now at the border of its realm. Such people as we have had commerce with in Ul-Masim are strange, but not unfriendly. We will go to Xil-Artat, and thence secure a means of passage home.

So after resting a night we struck camp, finished burying the dead, and returned to Ul-Masim. My lieutenant was in good spirits when I returned, and unharmed, and it seemed that indeed these people were trustworthy. And yet, fearing that they should turn against us in sentiment if the conduct of the mutineers reached their ears, I resolved to go south as soon as possible. For that was, they said, where Xil-Artat lay.

By means of other strange transactions we acquired camels to cross the desert with, and more water. We were told where we might find oases along the road, and wished well, and I set off hoping that the incomprehensible nature of the people of Ul-Masim was like the strange habits and affectations of our own rustic countrymen, and not a general feature of the nation. Surely, my lieutenant agreed, the people of the city itself would be more sophisticated and intelligent, like our own great lords, or the lords of such cities in Sennar as Inisfal and Kurigalzu. Yet I privately I worried that Xil-Artat had never been heard of in those lands, though it lay closer to them than our own City; for I knew that often obscurity is the sign of a dull and uncivilized culture.

The travel through the desert was not eventful. The deserts beyond Ul-Masim stretch on without limit for hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of miles. From the west come great winds that blow up immense amounts of dust and sand, and the roads which the people of Xil-Artat use are therefore built high off the ground, like the aqueducts of Uru that carry water down from the hills. They are ancient, and it is impossible to guess how old. The people of Xil-Artat do not even know, and so I doubt that they built them. They have often collapsed, and often been repaired, and are everywhere made of the pale sandstone which is abundant near the coast and in the desert hills.

At last we came to Xil-Artat proper. That city, made of the sand-colored stone of the hills, rises at once out of the desert when you have crossed the Great Dunes, and from afar it is a jumble of towers and walls and ramparts which cannot be resolved into discrete structures. As you approach, the task becomes no easier, for what is here a courtyard seems to become there a balcony; some streets are cut into the ground, others raised above it; sometimes apartments are on the ground and shops high above in the towers, and sometimes the reverse; and all the city is a maze. And the city has no walls, but rather seems to enfold you as you approach, until you cannot be certain whether you are inside it or outside it.

Is Xil-Artat a wealthy city? Even after years here, I cannot say. They have food enough, and shelter enough, and some of the most ancient parts of the city are carved in an ornate and beautiful fashion. Yet the people of Xil-Artat do not consider themselves wealthy. They show no signs of wealth on their person; they do not treat the objects which lay about them as property of which they must be jealous. Their shops… I have mentioned their shops, but their commerce can hardly be called such. On our third day of Xil-Artat I made a close study of a little stand which seemed to be selling wooden spoons, to learn what the sensibilities of their shopkeepers were, to learn how one should bargain with a seller, to learn what would serve us best as a currency. All day I saw no one purchase; yet the shopkeeper seemed neither agitated nor restless. Some would come and leave handfuls of dust or sand by the door; but they did not speak to the shopkeeper at all. Finally, at the end of the day, when it was time to make his way home to rest, the shopkeeper gathered up some of his wares. He examined the pile of earth by the door, and making a careful count of the goods he carried, he proceeded to walk to the end of a nearby street, which jutted out over the sand beyond the city, and flung everything he carried into the desert. He went home without locking the door. Such is but one example of the insanity of the people of Xil-Artat.

Here as in Ul-Masim we struggled to make ourselves understood; my lieutenant, who had been diligently studying the tongue of Xil-Artat in an effort to make communication easier, seemed to make headway only slowly, but he learned that there was someone in the city who was considered its lord after a fashion, and I was determined to make myself known to this person, to open relations between our two nations. In any sensible city I am certain we would have been brought before its lord as soon as we arrived, for we were strange in dress and speech and appearance, and even in those backwards places that do not know of our Empire, its wealth and power is apparent in the meanest of its representatives. I had hoped, therefore, that the Lord of Xil-Artat would be eager to open dialogue between our two states, that indeed he would see there was nothing for a backward nation as his own to do when confronted by a superior people except to ally himself as closely as possible with them, and I was perplexed that, insofar as there was any power which ruled this city, it had not made itself known.

We took a manor on the outskirts of the city for our own use; none of the natives of Xil-Artat seemed to object. Sometimes we found strangers in its halls, but though we ordered them to depart, even threatened them, they seemed to pay us no attention. From here I sent some of the men out to search the city for intelligence; the lieutenant I told to learn as much as he could about the people and their customs, and I sought the Lord.

What follows are some observations on the habit and customs of Xil-Artat.

Most of the people wear long robes of thin fabric, whose cloth is lightly colored, to protect themselves from the harsh sun. Their garments are richly embroidered, with ornate geometric patterns, and sometimes what seem to be the suggestion of people, or animals, or parts of the body. Yet they shun obvious iconography in most instances, especially of faces. And to this end, perhaps, they also commonly wear masks. All are well-decorated, but all are equally impassive; and they speak with a flat affect, so that they seem to be a people without emotion.

I do not know what the religion of Xil-Artat is. They have no priests and no shrines, and seemingly no temples. Yet there are customs which they observe with religious fervor. All houses have their doors in the west; all shops have their doors in the east. Great markets are held on regular intervals, even if they fall on holy days in which commerce is forbidden; on such occasions the people still bring their goods to market, but they buy nothing. They will haggle over prices, but then walk away. And everything is carried home again by its original owners at the end of the day. Another custom, which I can only surmise has some religious feeling behind it, concerns the face: even when the face is depicted, it is shown without eyes. The people of Xil-Artat have a terrible fear of eyes, and we soon learned they were far more comfortable in our presence when we took to wearing masks after their custom.

And yet despite the apparent chaos of their society, they do have their laws. When an offense against the peace, or against another person, or against the desert, or against the soul of a building, is committed, a court is convened on the spot, with three citizens as judges; and the nearby people crowd together, and half of them act as the lawyer for the prosecution, and half of them act as the lawyer for the defense; and they all shout, like a rioting mob, their arguments and their comments and their observations, and sometimes even irrelevancies and obscene jokes; and out of this confused mass of shouting the judges choose for themselves what to believe, according to their own conscience, and pass sentence immediately. Where the perpetrator is not known, the sentence is passed upon a stone, and it is hurled to the ground and dashed to pieces. Where the perpetrator is human, they are dragged to the nearest ledge and thrown off--whether it is only two feet above the ground, with soft sand below, or from the top of a high tower onto solid flagstones. These verdicts are thought of as fair and just by everyone involved.

The people of Xil-Artat speak often of poetry and of philosophy. They love philosophical speculation, and this, too, verges on religious custom. For they treat abstract thought and experiments of the mind with great gravity, and if you can convince a man of Xil-Artat of a new belief, he will incorporate it into every aspect of his life immediately and without question. They constantly formulate new heresies of metaphysics among themselves, and their beliefs often change, but they change not in the manner of a child whose imagination has departed suddenly in a new direction, but with utmost gravity and seriousness. Some people in Xil-Artat believe that no one exists without their mask. Some believe that Xil-Artat is a hallucination of the men of Uru that did not exist before we entered it. Some believe that darkness is a physical substance, and that night is not caused by the setting sun, but by a fluid that rises from the desert, and is gradually dissipated by the wind. Some believe that the souls of the dead are reborn as new beings, according to the merit of their previous existence; and that to be born human is the most wretched fate reserved for only the most awful of creatures. Some believe that on the occasion of sleep, a doppelganger roams the city, whose deeds are their dreams; and still others believe that these doppelgangers sleep, too, and produce doubles of their own. One man whispered to me gravely that there was a second city below the ground, and that was where the doubles of the waking waited, but that they would not wait forever, and one day that city would return. I asked him to explain what he meant by “return,” but he would not. And he said the city had a name, but to utter it was a crime. As we were then standing near a high ledge overlooking the marketplace below, I did not press him on the subject.

Xil-Artat’s wealth, such as it has, is scattered about the city. Weapons hang in many halls, and tables are sometimes adorned with goblets and platters of precious metal. Pantries are here full of food, and there nearly empty; and when someone is hungry, or desires to drink, or wants any material thing, they go to wherever is most convenient, and have use of what is there. But they are as likely to select bowls of plain wood as goblets of fine gold, and as likely to make a meal out of whatever can be found in a meagerly-supplied kitchen as to prepare a feast in a well-supplied one; though in the former case they will still complain of hunger. Likewise, their daily occupations seem to be at random. Sometimes they will rise and go to the irrigated terraces to the west of the city and spend their day pulling weeds in the hot sun, and sometimes they will walk to the nearest market-stall and sit, as though they are the proprietor, and sell whatever they find inside. No one compels them to do any task, nor do they themselves seem to prefer any labor, however ill-suited they are for it.

After three weeks, my Lieutenant’s skill with the language had rapidly increased; yet I began to fear for him, for it seemed as he learned the tongue of Xil-Artat he forgot his own. He began to speak in the looping, riddling fashion of the foreigners; he found it harder and harder to answer directly questions put to him, and when I ordered him to take a period of rest, thinking he had taken ill with the desert heat, I found him later in the shade writing the same phrase in the dust, in the tongue of Xil-Artat but in the letters of our own language, over and over again. Each time he would write it out he would erase it and begin again. I stamped it out with my foot, and told the men to lock him in his room for the evening. I came back later to find that there was also a crude drawing he had made next to where the words were written. It was difficult to discern the intent of the image, but it seemed to be several figures, dressed in the manner of the people of Xil-Artat, all without eyes.

When it had been six weeks since our arrival, I secured an audience with the Lord of Xil-Artat, whose title, I had learned, was the Master of New Truths, or the Chief Heretic. This Lord received me at about two in the morning, in a small house in the southern quarter of the city; the moonlight shone in through a stone grillwork on the far wall, and he was alone, though dressed finely and seated on an ornate rug. I came with a scribe, to take notes, and one of our interpreters. I named myself and my errand, and described Uru, and our Empire; the Lord of Xil-Artat was polite, but remained impassive. He asked why I had sought so strenuously to speak with him, and I said, to open relations between our two states. Had I not already done so? he said, for I had traded extensively with the people of the city, and in Ul-Masim. Indeed, I said; but there could be better cooperation between us, and more profit to be had for both ourselves and for him. This he did not seem to understand, and he spoke instead of what he was thinking about having for breakfast. I steered the conversation again to his city, and said that while the customs of his people were strange to me, I was certain friendship could exist between his people and mine. This he enthusiastically agreed with, and we spoke a little about the customs of my country, which baffled him as much as his customs did me. This put him at great ease, and I apprehended that, though the Lord of this city, he was uncomfortable around strangers. I spoke about my other adventures and explorations in the service of the army, and these tales he also enjoyed; he had heard neither of Inisfal, or of Tybran, or of Hjaírsil; nor even the names of his closest neighbors to the north. All the world outside Xil-Artat seemed to be new to him. I had thought that we had begun to establish a rapport, when he suddenly remarked that this was the strangest dream he had ever had, and he wondered if any of it was true. I insisted that this was not a dream; that he was as awake as I, and that all of what we had spoken about was true. He said that I seemed extremely confident, given that I could not be sure he existed, nor the reverse; and I became angered by his solipsism. I berated him for the weak-mindedness of his people; for the disorder of their customs and law; for the time they wasted on meaningless ideas and fearful rumors. I spoke of the man who thought there was a second city beneath this one, and how in my homeland, madmen are locked up, or treated by doctors, not allowed to roam free in the streets.

Oh, said the Lord of Xil-Artat, Mlejnas is quite real, I assure you. Mlejnas, he said, was the name of that city, and he said that everything they said about it was true; even false things. I was at this point prepared to leave and not return; for it was evident he was as mad as all the rest. Very well, he said; but if you want to look for Mlejnas, it is all around you; yet those who seek Mlejnas never return.

I was at this point ready to depart for good. Our mission seemed a failure, and the most logical course of action, I believed, was to depart Xil-Artat for Elibom, to the southeast, where I knew there were some small towns and, at the end of the peninsula, a Tybranese trading-fort. From there, a small contingent might make passage to Sennar or to Hjaírsil, and get a message back home. It would take some months, possibly more than a year, but ships could return for the rest of the expedition. As a leader, it was properly speaking my obligation to make this happen, and yet a second duty held me back: my duty to my friend.

My lieutenant at this point had taken to writing on the walls of his room, and refused to leave even when the door was left open. He would eat only rarely, and at night he screamed deliriously, in a mixture of our language and Xil-Artat’s. He was now fluent in the latter, despite rarely leaving the manor, and I wondered if the strange visitors we received in the night were conversing with him; though I had given orders that any outsiders found in the manor should be physically ejected at once, especially if they were in the hallway outside the lieutenant’s room, perhaps some still escaped the watch of the guards and filled his mind with their obsessive delusions. I had tried to speak with the lieutenant as a friend; to draw out his obsessions, to understand the working of his fevered imagination, but it was impossible to follow his thoughts, especially when he lapsed into that other language, of which I still knew little. Yet after I spoke with the Lord of the city, I realized there was a familiar word, repeated in my friend’s ravings. Not often, but from time to time, he said the word Mlejnas. Though I hoped to bring my comrades home as soon as possible, I knew that if a solution to my friend’s sickness was to be found, it would be found in Xil-Artat.

To the former end, I appointed the under-lieutenant temporary commander of the expedition. She received her orders, and would lead the expedition east, to Elibom. They would make their way slowly, so as to conserve supplies, since the nearest towns to Xil-Artat were more than a week’s journey from the edge of the desert. The Tybranese were notorious pirates, I reminded her, but our nations had a treaty, and they ought to honor it. I would remain behind with the lieutenant; two others of our number, who were also his beloved companions, elected to remain with me as well. The under-lieutenant departed three days later, after all preparations had been made; on the morning of departure, I gave her a field promotion to Captain as befit her new responsibilities. I hope that that promotion has been honored since her return. I did not hear from the expedition after they departed, but that did not distress me, since I knew they had no means of getting a message back to Xil-Artat, which receives precious little news of the world outside.

I had now formed a number of theories concerning the history of this place. First, the people of Xil-Artat were not the builders of Xil-Artat. Perhaps they had found its ruins; perhaps they had conquered it. Either way, they lived in terror of those who had built it, the reasonable, rational civilization that had been capable of creating roads through the desert, of ferrying stone from the eastern hills, of tapping wells into the rock below the city; for a superstitious people will always live in fear of a rational and powerful people, and thus the ruins of past greatness will instill in them a terror. But something had gone terribly wrong in the minds of the people of Xil-Artat, and now this terror had become a madness, infecting every aspect of their customs, habits, and society. A strong-minded people of good sense, as our ancestors had been, would have been immune even had they clung to superstitious ideas, but the harsh conditions in which they lived and perhaps the dry air had sapped their strength of mind. Their city was obviously in steep decline, and would be utterly deserted within perhaps two generations. From this it followed they were a young people; they could not have endured in this state for long, and could not have lived in this place more than fifty or a hundred years. Perhaps, I supposed, our historians could one day examine their legends and their history to determine their real origin; but such things were not immediately my concern.

I had also decided that this “Mlejnas” represented some knowledge I could use to help my friend. A city below the ground was preposterous, of course; but perhaps there were indeed ancient ruins underneath us, and that in these ruins, somehow, some knowledge of the past was preserved. There were, after all, many things the people of Xil-Artat had words for in their tongue that they did not possess--they had a name for libraries, but no books; they had a name for doctors and medicine, but no healing arts of their own; they could speak coherently (on occasion) about philosophy and matters of natural science, though they had no universities, no schools, no systematic studies of the spirit or mind or natural world, and so forth. I knew that there were things in the world inexplicable to our own science, but that such things are merely rational questions awaiting systematic study. And perhaps a clear-minded approach to the question of the history and builders of this city could offer my friend some comfort, so that the madness of its people would cease to torment him.

Commending him to his friends’ care, I began to search the city day after day, night after night. By my increasingly insistent questions on the subject of Mlejnas, I drove people away from me; merely mentioning the name caused them to sprint off without a word, as though they had just remembered leaving a loaf of bread in the oven that morning. When no one would speak to me at all any longer, I simply began to search every house, every tower, every courtyard, for anything that might give me a useful clue. I no longer went about dressed in the Xil-Artat manner; I scorned their garish masks and their elaborate robes. I would no longer indulge them in their wild imaginings.

My search of various buildings took me deeper and deeper underground. Xil-Artat, I discovered to my gratification, was indeed built on a layer of ruins. These ruins were more ordered, more logical than the city above, their upper levels that now were cellars and basements being laid out like orderly streets and rows of houses. There seemed to be ruins further down; half-buried decorations in the walls, or steps whose passage was now filled with rubble or sand attested to even older layers of the city below. It was easy to imagine what a superstitious mind could come up with in such dark spaces. But I could find no passageways further down which were open, and though in some places the buried ruins seemed as ancient as the ruins of Uru’s acropolis, or even older, nothing yet offered me information as to their origin.

So long as my friend’s suffering grew, however, my energy increased. And after a few weeks, I made a discovery. There was, not far from the central marketplace, a certain house whose roof had collapsed and which was now filled with dust, that had a cellar larger than the rooms above. In the corner of that cellar was an iron trapdoor, very old and worn, and rusted entirely shut. Not the strength and that of my two sane companions working together could open it, and the stone floor was entirely solid; we could not dig around it. I conducted a thorough search of the surrounding houses and towers until I found a large hammer, like a blacksmith’s, and a length of iron to serve as a crowbar. For four days I labored to break the fastenings that held the door in place and pry it out of its setting. It had been made to exacting quality, as good as the work of any metalwright in the world now living, but it was ancient, and eventually, it yielded. When I had sufficiently loosened it in its bed, I was able, with some great difficulty, to wedge the crowbar beneath its edge and to lift it aside. It fell back to the stone with an earsplitting noise, but revealed below a dark passage, with a musty odor.

I returned the next day with a number of torches, and entered the passage. At once, I felt my theories were confirmed. These ruins were nothing like those above. Even at their most well-organized and attractive, they had had something of Xil-Artat’s madness to them, something of its geometric patterns and labyrinthine shapes. They had been mostly plain stone. These rooms were entirely the opposite.

By their size and the windows that now only spilled sand and rubble into them, they had once been the upper gallery of some light and airy palace. The torchlight reflected sweeping, curling shapes off the walls, in which animals and children and people danced and played, all looking out at the viewer and smiling. I could not help but feel that if these rooms below were exchanged for those above, Xil-Artat would be a magnificent city indeed, the deep red pigments and gold left contrasting beautifully against the bare sand, the blue desert sky shining in through the windows. Alas for the fallen cities of history! I thought.

It is a curious feature of being out of sight of the sun that time is difficult to perceive. This had happened to me only once before, in the caves above Brighthaven, and there the effect was only that of spending an hour or so underground, and emerging to discover the sun had already set. Then I had been at leisure, admiring the natural beauty of the caverns, and so had not had occasion to spend longer than I wanted underground. Now, I had a duty to the lieutenant; and soon, I realized I had been wandering the passage for a long time. How long had it been? I had exhausted three torches already; but they were slow-burning things, their light dimmer as a consequence, and I could not say how long each had lasted. Nonetheless, this was my first breakthrough in weeks, and I had plenty of light left, so I continued on.

This gallery led me deeper, to more rooms, each more ornate than the last. Some had accents of lapis lazuli; some still had ancient furniture, carved out of black wood; the dry air had preserved them, even as their cushions had crumbled to dust. As I moved from room to room, I found myself going from a younger part of the building to an older; and to my surprise, the stairs led continually down. And it was a curious feature: the animals and children and adults on the walls, I noticed, detailed in every respect and in nearly every respect exquisitely proportioned, had eyes much larger than I expected. And each figure gave the impression that it was watching me.

At length, the rooms and hallways came to a great pair of doors. I surmised this had once been the grand entrance of the palace; if they could be moved, there would be nothing but sand beyond. I gave one a half-hearted tug. To my astonishment, it glided silently open, light on its hinges despite its size, showing a cavernous space beyond.

Here, there was an immense darkness below; but vaulted paths crossed this darkness, meeting in the middle of this huge space, leading to more sets of doors set in various points of the far walls. But the space was not dark in its upper reaches, not entirely. A dim light glowed from sources I could not see that illuminates the walls partly, and every free space of these walls was covered in ghastly faces, faces with tortured expressions, faces which seemed to silently curse the empty air. Each face was different. Each had ugly, bulging eyes. Yet I felt as soon as the door was opened that each eye, directly or askance, fixed its resolute attention only on me. For the first time, I was not entirely at ease.

The paths which bridged the great room had no railings; I crossed them warily, wondering what sort of people would build an awful place like this. When I reached the platform in the middle I looked back the way I had come, then around again. I noticed one of the far doors was open, and, what was more, something seemed to be standing just beyond it, a figure like a man. I called out to them, but there was no movement and no response. I walked toward it, and again I called out, and again, it remained impassive. Yet as I approached I could see it a little more clearly, dim as the light was, and it did seem to be a man, dressed not unlike a man of Xil-Artat. It bore an ornate mask, with a howling grimace rather than a quiet face, and its robes were the color of blood. And when I had nearly reached the door, it turned and fled.

Angered that this stranger had fled from me, I ran after in pursuit; this door led not to another great cavern, but to a hallway, whose walls were likewise covered in awful faces, and I ran down this hall, following the figure disappearing behind the corner ahead of me. This hallway twisted like a maze, and soon I found myself lost, the stranger nowhere to be seen. I cursed myself for my foolishness in recklessly following, and now and again I would hear the sound of footfalls that seemed to be approaching swiftly, but when I tried to find their source, they always rapidly faded.

This place, whatever it was, was no city. Was it Mlejnas? What was Mlejnas, if not a city? If not Xil-Artat, as it had been known in times past? Who were these wanderers in abandoned hallways beneath the ground? Such questions I asked myself in that moment, foolish though they were. I gathered my wits and continued my exploration. I tried to find my way back to the great chamber, thinking the others paths that led from it might be more helpful than this, but I only found more of the same maze, its walls seeming now to be higher and higher, and coming closer together, as though the earth was closing itself up on either side.

Yet this oppression was not absolute; here and there there was a door. These led to small rooms: some bare closets of stone, some with objects scattered about their floor. One held bookshelves; I opened one to find strange letters, close together, covering every inch of every page. Another was written in my native tongue, but though I recognized the words, they made no sense together; it was an endless stream of nonsense. Another was written with familiar letters, but in no language I recognized. I quickly left that room behind.

The room after that had a man in it. He was not masked; he sat, wearing only loose-fitting trousers, cross-legged on a cushion facing the wall, and he was in every respect from my vantage point a double of my friend, the lieutenant. I cried out when I saw him, in confusion as much from surprise, and the voice that answered me was indeed the lieutenant’s, calm and devoid of the madness that had plagued him since coming to Xil-Artat. He greeted me by name and bid me come in. I walked up to him and put out a hand to lay it on his shoulder, to turn him to face me.

“Don’t,” he said to me. “Do you not know me?” I asked. “I am Shurnamma; look at me, my friend.” “Stop,” was all he said in reply; so I withdrew my hand, and took a step back. “Will you not speak to me? Why are you here? ” I asked. “I shall answer any question you put to me, Shurnamma; but consider carefully which questions you want answers to.”

“What is this place?” I asked. “It is Mlejnas,” he said. “What is Mlejnas?” I asked. “It is the answer to Xil-Artat.” This response irritated me; and sensing this, the lieutenant said, “Do you know what Xil-Artat means? The name is not arbitrary: it is ‘the noiseless land,’ in their tongue.” “And so silence demands an answer?” “Or perhaps silence is an answer to something else,” he replied.

“You know that I dislike games,” I said. “I have a practical view of the world, and hate superstitious talk. The madness of Xil-Artat tries my patience, and in your infirmity I have granted that you have been unable to discern the difference between what is real and true and what is false; but now you are better, and we will go back up together, and put all this behind us. We will return home, and forget everything about Xil-Artat.”

“I cannot leave Xil-Artat,” the lieutenant said. “And why not?” I asked. “Because I cannot leave Mlejnas,” he answered. “What!” I cried. “Is Xil-Artat now Mlejnas?” “Not now,” the lieutenant said. “But one day.”

“Clearly you are still afflicted, if you think the dusty ruins of one city can rise up to replace another!” I said. “Where do you believe we are standing?” the lieutenant asked. “These are the ruins on which Xil-Artat was built,” I replied. “It is the ruins left behind by some greater people. A primitive imagination has made it into a thing of terror to the inhabitants of Xil-Artat; but there is nothing here.”

“You have not seen with your eyes,” the lieutenant said slowly. “You stand now in Mlejnas, built by the people of Mlejnas; the people of Xil-Artat built Xil-Artat. Xil-Artat was built when Mlejnas was built. Xil-Artat caused Mlejnas to be, and Mlejnas caused Xil-Artat. Neither has its beginning without the other. Each is the answer to the other. When your city was but a village on a stony hill, Xil-Artat and Mlejnas were. When your people were wandering the world, seeking a home, they were ancient. Maybe even before everything, before the Deluge, before the world was remade, here they were. Here they have survived. Here they will survive everything. Xil-Artat lives, because Mlejnas lives. Xil-Artat wakes while Mlejnas sleeps. And maybe Mlejnas will not sleep forever.”

“And what will become of Xil-Artat and her people then?” I asked scornfully.

“Then they will be Mlejnas,” the lieutenant said. “Then they will have always been Mlejnas. The ones who fled below the earth to escape the end, the ones who have survived since before your country existed, the ones who scored out flesh with knives and stuffed our mouths with dust; who cut us out of ourselves and threw us away, the ones who wait, the ones who suffer in the dark, will be the ones above. As they once were, maybe. As, perhaps, they have always been.”

“You speak of fleeing, of suffering, of catastrophe. Then Mlejnas was indeed destroyed? Or Xil-Artat? Or both?”

“Mlejnas was a way to survive destruction. Xil-Artat is what was left. Or was it the other way around? We have trouble remembering. It does not matter. This was their lesson: that you can survive anything, if you can put the pain somewhere else.”

“You speak nonsense, my friend. This is all nonsense.”

“Shurnamma, you want an answer that pleases you. That lets you put these things into an order you can understand, the same order which you impose on the rest of the world. Such an answer does not exist. There is no order, no history for you to discover here. How else could Xil-Artat be?”

I advanced again, intent on taking the lieutenant back to the surface with me. I laid my hand again on his shoulder, and the moment I did, a terrific fear seized me. Perhaps it was his strange discourse; perhaps it was my own rational mind finally being affected by the madness of those around me; but I became convinced that I should not behold his face, that to do so would, in that instant, be an awful mistake, and that I did not want the thing I was now touching, which was not the lieutenant, and which was not my friend, to follow me out of that room. I withdrew, and wordlessly closed the door behind me.

I continued through the maze, attempting to ignore the thoughts pressing in on my mind from all sides; I tried to keep the image of the sunny city above me in my mind, though now I did not know if the sun had long set or not. The torch in my hand was burning still, though in my anxious state I could not have said if it was my fifth or my fiftieth, nor how many I had originally brought. Eventually, the maze gave way, and I found myself in another set of rooms, that seemed to be fashioned as shrines. Each bore the figure of some grim god, and each was in its own way more violent and obscene than the last; I hastened through these rooms, ignoring the faces peering at me from every wall, and doing as best as I could to observe that now their eyes followed me as I walked, shining with either what was varnish or tears.

At last I came to a hall, and amid this hall flanked by pillars was a throne. The masked figure in red robes sat on this throne, and it was red and gold; and the pillars were red, and all the walls, and tapestries of rich reds and gold, embroidered with thousand and thousands of white eyes hung between the pillars and above us. From a distance I seemed to recognize the man in the mask. Here he sat enthroned like a lord, while above he had seemed content with simplicity; he looked for all the world like the heresiarch of Xil-Artat. But where the one had seemed sleepy and indolent, incurious about what was before him, this one sat alert, watched me approach, turned his head this way and that, as if to examine me, with swift and inhuman motions, and when he stood, like an insect approximating the manners of a man, it seemed that either he carried himself in the strangest fashion imaginable, or that his proportions were entirely wrong.

“Are you the lord of Mlejnas?” I demanded of him. He did not move or speak.

“Speak!” I cried.

“I want a true answer; a clear answer,” I said to him.

“An answer to Xil-Artat?” he asked; and his voice was indeed the voice of the heresiarch.

“To Xil-Artat, to Mlejnas, to everything.”

He laughed; and when he laughed I heard other voices, too, and felt presences around me, just out of vision; but I fixed my gaze ahead, for in truth, I was far too afraid to look into the shadows.

“One answer, one answer, how can you insist on one answer? How can you insist on one answer when some questions have thousands?”

“I want the truth. One truth. The real history of this place. There is only one history of Xil-Artat.”

“It may be the custom of your country that there is one history, and one only. It is not so in Mlejnas. It is not so in Xil-Artat. There are a thousand histories of each, and all of them are true, and who is to say how many you have endured already, Captain Tirigan?

“Here is one answer: when the world was destroyed, the people of Xil-Artat hid part of themselves below the earth to survive. But not forever; they fear the day it shall return. And they are right to fear it, for that hunger and that suffering has grown, and when it returns it shall devour them all. It shall devour the world.

“Here is another: in the tongue of Xil, the opposite of ‘noiseless’ is not ‘noise.’ The opposite word means ‘screaming.’”

And as I watched, transfixed by the thoughts which contended about this strange city to which I had come, the King of Mlejnas took off his mask; and his face was the face of the Heresiarch, the Lord of Xil-Artat; except that he had no eyes. No eyes at all; not even the sockets where eyes should appear. And he opened his mouth wide, stretched it wider and wider, as if he sought to swallow everything around us, and he began to scream, to scream and scream, a loud and hideous sound, and the things that stood just out of view, that filled the room behind me and beside me, they screamed too, a terrible noise of unspeakable pain and loss and rage; and though I covered my ears and I fled as fast as my feet could carry me, in any direction I could go, the screaming became only louder, ever louder and unceasing.

I remember little of what transpired after that. I fled through the bloody halls of Mlejnas, the screaming halls of Mlejnas, the halls of eyes that watch unceasing. I fled, but I never escaped them. Even when I awoke later, in a square in Xil-Artat, surrounded by masked figures peering over me with concern, I was still in Mlejnas, and I shuddered and wept, fearing what I would see if I reached out and lifted the masks of their faces. Oh, Izaru, my friend, when the people of Xil-Artat tell you that no one who seeks Mlejnas ever returns, they don’t mean you die. It’s much worse than that, I am afraid. For Mlejnas is all around me now. I will never be without it. For now, though, at least part of me inhabits Xil-Artat. I long to see my home, but I cannot leave! For only here there are no eyes. Only here they are not watching me. But it won’t last forever. I know it’s there now. I know that one day it will wake. And when Mlejnas takes the place of Xil-Artat, we shall all have our answers: all that we have forsaken we shall have to answer for, and all our tears and prayers will not suffice.

When I returned to the manor the lieutenant was gone. He had, my companions said, fled into the desert shortly before my return, with nothing but the clothes he wore, and surely would soon die of thirst or exposure. Yet I cannot help but think his body will not be found in the desert. I sent my companions away after that; they opted to take the road north to Ul-Masim, rather than try to reach Elibom; and the last news I heard of them was that they had departed Ul-Masim, heading east along the road that leads to Išaru.

The screaming, yes. I hear it when I wake. I hear it in my sleep. I hear it when I close my eyes and remember those writhing, tortured faces. I hear it now, now as I sit in the sunny courtyards of the northern quarter, as I admire the blue sky, as I drink clear water from a silver cup, as I watch the people go too and fro. It is a quiet day for them. Theirs, yes, theirs. Theirs is the noiseless city above. Mine--ours--is the cold screaming beneath the ground.

(signed)

Captain Shurnamma Tirigan

Catalogue item I.G.-uM.1733. A later hand has added to the last page of the missive: “Tirigan’s Expedition, launched 1669 AUC, vanished southeast of Inisfal in 1672, and, so far as reports sent back from 1669-1671 indicated, never lost ships off the coast of Hjaírsil, was never furnished with aid by the Exarch of that country, and never diverted from its intended course, south from the Wormsgate. The preceding document was given to an Urusc courier in the city of Ul-Masim in 1733, by an unknown party. Though apparently in the Captain’s hand, and apparently corroborating some of the tales of later expeditions to Xil-Artat, it is the judgement of the archival staff that this document is a forgery, or perhaps the work of a lunatic; and that everything it contains is nothing but the most unusual of lies.”

#tanadrin's fiction

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sultrysirens · 4 years

Text

Blue Blood [Part 15]

Universe: Detroit: Become Human

Rating: PG-13 (swearing)

Characters: Connor, Evelyn (OC)

Tags: interspecies, romance, fluff, detective, law enforcement, original character, continuation, sex

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“Well, that was...an adventure,” Evelyn noted as they departed.

“And informative,” Connor added, thoughtful.

“Yeah? Anything in particular come to light?” she prompted. They pulled out of the estate’s grounds and were back on the main road quickly, the destination: her apartment. They’d done more than enough investigating for one day, a simple arrest leading to looking for a missing person leading to a chat with the matron of a powerful crime family.

Forbes obviously needed her weekend break by now, he assumed, so he was fine with letting the trail be for now. They could pick it up again tomorrow.

Glancing at her, he said, “I think Elias and Émelie were lovers.”

She nodded. “I was getting that impression, too.”

“Unless Elias crossed her somehow, I don’t see a motive for her being involved in his death,” he went on.

“Hugo might have,” she suggested. “If they were lovers and he found out...”

“It’s possible,” he agreed. “But I don’t think Hugo would’ve cared. It seems their marriage is more one of business than romance.”

She inclined her head. “It’s very common. Especially with that comment Émelie made -- about Hugo being ‘overjoyed’ that a woman is interested in him.”

“Extra-marital affairs,” he said.

“Or an open marriage,” Evelyn offered. “Those are pretty common these days, too.” They were both quiet for a moment, then, before she checked, “Find anything of note while you were looking around?”

He shook his head. “Nothing possibly crime-related. No recent blood stains, footprints out of place, nothing in the air...the house, at least, is crime-free.”

“Unless everything is digital,” she noted.

“Likely. I found it odd there wasn’t a computer in the study -- just a TV set.”

“And how close the desk was to it -- I’m betting there was something behind there, the TV was just a better mask than a painting would be.”

“Heavier, harder to move, more innocent -- I can see it,” he agreed.

“I’ll just file that one away for later,” she said, “in case we ever raid the place.”

Smart. He’d already done so by the time she verbally declared it. There was something intriguing, even comforting, about the knowledge that they followed the same train of thought, he noted.

Like they really weren’t all that different, androids and humans.

He asked then, “So...you know French?” He was impressed.

She laughed. “Actually, no -- that was a bluff. I know two sentences in French. That was one.”

Amused, he asked, “And what’s the other?”

She grinned and, between chuckles, forced out, “Où sont les toilettes?”

Where is the bathroom?

He laughed. Of course she’d know one profound statement -- and a ridiculous query. “Well, your pronunciation is fairly accurate,” he noted.

She shook her head. “Yeah, I practiced that.”

“Why?” he prompted. “What drove you to learn exactly two phrases, and those two in particular?”

Chuckling again, she answered, “I-I didn’t, really. I picked them up from TV. Films, I think. I do this thing sometimes where I’ll repeat foreign languages, try to work out the pronunciation. And sometimes they stick.”

“And those two stuck?” he checked, doubtful.

“Yeah. The former cause it was difficult so it took a lot of work, the latter cause it was so simple,” she explained.

“Your mind is a curious thing,” he noted.

“From my perspective, my mind is fine. Yours is the curious one,” she countered.

A fair point, he agreed. He doubted humans and androids would ever fully understand each other; as he understood it, the way they thought was entirely different despite the many similarities. His thoughts could be broken down into Binary if he dug deep enough, he was sure, and he was actively recording everything he saw and heard as video and audio files.

Humans often thought either in pictures and sounds or words, some of them hearing their thoughts as verbal communication and others only as abstract intention. Neither aligned very well with how androids thought.

They were so different in their cores, humans and androids, despite how visually similar they were.

That thought managed to loop back around to another from earlier that day, and he asked, “May I ask you a personal question?”

She smirked, amused. “Let me just answer that indefinitely: yes, you can ask. Whether or not I answer is another matter, but you can always ask.”

That was good to know. “Your leg,” he began, “you said there were metal pins in the bones?”

She hesitated, that simple inaction telling him a great deal -- namely that this was a very sensitive subject. He could understand that, he thought; she must’ve faced a great deal of trauma to have received such a wound. Psychological after-effects were common to the point of being expected.

At length, she offered, “Uh...yeah. Old wound, permanent damage,” she hinted.

He absorbed that, thoughtful, then ventured, “May I ask what happened?”

She gave a smile, but it was strained -- tense. “Accident involving a tower of weights. They fell over on top of me. My leg got the worst of it. Woke up three days later in a hospital bed.”

That...definitely sounded traumatic, he admitted. “Where did this happen, Brass Balls?” he asked, concerned. If this happened at that shop...well, he already knew it was barely up to code. This would be the kind of thing to shut it down, and...thinking of Quincy...he really didn’t want to do that.

Nowadays his gym is his family, Evelyn had said.

Connor didn’t want to be the one to take that away.

Shaking her head, she hedged, “No, this was...before I graduated. Had this...injury...my whole adult life.”

Her pauses, hesitating over certain words, got his attention more than what she was saying. She was implying much deeper psychological damage than she realized, he thought -- possibly more than she was aware of, herself.

And he found himself both impressed and confused as to how she would’ve ended up an officer with such issues. Officers had to have pristine physical health to get accepted; Evelyn had a bad leg, it seemed. Yet, he’d never seen her limping or displaying such an injury. The only time she favored her leg was when she was sparring, and even then she was just keeping it out of danger.

He noted, “You don’t seem to be bothered by it.”

“It doesn’t slow me down, if that’s what you mean,” she returned. “I just try to stay conscious of it.”

Hesitating, he asked, “Does it hurt?”

At once, he could feel her tension skyrocket. It was such a bizarre thing -- she barely changed in a physical sense, only her throat giving a strain before relaxing again, yet he was aware of just how much that question had distressed her.

She answered, subdued, “Sometimes.”

Sometimes, he repeated. The way she said that made him think that it didn’t hurt often -- but when it did, it was very painful.

In his mind, he tried to construct how her leg might be functioning based on the information he’d been given, and ultimately he determined that either the pins could fall out of alignment -- or she’d suffered nerve damage and sometimes it acted up.

Either would account for sudden, unpredictable spikes of pain, he thought. And he made a decision then to keep an eye on her, just in case she fell prey to those surges when he was around. He wasn’t exactly built with physical therapy in mind, so he couldn’t offer a great deal of help, but he’d do whatever she needed.

Then she said, more sharply, “About this...I need you to not talk about it. Don’t bring it up with anyone.”

Surprised, he checked, “At the precinct?”

“In general,” she corrected. “No one knows -- I don’t want anyone to know. Outside of my family, it’s -- it doesn’t exist.”

He could see that, he thought. If it came to light that her leg was permanently damaged, she might lose her job. She’d told him that it was her career that kept her going, kept her from falling into depression. It was clearly vital to her, and more so, she was a fantastic officer.

Her case history was more than enough to prove that, but over the last few days he’d seen some of it in action. Even visibly exhausted and overworked, she’d still managed two-hour drives and active chases and hours of research. Her work ethic was admirable.

She was valuable in this profession.

“Alright,” he agreed easily. “I won’t bring it up. For context, though, may I ask who does know?”

“My parents and my sisters -- sister,” she corrected.

He sidestepped that particular landmine, checking, “Then, your husband...?”

“Doesn’t know,” she confirmed with a nod. “I never told him.”

Curious, he asked, “Why not?”

She hesitated over that question, hedging, and after a few moments of struggling for a response, she said, “Plead the fifth.”

...Noted.

That was highly suspicious, but he supposed everyone had their secrets. It wasn’t his place to pick apart her brain and try to figure out why she chose to keep some things quiet over others. She had her reasons, he was sure -- and those reasons were probably traumatic. Best not to prod at them.

Nodding, he relented, replying, “Then I take it you never wanted me to know, either.”

She inclined her head. “Not really. But there wasn’t anything to be done about it. Metal detectors are my bane.”

His, too. “I wasn’t certain I’d set it off,” he said, thoughtful. “I would’ve thought CyberLife would’ve found a way to prevent that by now -- they already succeeded in protecting us from electricity, so it seemed logical.”

“Well, are you magnetic?” she asked.

“No.”

“That’s probably about as much protection as they felt you needed,” she said. “Unaffected by electricity and magnets -- boom, you’re safe from all the big things. Keeping you from setting off metal detectors was probably determined as being a luxury, and lord knows big companies aren’t keen on providing luxuries.”

He could definitely see that.

“I’m surprised you set off the metal detector, too,” she began. “I thought you were plastic?”

“Externally, yes,” he agreed, “but internally there’s still metal casing and things similar to bones.” Patting his chest, he explained, “Keeps everything sturdy and in place.”

“Makes sense,” she noted, nodding. “So you have, like, a rib cage?”

“Not so much. More of just a spine, shoulders, arms, legs...the frame is simplistic. Its design is more to keep all our biocomponents and parts in place while keeping us light in weight.”

“Cool.”

He smirked, amused.

They fell into small talk then, mostly Evelyn sharing information about L.A., which he appreciated. He could look up the history of the city from its founding in 1835 or even earlier, but none of that would account for a citizen’s perspective. Her insight was invaluable.

The most important things were obviously how the city functioned currently, but he was curious about everything. Like Detroit, it had a storied past, entire books written about this one city. So old and intrinsic to the U.S. as they both were, they were living monuments of human achievement and persistence.

Evelyn didn’t know much beyond when she’d begun working at the precinct a decade earlier, but it was more than enough to get him up to speed. Combined with his foot tour the day prior and he was compiling a great deal of information about the city as a whole.

It was a contradiction, this city -- simultaneously one of the richest and poorest of U.S. cities. The SubTube had seen to that, he thought, at once both despondent and impressed with the transportation achievement. Its speed and capability were incredible and priceless, but the effects L.A.’s populace were suffering for its release was...painful.

He was worried Evelyn would end up one of those displaced by its appearance. It would be a disaster, both for her and all those she helped on a daily basis. He could only hope that, if it came to that, her husband would be able to keep her off the streets.

Following that thought, he asked, “Detective? What does your husband do? He’s employed, correct?”

She seemed surprised by the question but answered, “Yeah. He’s a manager at a hotel. La Esencia,” she explained.

He ran a quick search on it, concluding it’d been built in 2027. Reviews stated it was smaller but comfortable, four stories tall with ten-to-fourteen rooms on each floor. It was ranked as four-star and just recently began plans to expand out of L.A.

What had begun as one hotel became three in 2033, then six in 2038, and now it’d been announced that they were going to start opening hotels across the country. Construction had yet to begin.

And Richard Sinclair was the manager at one location, it seemed.

“That’s likely lucrative,” he noted.

“It certainly was,” she agreed.

Curious, he checked, “What changed?”

“The revolution,” she answered. “Most of the employees had been androids. Richard said only two came back after everything settled -- cut down from thirty-two,” she hinted. “The workload on all of them has skyrocketed.”

A little shocked, he checked, “Did he not have any human employees?”

“Six, yeah, and they’re still on,” she agreed, “but they’ve all had to take on heavier loads. Granted, tourism plummeted in the last month, too, so they’re not having to wrangle the raw numbers they once had, but still. It’s hard on them.”

And Connor heard the sympathy in her voice as she spoke, the almost reluctant affection. She was concerned, he realized.

“You’re worried about him,” he concluded.

Her shoulders dipped a fraction. “Yeah. I worry. He used to run the front desk, then worked his way up to manager. He knows the ins and outs of every part of the job. But that just means he can -- and will -- do everything.”

Drawing a picture, he suggested, “And you’re concerned he’ll hurt himself doing so.”

“He’s hurt himself before, doing so,” she answered quietly. Shaking her head, she said, “He works too hard sometimes. He messed up his knee just from how much walking he does around the hotel.”

And now Connor was seeing a parallel between husband and wife. Both of them seemed to be very hard workers, willing to put themselves through Hell for their careers.

With a sigh, she went on, “From a personal standpoint, the revolution happened at a terrible time. It’s bad enough just being separated like this -- and now we’re both bogged down with extra work on top of it. It’s chaos, everywhere, and we can’t even be there for each other...”

Sympathetic but not apologetic, he replied, “I won’t apologize. We needed our freedom. But I feel for your individual situation.”

She gave the barest smile, reaching over to give his shoulder a rub. “I don’t expect apologies. And I agree with you, Connor. None of this is your fault,” she told him, “except all the good parts.”

It was surprising, how much relief he felt from that simple statement. “Thank you,” he said, sincere.

Her smile warmed, then, and she replied, “Thank you, too.”

Touched, he could only respond, “You’re welcome.”

The rest of the day passed quietly -- which, after the last few days, was preferred. It was barely four in the afternoon when they made it back to the apartment, and Evelyn was more than ready to get in some relaxation. Connor, on the other hand, never quite stopped thinking about the case.

She made herself a late lunch, then sat down to catch up on the news. He watched absently, his mind elsewhere, ultimately concluding that nothing worthy of national news had occurred since yesterday evening. He did, however, catch a brief news report about “the first android assault case” in L.A.

Evelyn glanced over at him with a smirk. “See? Told you there’d be a statement.”

He couldn’t withhold a grin, pleased. She’d been right. Then, settling on a different thought, he said, “I’m curious about something.”

“Wassat?” she prompted.

“Have you ever...had an android?” he asked her, though he had difficulty with the phrasing. He found he couldn’t ask if she’d owned an android, the very idea scraping at him.

She shook her head. “No, actually, funny though that might sound.”

“Why would that sound funny?” he wondered.

“Cause these days, pretty much every human bought at least one android,” she pointed out.

“Yet there were only 120 million across the planet,” he countered. Now closer to 100 million, he knew, but he opted not to think about that.

“Fair point. The answer is no,” she told him.

“So you’ve never had an android?” he pressed. It wasn’t that he doubted her, he just wanted to be sure. He told himself as much.

“Nope. Never.” Then, waving her hand, she corrected, “Well, Richard did, when I first met him. A secretary,” she explained. “Named her Joanne.”

“But he didn’t keep her?” Connor checked.

Shaking her head, Evelyn explained, “I told him I wasn’t comfortable, having an android in the house. So he sold her. No idea what happened to her since,” she said, a note of melancholy to her voice.

He felt a bit the same, a part of him wondering what happened to Joanne and if she was even still alive after all this time. Generally androids didn’t last that long, either due to being replaced or mistreated until killed.

A memory rose to the fore: Eden Club, the back room, androids of numerous appearances standing in lines to be diagnosed after sustaining damage. At the time he’d had other focus, had felt indifferent to the sight, but Hank’s horror and the perspective of hindsight painted a different picture. Now he felt...sorrow, a yearning to go back and help those he couldn’t at the time.

He hoped Joanne had found a better life.

But, for now, he tried to stay in the present. “You weren’t comfortable?” he echoed, confused to hear Evelyn having that reaction to androids. He pointed out, “You’re fine with me.”

“You’re my partner,” she told him. “Joanne was a...servant. I don’t like that -- never did. Don’t like being served, like I’m incapable of handling my own affairs. I got why he bought Joanne in the first place, though -- running a hotel isn’t easy. Secretaries help. I told him I’d feel better if he hired a human rather than use an android, he said androids are better with computing -- we argued,” she hinted. “Ultimately I got my way...and I’ve regretted it ever since.”

Concerned, Connor asked, “Why?”

Shaking her head, she explained, “I put my comfort over her safety. Richard’s a gentle one,” she told him. “He never mistreated her and I wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. If I hadn’t been so pushy...I could’ve at least watched out for her. But, then,” she added wearily, “I couldn’t have predicted this: the revolution. How would I have known that she might’ve needed me?”

“Evie…” he murmured, a feeling of sorrow welling up. Her heart was too soft, too kind; she was clearly suffering in guilt for things that might’ve happened, and years after the fact.

She glanced over, pulled from wherever her mind had traveled, then said, “I guess there’s no point in worrying over it now. Can’t change the past, can’t predict the future...the only thing any of us can really do is try to be better than we were yesterday.”

Excellent point. “That’s a good philosophy,” he noted. “One everyone -- human and android alike -- would be wise to adopt.”

She gave a half-smile. “Evelyn Forbes, zen guru, full of pearls of wisdom,” she joked.

He chuckled. “Well, you are fifty-seven times older than I am,” he hinted.

“Oh -- oh, ow,” she complained, patting her chest. “Ugh, straight knives, right to the heart! How dare you,” she pouted.

He shrugged. “It’s the truth,” he tried. Then, as another thought came to him, he asked, “Had you ever thought about...buying an android?” That was difficult to ask, he found. The very implication that Evelyn might have bought an android went against the grain, given what he knew of her. But he admitted that people change, and the way she was now didn’t mean she wasn’t different before his arrival.

That took her by surprise. She answered, “Well...yeah, the idea crossed my mind. Plenty of times. Case in point, back in ‘35, for a while L.A. was obsessed with personal trainer androids, and I train on weekends, Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was a sensible idea,” she explained.

“But you decided against it,” he concluded.

She shrugged. “I didn’t really need it. Besides which, my routine is a source of pride for me. If I got help, started depending on an android to keep track of my progress -- well, there goes the whole point.”

“You have a lot of pride,” he commented.

“Noticed that, did you?”

“Day one,” he hinted.

She laughed. “Well, it’s not like I was keeping it secret.”

“Out of curiosity,” he said then, “what was it about androids that caused you so much irritation? Most humans seemed perfectly fine with, and even excited by, the prospect of android slaves.”

She paused, thoughtful, then replied, “The unofficial tagline -- do you know what it was?” He didn’t; he gestured to her to continue, and she answered, “‘You don’t wanna do it, have an android do it.’ At first I’m sure it seemed like a great idea. Hate doing dishes? Have an android do it. Hate washing clothes? Have an android do it. It went on. Hate cooking? Hate cleaning? I certainly do,” she added to herself. “And it spiraled from there.”

God, if it hadn’t, he agreed.

“Boring jobs turned into dangerous jobs turned into greed and from there into true, infinite laziness.” She shook her head. “Humans very quickly started using androids for absolutely everything. Housework, heavy labor, secretary work, policework,” she hinted, “and finally to sex. ‘What you don’t want to do’ turned into ‘literally every possible task’.”

“NASA had planned on sending androids to Jupiter with no return plan,” Connor noted. “They were designed to die, alone and stranded in space.”

“Were going to be,” she corrected. “Hopefully that plan was shelved.” After a moment’s pause, she added, “Do you know what really got me? Child-rearing androids,” she told him. “How...fucked up is that, that we consider raising our own kids something we don’t want to do?”

She was tense, he could see. This clearly scratched her deep. He tried, “Humans have had nannies for millennia. Is it really so strange, having someone else raise your children?”

“Not in that context, I guess,” she allowed, “but there’s still a key difference, Connor: choice. Any human can hire a nanny, pay them for their work -- instead they chose to buy an android and leave it at that.”

“I don’t expect as many people had that choice available to them as you think,” he argued. “If your choices are to buy an android for $900 or pay a human for the foreseeable future at a fixed rate, and you’re already struggling to hold a job, what choice is there?”

Shaking her head, she shot back, “You’re assuming anyone struggling to keep a job will just have $900 on hand at any point, and they don’t. The poor couldn’t afford to buy androids -- only the rich. And chances are, they have the time they need to raise their kids, they just find it unpalatable.”

“Maybe,” he allowed, “or maybe the poor had greater need, so they found a way to afford the costs.”

She inclined her head. “Cut corners, clipped coupons -- I can see that. But choice goes both ways. Humans can choose to be nannies, to raise children, because they enjoy it. We never gave androids the chance to enjoy anything -- just forced them into the roles we wanted.”

He considered that for a moment, then offered, “I suppose, on the scale of undesirable tasks, child-rearing is easily one of the best. I imagine if you gave every deviant the option to go back to their former lives, the ones most likely to do so would be nannies. There’s an inherent joy to it.”

That seemed to give her pause, and at length, she nodded. “I can see that. Raising children can be incredibly rewarding and even euphoric, depending on the person. Who’s to say androids wouldn’t enjoy it, too? For that matter, who’s to say how many androids had been perfectly happy with their lives before the revolution and would go back if given the chance?”

He couldn’t speak for all androids, but he’d quite enjoyed being a detective -- hence why he’d returned to this profession.

“But you’re still missing the biggest -- and arguably the worst -- android luxury there was,” she went on.

That had him curious. “Which was?”

Catching his gaze, she answered, “The YK500. Literally children you can program to behave exactly how you want them to. No worrying over hunger or struggling to get them into bed at night. All the love, none of the nasty surprises -- like waking up to hear your kid screaming in pain and finding they fell out of bed and broke their arm, or sudden illnesses cause they ate something they shouldn’t have, or puberty as a whole. No temper tantrums,” she hinted. “All the things that make raising kids actually worth it -- poof, gone.”

He couldn’t argue that one -- both because he had no idea what raising children entailed or what its rewards were, and because she’d made her point very concisely.

“That’s when I knew the decline of humanity was imminent,” she said. “It was always inevitable, but now it’s right on the horizon. We’ve reached the point where it was considered okay to have robots raising our kids while we raised robotic kids instead. Taking the easier path in every sense of the term.”

Something heavy and uncomfortable hit him then, right in the chest. Empathy, he wondered? Was he picking up on Evelyn’s obvious turmoil -- or was this his own?

“There’s no point, you know,” she told him. “No point to android kids except the phrase ‘I want’. Greed coupled with apathy -- I want kids, but I don’t want real kids with flaws and unpredictability. I want kids I can tell how to behave and they’ll do it. Just sheer obedience. Slave children,” she said, voice hard.

And he didn’t know how to respond to that. She was right -- at least about there being no point to android children. If the purpose behind androids was usefulness, then the YK500 had none. It certainly lent credence to the theory that there was more to android creation and marketing than what CyberLife claimed.

Most androids had a hypothesis about the truth by now. Among them: androids were meant to replace humanity; androids were meant to be immortal bodies for rich humans, they just needed to be good enough first; androids were meant to lead humans to a utopia of unrivaled bliss; androids were meant to supplant and destroy humans...the list went on.

Then again, maybe it really was all about money. That’s what Amanda had told him: that CyberLife’s goal was just to keep selling androids and making money. But then what? What happens after, when androids outnumber humans? What was the end goal? There was no way CyberLife didn’t have a plan for what comes next -- the question was what that plan was.

They were both quiet for a time, lost in their own thoughts, before Evelyn concluded, “Anyway, that’s why androids make me so uncomfortable. Not for what they are -- for what you are,” she told him, “but for what it represents for humans. The end,” she said, melancholy.

The end...of humanity? That’s what androids equated for her?

“Evie,” he murmured, hesitant. The decline of humanity is imminent, she’d said -- and this is what she meant? Not androids destroying humans, but humans allowing their own destruction through androids’ existence?

The future is going to go one of two ways, she’d said when they met. Either androids are going to grab us by the ears and pull us out of this hole, or they’re going to grab shovels and bury us.

“What is it you expect to happen?” he asked, cautious. Her signs of depression were stronger than ever before, and he knew how easily it could tip into suicidal thoughts. He needed to proceed carefully, get a feel for her mental state, and hopefully get her on steadier ground.

She shook her head. “I honestly couldn’t guess. Aside from the total decline of humanity,” she added, “but I expect that’ll occur regardless of android intervention rather than because of it. But for all I know that’ll take millennia yet.”

Still hesitant, he ventured, “You know most androids don’t want a war, right? Markus, especially -- after everything that’s happened, he truly believes that humans are good, as a whole. The bad ones just stand out more.”

“Negative affinity,” she mused. “Funny -- it’s one of humanity’s worst traits, and somehow we managed to give it to you, too.”

Negative affinity, he repeated: the condition of seeing bad things as worse than they are, largely because bad things are more rare than good ones and, thus, are less expected. Getting into a car accident or falling ill were noted because it happened comparatively rarely to successfully driving to your destination or having another perfectly healthy day.

“Or we developed it on our own,” he pointed out. “It’s useful for reminding ourselves how fragile the good days are -- and how much we should appreciate them.”

She glanced at him sideways. “Look who’s the zen guru now,” she teased.

He smiled.

[>>>NEXT>>>]

#siren nightshade #detroit: become human #dbh #blue blood #part 15 #interspecies #exophilia #romance #sfw

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fedgovwhistleblower · 4 years

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9/11 Truth Exposed Including Inside Job Proof And Major Cover Ups By High Ranking Elected Government Officials

TR–3B ASTRA DOCUMENTS AND VIDEOS MORE.zip 209.94MB https://www.mediafire.com/?bjb176im5awjnmi The TR3B Astra needs to run about 600 megawatts of electricity. Each nuclear reactor that can produce a maximum of 220 megawatts, Astra has three reactors arranged one following the other in a chamber in an annular ring. Of sodium vapor, after a first reactor enters a second reactor where it is heated and accelerated again. By restoring its energy in the form of electricity in the MHD of the second tunnel reactor the sodium vapor cools and slows down before entering the third reactor. The enclosure containing the three reactors being closed-circuit this process is repeated indefinitely. The nuclear reactor core includes hollow fissile rods which heat the sodium vapor passing through them. These bars are not simple tubes but complex windings of metal sheets covered with uranium beads. These windings increase the contact surface between the sodium vapor and uranium which optimizes the heat transfer. By introducing or removing a number of deceleration bars it is possible to accurately control the reactor temperature. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, which designed the reactors, had to solve huge problems before they do work. The vertical drive Astra is provided by four MFD thrusters magnetic field switch, consuming about 600 megawatts each . Each propulsion MFD is made of high temperature superconducting windings in yttrium-barium copper oxide (YBCO). In operation, these propellants generate antigravity complex air ionization and standing wave phenomena. These phenomena explain the strange light, color may vary from red to white, and the occasional effects of "truncated lights" caused by "trapping" ionized air in beams standing waves. The antigravitational field generated by the magnetic field interrupter extends only over a few meters of the system. The areas of the fuselage of the Astra farthest from antigravity propulsion therefore retain 11% of their mass and inertia. The crew placed vertically central propellant, is when to him always weightless and therefore sees its mass and inertia totally canceled. The three EMHD thrusters of the Astra, forming the sides of the triangular fuselage, consists of two distinct elements. The first is a resonant cavity of approximately cylindrical shape. The second is an ultraviolet laser power. In this cavity, the air is positively ionized (positively charged) by a stationary microwave beam and circular polarization. These waves are emitted at one end of the "cylinder" of the cavity and are reflected on a mirror at the other end. A series of reflectors forming the outer wall of the cavity and interspersed with "windows", amplifies the schemes oscillation of the standing wave system. This cavity thus created a line of positive electrical charge at very high energy. At mid-length of the cavity, a power laser (perhaps with nitrogen or free electrons) emits a beam of ultraviolet light perpendicular to the cavity. This laser beam is focused by an adaptive optics of 80 cm in diameter at any distance from the resonant cavity. The laser of ultraviolet radiation literally creates a conical tunnel and electrically conductive in the air. It thus forms a waveguide and a virtual electrode of negative electric charge. By sending an electric current is very high voltage at high frequency in the tunnel it is possible to concentrate a huge electric charge at the focal point of the laser beam.This forms the focal point to a negative electrical charge of plasma ball. The huge difference in potential between the "line" of positive electric charge of the resonant cavity and the "point" of negative electrical charge, the plasma ball creates an electrokinetic acceleration of the air between the fuselage and the plasma ball. The air, ionized and accelerated flows in a flattened cone and converging on the plasma ball. By moving the laser beam, so the plasma ball formed at the point of focus, orienting the direction of the electrokinetic propulsion. When the resonant cavity is not enabled, for example hovering, ultraviolet laser can be used alone and focusing the beam onto a target. The laser is focused onto the target, just send all the electrical energy available in the tunnel operator established in the air to materialize a high-energy plasma on the surface of the target.This is the secret of the plasma weapon of the Astra. This weapon plasma beam is effective up to 12 km away, beyond the atmosphere may disperse the beam. The Astra has three of these plasma cannons, one by the side of his triangular fuselage. Whatever the ultraviolet laser light is not visible under certain conditions ionised air surrounding the laser beam emits red and infrared light. This is why some witnesses saw this laser beam emitting red cross light. Performance TR3B "Astra" The three sides of the triangular fuselage TR3B Astra has a length of 34 m, the maximum thickness of the fuselage being 6 meters (landing gear retracted). A cylindrical cockpit eight meters in diameter is slightly above the top of the fuselage. The author feels the weight of the Astra at about 150 tons. The structure and the fuselage of the Astra are made mostly of titanium, some elements may be in composite silicon carbide. The maximum speed of the Astra varies the mode of propulsion and as flying in the atmosphere or in the vacuum of space. In EMHD horizontal propulsion in the lower atmosphere, the Astra can not exceed 9000 km / h (Mach 7.5). However, its horizontal velocity increases with altitude without that one knows by how much, however the author ventures to advance the hypothetical figure of 18 000 km / h.In the vertical propulsion, that is to say, n ' using its antigravity propulsion, the Astra can reach speeds of 20 000 km / h in the lower atmosphere and 100 000 km / h in a vacuum! To accelerate at such speeds horizontally, the Astra range MFD thrust engines positioned at three ends of its body which allows it to bow like a helicopter. It can even, for a small additional EMHD push, stand still any inclination hovering. For against the Astra suffers from a limit which he seems to escape all the specialists, is that he can not go more than a few tens of thousands of kilometers of land, which prohibited any interplanetary journey. This limit is that its antigravity engines operate by repulsion of a local ground, in this case the earth, so that its anti-gravitational thrust rapidly decreases away therefrom. The Astra can however easily into orbit or traveling in near space around the earth. The Astra can not put the satellites in orbit because of its nuclear power generating enough just to its own operation and would not allow the carriage of a significant extra weight. For military missions, the TR3B has a minimum crew of four men. The crew consists of a pilot, an engineer combat systems and cons-measures, engineer in charge of thrusters and one engineer nuclear reactors. The author is not known how many passengers can be seated in the cockpit, but considering the size of it we can assume that it can accommodate a lot of people! Just look at the shape of the Astra to understand that the pilot has no external visibility. Therefore the driver and possibly other crew members, are equipped with a virtual helmet displaying an image to 360 degrees of the outside landscape. This panoramic image is captured by a plurality of cameras able to see all the spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet. In addition, the famous asymmetric bevelled nose contains a radar multi side scan mode, is capable of reproducing a photographic quality image of the environment. It also serves as a strategic radar recognition system. That's all we can say with accuracy TR3B Astra which is both a strategic reconnaissance vehicle and a combat vehicle. https://mega.co.nz/#!mk42wTxQ!TaHAxUlVNRt1LXIBn13aV5aCfLoE3sCrls6g2puRsBc

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talk-football · 5 years

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Dark Days for English Football

The last few days have finally brought an end to the long drawn out saga of Bury FC and Bolton Wanderers FC, one ending in adversity and the other ending in last minute relief.

While it was announced on Wednesday that Bolton Wanderers has finally been sold to Football Ventures, the bid to takeover Bury FC collapsed just hours before the final deadline set by the EFL. The announcement was made late on Tuesday night that Bury FC would be expelled from the league, but was this really necessary? While deadlines must be set, and adhered to, was expelling them the only option?

Expelling a club from the football league benefits no-one. There is no benefit to the league, to the players and especially to the fans. Established in 1885, Bury were one of the founder members of the football league. As a club they have a 134 year history, with 2 FA Cup wins and numerous promotions and relegations over the years. A decision on their future obviously had to be made at some stage, the EFL couldn’t keep suspending matches indefinitely, but did this need to be expulsion? Would it not have been possible to automatically relegate them to League 2 from the start of next season with all this seasons league and cup games being cancelled with immediate effect? They had not played any games so there would have been no points, or goal difference, to remove from other clubs stats. The season will now be played with 23 teams. This is no different to if they had been given automatic relegation for the end of the 2019/20 season. It would also have removed any pressure on trying to get a takeover completed to meet urgent impending deadlines. Efforts to complete a sale could still continue on the understanding that, if a deal had not been completed by the last game of the season then the relegation would be elevated to expulsion.

If a takeover is completed after the relegation, then the club would have the remainder of the season to rebuild, maybe playing friendly matches against teams that they were already pencilled in to play or even arranging matches against U23 sides of bigger local clubs (Liverpool, Everton, both Manchester clubs etc) or even smaller local sides (FC United, Atherton Collieries, Chorley FC). While the gate receipts wouldn’t be high, if other clubs allowed them to keep the majority of the receipts, this would at least allow them to generate enough income to pay any players they still have remaining and to prepare themselves ready for next season. It would also help to avoid the loss of jobs, not just for the players but for the ground staff. The fans turning up at the ground yesterday voluntarily to clean the stadium shows there is a strong community spirit and rather than having to start as a phoenix club, à la Chester and FC Wimbledon, they would be able to continue as the same club that was first established in 1885.

There is a huge gulf in wages between the Premier league and the EFL. Only 9 miles down the road from Bury are Manchester Utd. They were paying Alexis Sanchez an annual salary of £21m. This is 3 times the amount that would have been required to save Bury from extinction. Even after his loan transfer to Inter Milan they are still paying close to £4.5m of his annual salary and he won’t even kick a ball for them.

The likes of Sky Sports and BT Sports are pumping billions into the Premier League but very little of that is trickling down into the lower leagues, the same lower league that bring young players through their academies so that the likes of Liverpool and Everton etc can then buy them for a small fee (compared to buying from bigger clubs). These are the clubs that give them their first chances in football. Would Jamie Vardy have been such a big success at Leicester City without first plying his trade at Fleetwood Town? The more money given to the Premiership by TV, the more wages expected by the players.

Things need to change to protect English footballs grass roots. A good start would be for the EFL to rescind their decision to expel Bury FC from the Football League. While all the blame for Bury’s (and Bolton’s) predicament cannot be placed on any one person, each party must accept their share of the blame. The plight of the clubs may have been caused by mismanagement from the owners but the EFL must accept their share of the blame for allowing the clubs to be sold to these owners in the first place. Ken Anderson had previous history with failing businesses, including Southampton FC, and was actually banned in October 2005 from holding directorship of a company until 2013. As for Bury owner Steve Dale, a worrying 43 of the 51 companies Dale has been associated with have been liquidated. The EFL had a responsibility to do their due diligence before allowing clubs to change ownership. Its boss Debbie Jevans has promised to launch an investigation into what happened. An investigation into what happened will not help Bury, rescinding the expulsion and lowering it to relegation might. What harm can it cause?

There has been talk of another prospective buyer already having the required £7m available to transfer over and Steve Dale also confirmed to Sky Sports News he has two buyers who still want to purchase the club (if he is to be believed). Come on EFL, do the right thing and give Bury FC and the local community the opportunity to enjoy many more years of ups and downs knowing that, at the end of each season, the club will still exist.

#bury fc #efl #football league

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mischiefiswritten · 6 years

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Book Club

A shared book is a shared experience. For Sgt. Barnes and a member of the Women's Army Corps, a connection over a good book may be the path to something more.

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe; set during The First Avenger

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x OC (Carolyn Warren)

Genre: Fluff, Romance (tiny bit of angst at the end)

Word Count: 3800+

It was The Great Gatsby first. Then Anna Karenina, Don Quixote, Little Women, and Lord of the Flies. Every time he laid eyes on her, she had a book in her hands. Any time she wasn’t working, that is.

She was a hard worker if ever he’d seen one. It was enough that a young woman like her – or like he imagined she was – would give up an indefinite length of her life to come overseas, closer to the war than she had any necessity to be, to live on an army base surrounded by strange men. She was always bustling here and there, delivering orders, relaying information, maintaining the accuracy in maps, the list went on and on.

He could only imagine what she was like because as of yet, he hadn’t figured out just how to talk to her. Even now she was typing furiously at a typewriter, keys clacking loudly enough to reach his ears across several yards of space. They said she had a college degree, and that she was an officer in the Women’s Army Corps.

So she was smart, dedicated, and had a sense of duty. Normally he wouldn’t be intimidated by a girl like that. No. No, no, no, he wasn’t intimidated. That wouldn’t make any sense, of course not. He’d spoken to her, but… He cringed at the memory.

He’d only been on base four days when he saw her, reddish hair rolled prettily and lips slightly pursed in concentration. And since he was Bucky Barnes, he saw her, liked her, and walked right up to introduce himself.

“Now what’s a dame like you doing here?” he’d said, trying out one of his best friendly-but-not-too-friendly smiles.

She looked up from the telegrams in her hand, blinking at him as if she was surprised he’d actually said that to her. When the confusion faded from her eyes, the blue took on a sharpness, and he realized his mistake.

“Trying to win a war. What are you doing here?” Her tone wasn’t quite mirroring the sharpness in her eyes, but it was clearly mirroring the wit and self-assurance she was thinking he meant to patronize. This was a young woman who knew what she was about, and right now – she was certainly not about James Buchanan Barnes.

He’d stepped on her toes, and he couldn’t backtrack quickly enough.

“I’m Sergeant Barnes – ,” he’d said, “James.”

James? Who the hell is James? Your name is Bucky.

“I’m Second Lieutenant Warren.” No first name, he’d noted. “Do you need something, Sergeant? We’re not all awaiting orders; some of us have them already.” She gestured to the papers and maps surrounding her. The crisp lines of her uniform made her obvious lack of amusement even starker. “Uh…” Bucky had trailed off. Where was his usual charm? He was usually so much quicker on his feet. “I don’t… No, I suppose I don’t.”

Wave that white flag, Barnes.

“It was nice to meet you, Sergeant James Barnes,” Miss Warren had said, actually giving him a smile. It was genuine and pleasant, despite Bucky’s distinct impression that she was lying. He’d repeated the sentiment back to her and beat a hasty retreat.

The moment he’d escaped out of her sight he visibly cringed, raking a hand through his hair. What an utter disaster.

And he’d been haunted by that disaster ever since. And that was why, three weeks later, he was diving back into that particular battlefield. He straightened his spine and his uniform and trotted across the gravel roadway, preparing himself to be back under fire.

Clackclackclackclackclackclack – ding! The typewriter whirred as she moved to the next line. She was working in a tent, open to the air but kept cool by the shade. This time, he waited respectfully at what he considered closest to being a door, but she seemed too engrossed in her work to notice. That is, until a gust of wind sent an unweighted stack of her work scattering in every direction.

With a little noise of distress, Second Lieutenant Warren gave chase. At the same time, Bucky dashed forward, managing to snag one page out of the air. The pair of them gathered papers from the grass and dirt until they crouched down to retrieve the same one and their knees bumped together. As she noticed him for the first time, he got to see the same faint surprise in her eyes as at their first meeting, but this time up close. The sweet, cornflower blue – and perhaps the prior humiliation made fresh – made him forget how to speak for a moment.

“Sergeant… Barnes, isn’t it?” she ventured, rising in near synchronization with Bucky.

He nodded. “James.” AGAIN.

She cleared her throat and diverted her gaze awkwardly to the ground, even though all the scattered papers had been collected.

“I…” he sighed heavily, glancing down at the correspondence he held in his hands. He shuffled them until the edges aligned. “Look, Lieutenant, I wanted to apologize for that previous conversation. It was never my intention to patronize you, and I have no idea why I said what I said.”

She met his eyes again, almost cautiously. He laughed a quiet, self-deprecating chuckle and rubbed one hand through his hair. “I really don’t know why I thought that was a good idea.”

The barest beginnings of a smile started to tug at her lips. “I don’t know why either.”

He couldn’t keep himself from grinning briefly when she didn’t immediately let him off the hook. “I’m usually smarter than that, I promise. Or, I hope so anyway. Regardless, I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. I respect what you’re doing here, serving your country.”

When she treated him to a smile, it was thoughtful and maybe, he thought, a tad bashful. “If I’m here, doing this, that’s one more of our boys freed up to fight. And hopefully,” she said, “it’s just that much sooner that this war ends and everybody gets to come home.”

Another gust of wind stirred her hair, and for a moment, everything else was quiet.

They smiled at each other in silence until it stretched on just a little too long. Bucky coughed. “So, uh, do you have a paperweight or something for these?”

“Oh! Yes, I’ll get something.” She started to turn back toward her desk, then twisted back around to Bucky. “Actually, could you hold onto these while I do?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered easily, adding her stack to his and following behind her as she went to her desk, pulling out a drawer and searching through it. He noticed a copy of Emma lying just a ways from the typewriter. A bookmark protruded from the pages, less than a quarter of the way from the end. “Is this a good one?” he asked, tapping the cover.

Having retrieved the paperweight, she glanced over to see what he was talking about. She said, “I’ve enjoyed it so far, but a lot depends on the ending.”

“I don’t know. A bad ending doesn’t always have to spoil a good story, does it?”

She twisted her lips to the side while she considered it. “I suppose not, though you’ll always remember the sadness you felt when it ended the way it did.”

“That’s when I just start the story over, personally,” he said as she tucked her work safely under the weight.

"Good point. Thank you… James.” She added the name as an afterthought, and the fact that absolutely no one actually called him that made him smile wryly.

One mistake at a time, he thought. “You’re welcome. Have a good day, Second Lieutenant Warren.”

He’d already stepped out of the shade of the tent and back into the England sun when he heard her call out from behind him, “It’s Carolyn. Second Lieutenant Carolyn Warren.”

He grinned over his shoulder as he replied, “Have a good day, Carolyn.”

From that day onward, Carolyn acknowledged him every time they saw each other. She would wave across the camp to him, or say a bright, “Good morning, James,” when they passed. If he managed to catch her eye during morning drill, he would give her smile. Their gazes would linger on one another just longer than necessary, longer than mere acquaintances. They both wanted a reason to talk more to one another and something to talk about beyond the one time he’d stopped to tell her to call him Bucky. Perhaps it was the fact that the extent of their relationship included one blunder and one reconciliation – their second conversation had felt like a resolution.

Like an ending.

As that thought crossed his mind for the hundredth time, it finally clicked. It was an ending that he didn’t like.

So he would restart the story.

And when he saw her come back from town with a new copy of Moby Dick in her hand, he knew exactly how to do it. He must have asked three dozen men in his regiment before he found one who had a copy of the same book, and then he stayed up half the night reading, hoping to catch up to whatever progress Carolyn must have made.

It was after dinner one day when they were both free for the rest of the evening that he happened upon her, seated on a low retaining wall with her nose in the pages of Herman Melville’s prose. (He’d “happened” upon her, fortuitously having his copy with him, after roaming the base for several minutes hoping for just that.)

“Call me Ishmael,” he said as he approached.

There was no surprise on her face this time, only a luminous smile. He pretended not to be pleased at how immediately she recognized his voice.

“First you can’t decide whether you want me to call you James or Bucky, and now you want to be called Ishmael?” She smirked “You really ought to make up your mind.”

“Indecision is one of my few flaws. I’ve learned to live with it,” he said and settled beside her. He held his book on his lap so she could see.

“You’re reading Moby Dick too? How many pages in are you?”

“Only about ninety. I just started.”

“Me too! Are you liking it so far?” Truth be told, he wasn’t liking it any more now than he had in Ms. Ledbeddor’s high school English class, but he nodded anyway. As a matter of fact, he didn’t think he’d read all that much of it back then, so perhaps he would actually enjoy it. They talked about everything they’d read so far – the good, the bad, the ugly. Carolyn wove a beautiful fabric of thought out of complex themes and philosophical ideas, and Bucky found himself utterly trapped in it. He listened more intently than he’d ever listened to a lecture in school.

Their conversation had diverted to numerous other novels by the time they realized it was completely dark out. They were ensconced in a cone of yellowy fluorescent light from the streetlight under which they were seated. A comfortable silence draped itself around the pair, and once again, it seemed as though the world quieted itself just for them.

After they both rose, telling each other they’d better say goodnight, Bucky couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Carolyn, I’ve got to tell you – the way you talk about literature is special. You’re so passionate and thoughtful that you make me feel passionate about it. And I was not the best English student.”

Her blush, captured even by the harsh artificial light, made his own cheeks heat up. He hadn’t meant to say that, but judging by her bashful smile, it hadn’t been a mistake.

“Thank you. I’ve had a really good time, so… if you ever want to hear me ramble more, I’d be more than happy to oblige. We have to keep up with each other’s progress through Moby Dick, after all.”

“Like a book club.”

Her face lit up even more, outshining the wattage of the streetlamp overhead.

“Exactly like a book club,” she said, “So – I’ll see you at the next meeting then.”

And she did. They met three more times before they’d finished Moby Dick, and then they promptly started A Tale of Two Cities. They made quick work of The Call of the Wild, but reading Gone with the Wind demanded that Bucky take her out to a theater two towns over that was showing the film. Soon they started scheduling book club meetings during dinner, and conversation expanded to much more than just books. They talked about their homes, their friends, their families, what led to them enlisting, life on an army base. Everything under the sun.

Their every get-together was comfortable. It was effortless and free in a way Bucky couldn’t remember any girl’s company being before. He hoped she felt the same about him.

They sat side by side, heads bent together over one copy as they discussed a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories they’d just begun, throwing out theories about the solution to the caper. Their shoulders brushed ever so slightly, and their knees bumped together now and again. Carolyn glanced up at him after they did, peering sideways through her lashes and giving him a sweet, natural smile before she looked back to the pages. Bucky slid his foot to the left until it was pressed against the side of hers.

She pressed back. But her eyes stayed fixed on the book in front of her. Her smile betrayed her, even as she visibly fought it – to say nothing of the girlish pink tinting her cheeks. His own gaze was locked on her face. He couldn’t have looked away if it would’ve saved his life.

He opened his mouth to speak, having no idea what he was going to say. And in that same moment another member of the Women’s Army Corps walked up and tapped Carolyn on the shoulder. Neither of them had noticed the woman approaching – they’d been too wrapped up in each other.

In that flirtation that had seemed so much like a question and an answer.

The woman passed a large manila envelope to Carolyn, who opened it at a careful angle to ensure Bucky was unable to read the contents. She looked it over quietly before nodding to the woman, and the woman left as Carolyn thoughtfully slid the papers back into the envelope and sealed it up again.

“Something you need to take care of?”

“Not right away, no,” she said with a touch of something unidentifiable in her voice. It was probably conceited of him to guess she was as disappointed with the way their spell had be unceremoniously broken.

Damn the war for interfering.

”Another one of those secrets, huh?” It wasn’t the first time she’d received some clandestine communication in his presence, and on a number of occasions when he’d approached her as she was working, she’d covered a map or telegram or two. Once she’d even caught him on his way into the office where she was working and made him wait at the door until she’d hidden away whatever was classified beyond his paygrade – which left a wide realm of possibilities.

Her witty, sweet blue eyes were alight, but they betrayed nothing.

He leaned in close and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial volume. “You’re not one of those code girls, are you?” His eyes twinkled with his joke as he smiled.

She pressed lips together as she suppressed her own smile. “You know I couldn’t tell you if I were. So perhaps,” she thumped him once on the chest with the book which had been all but forgotten, “you ought to leave the intrigue to the professionals, Detective Barnes.”

That made him laugh, and before he caught himself, he was already thinking how much better this all would be once the war ended. No orders, no secrets, easier schedules, no gloom of death and tragedy hanging over them. They would be at home in their own country, in real towns rather than an army base. No one would call on him to leave and perhaps never come back. And he would be an even happier man.

But the picture he painted had her in it. And he realized, feeling rather foolish, that the war was the only thing keeping them in the same place. They didn’t even live in the same state back home. When the war ended, there would be no more book club.

And that wouldn’t be an ending he liked.

This had been easy; this had been fun. But they’d need something more than a novel in common to bind them together, so he said, “Why don’t you come out with me tomorrow night? To the Juniper?”

Carolyn seemed taken aback. The Juniper was a club in the closest village that had surprisingly good jazz and swing bands and a steady stream of soldiers as patrons. “That’s… a little bit loud for book club.”

“That’s true, but it’s the perfect volume for dancing.”

Since their disastrous first meeting, he’d strictly prohibited all intentional charm on his part. He’d never tried another line on her, and he hadn’t suggested anything that was so clearly a date. He couldn’t blame her for testing the waters – she probably wasn’t sure he still felt any interest.

He held his breath until she asked, “What time?”

- - -

And he felt like he was still holding his breath when he saw her. The color of her dress made the color of her eyes so striking it was as though her gaze was a physical touch. There was a big band playing on the stage, but the music disappeared the second she walked into the dimly lit room. The world, as usual, grew quiet while he fell a little more in love with her.

He hardly felt his own footsteps as he drifted through the other patrons to join her. When was the last time he’d seen a woman – seen anything – so beautiful?

The moment she said his name, he knew the answer was never.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, tapping the earpiece of a phantom headset, “There was an important message that came in just as I meant to be leaving.”

“Don’t worry about it, doll. You’re well worth the wait.”

She took his hand when he offered it, and they talked over drinks at the bar until the band started up a big swing number that had both of them looking toward the dance floor. Carolyn pulled Bucky from his seat with both hands, saying, “Come on, soldier. I believe you mentioned dancing when you invited me here.”

They danced to song after song, finding their skills to be a good match for the other’s. Other couples eddied on and off of the dance floor, but they stayed caught in each other’s currents. From one side of the floor to the other, the tide created by the music, the motion, and the sunny feeling between them kept them trapped. Neither had any idea how much time had passed by the time they collapsed at a table, breathless and with aching feet.

They were sitting close to each other, enough that one of Bucky’s feet was between hers and his hand nearly brushed her shoulder as he rested his arm across the back of her chair. Her cheeks were flushed, and the club’s lights cast her in an almost ethereal glow. They drifted together until their breath shared the same space.

“You’re not buzzed or anything, are you?” Bucky murmured.

“What?” She twitched back in surprise. “No, why would – “

“Good,” he interrupted, placing a hand on the nape of her neck. In the next second, his lips were on hers. Intent, patient, sweet.

There was a heartbeat’s length of time in which she was still – and he was terrified – but when she began to return the kiss, it was as purposeful as every word she’d ever spoken to him.

They pulled away enough to take in each other’s expressions, both feeling a little giddy, like anyone experiencing new love should be. “I, um…,” she cleared her throat, looking slightly bashful, “I might be a little bit now.”

Bucky only managed to keep from asking her to go steady with him for a week. She said yes, and sometime later, when his regiment had received their marching orders, she was there, tucking into his uniform pocket his favorite photos from the photo booth at the fair. And he was stealing last kisses, and joking that they’d finish their current read more quickly without the other around to distract them. He beamed over his shoulder at her after their final farewell, thinking of how much he’d fallen in love with her.

And I’ll tell her as soon as I get back.

- - -

Her heart was heavy with the number of letters she’d typed beginning with, ‘I regret to inform you…’ They were so overrun with casualties to report that the usual staff couldn’t keep up with all the families that needed to be informed. List after list came in from the front.

Name after name. Son after son who wouldn’t see another Christmas or birthday.

“Carolyn, there’s a fresh stack of notices here. The 107th, out of Austria.” Another aide bustled by, dropping the abhorrently thick sheaf near Carolyn’s typewriter. At first, she was so absorbed in the macabre task before her that she hardly even heard, but when it hit her, it sucked the air from her lungs and stilled her heart in her chest.

Sergeant Barnes of the 107th. The man whose picture was keeping her place in Jane Eyre.

She murmured an excuse to no one in particular, saying she’d be right back before taking the casualty records from the typing pool and going outside. The less stagnant air did nothing to ease the painful tightness in her chest. Her pulse roared in her ears, even over the din of typewriter keys – like gunfire – in the background.

Her field of vision narrowed to only the pages in front of her as she scanned desperately for his name – something made more difficult by the trembling of her hands. Nausea rolled like sea billows in her gut.

For some reason, with every name she passed, every soldier dead, accounted for, or lost, a book title came to mind. Something she’d read with Bucky, some experience they’d shared.

The Call of the Wild. Gone with the Wind. The Hounds of the Baskervilles. A Study in Scarlet. A Tale of Two Cities. Moby Dick……

Sargent James Buchanan Barnes – missing in action.

Presumed dead.

#marvel fanfiction #fanfic #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky x oc #bucky barnes x oc #marvel ff #my writing #mischiefiswritten

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practicingmedicine · 3 years

Text

Practicing Medicine: Chapter 5

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I woke up to the pleasant smell of fresh-cooked bacon mingling with the less pleasant smell of rotting wood. I rubbed my eyes- had I really fallen asleep in the damn cabin? My back hurt, my joints ached, and, according to the pip-boy, it was 6:12 AM, almost two hours before my normal wake-up time. Though my back screamed at me to lay back down, I forced myself to stand, audibly popping at least a few joints in the process. I muttered some bad words under my breath and tried to stabilize myself against one of the shelves. Soon as I pushed on it, I could feel the wood yield, splitting and snapping off in one violent motion. I tumbled to the ground along with it and a heap of medical supplies. “Goddammit,” I groaned. I started trying to scoop up the fallen supplies. None of them seemed damaged, but so much had fallen- Bottles of pills, bags of rad-away, surgical implements from the bottom of the bag…

Suddenly, the wooden door creaked open. I made a noise like a caveman who’d just been spotted screwing his buddy’s wife, and turned around to face the intruder.

“Isaac- Oh my gosh, did you actually fall asleep in there?” I couldn’t tell if that was worry that I heard in her voice, or mocking. I looked away from her.

“Yeah. I was just cleaning up in here,” I said, scooping up a few more items and putting them back into my bag. I could feel Cook’s eyes on me as I struggled to reach for a couple of items that were on top of one of the intact shelves.

“Well, you can finish packing later. I made some home-style bacon, which as I’m sure you know has a pretty short tastiness half-life before it gets all weird and chewy.” I nodded.

“Um- yeah, you’re right. Is it that weird NCR ration stuff?” I asked, following her outside the shack.

“Technically, but I think you’ll like it. I can turn a pack of instant noodles into Taglioni ai enokitake-mutante! ” She wore a proud grin when she said that, and I gave her a weak little smile back.

“Mm.”

The rising sun felt painfully bright as I scanned the horizon, noting that we had passed the big radio-tower that loomed in the mountains beside Primm. Of course, we really hadn’t traveled far yet- I could still see Primm, with its neon signs and its indefinitely under-construction roller coaster standing out against the hilly background. The coaster had been the previous Casino-owner’s idea, but Mom had decided to see it to completion. She let me ride one of the parts that worked once; I quickly decided to never ride a roller coaster again.

Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be at home with mom- not the sick mom, but the strong, gambling, slightly-tipsy mom that I had spent my boyhood with! I blinked back tears as I stared at the home I was leaving behind, then quickly turned around.

“Goddamn sun is getting in my eyes,” I muttered, and kept limping towards the scent of Bacon.

Cook and I walked around the side of the shack, and over a little hill. Once we reached the crest, I could see the campsite below, just off the highway, behind a massive boulder. The wagon and its two brahmin sat off to one side, a few yards away from a shoddily constructed fire pit, where I could see Gram sitting in a folding lawn chair. Cook led me down the steep hillside, silently indicating for me to follow behind her. It took me a second, but I got the message after slipping on the third loose rock. Standing atop the boulder, I could see the unmistakable outline of Tandi, who I think was waving.

“Took you long enough!” she shouted, her voice amplified by her helmet. Cook gave her a defiant middle finger.

“I’ll spit in your dinner!” she shouted back, cupping her free-hand over her mouth. I assumed a look of quiet horror.

“Cook! That’s a textbook BSI violation!”

Tandi hopped down from the rock, executing a perfect tumble just as I remembered that she had a horribly injured leg. I almost shouted in protest, then realized that she was already standing again. She dusted herself off.

“‘Morning, fellas,” said Gram, tipping his hat at us from his rusty folding chair. I gave him a quick salute.

“‘Morning, sir! Sorry I took so long to get up.” Gram gave me a dismissive wave.

"You’re the one missing out on a hot breakfast. Check the fire, I’ll bet there’s some left.”

I don’t much like fire, but I also didn’t like how hungry I was feeling. So despite my fears about the safety of the fire pit, I walked up and knelt beside it. It wasn’t a big fire- it had been made from a couple of planks of plywood and a chunk of tire, though I was also pretty sure I saw something metal in there somewhere. It had been built inside a hand-dug pit, with the shovel still lying off to the side, which worried me a little bit. What if I fell in? Would I fall into my own fiery grave of burning embers?

Stupid. I was being stupid. The fire was burning low now, and there were two pans of delicious Brahmin bacon cooking over the stove. That was the important thing here.

“How do you recommend taking these out?” I asked, staring at the delicious bacon which awaited me in the pan below. It was tempting to just try to grab it, but… fire, you know?

Cook motioned for me to move out of the way. She was holding a machete covered in dried blood- Animal blood, I hoped, while I moseyed right-on out of the way. Cook stepped up where I had been standing, and nimbly scooped up four strips of bacon with the machete. She wheeled around on one heel to face me, and I froze, trying not to be worried about the blade that was now just inches away from my chest. Cook smiled.

“How many do you want?” She asked. I looked down at my poor, empty stomach, then back up at her.

“...Can I just have all four? I don’t think I ate breakfast, lunch or dinner yesterday.” Food had been the last thing on my mind.

“A man after my own tastes, I see! Stress-eating is the noblest kind of eating,” she replied. She tilted her machete downwards a bit, and I quickly cupped my hands to catch the sliding strips of meaty goodness. I juggled them around in my hands as the worst of the heat dissipated.

“You don’t know the half of it. Got any plates?” Cook shook her head.

“Nope. We have a couple of bowls for soup, but I just cleaned those. Find a rock or something.” She looked at me for a moment, and screwed up her face a little. “Why are you here anyways? No offense- I like Doctors, and you seem cool! But you don’t seem like someone who’s traveled before, and New Vegas is far away. What brought this on?”

I thought for a second. I had deliberately withheld that information from Gram because I wasn’t sure how he’d react, but I wasn’t really worried about Cook. Would she tell Gram? Would he be annoyed that I’d been withholding information?

Was I maybe overthinking this a little?

“My mom’s sick. I need to see the Followers to get her help, and they’re stationed in New Vegas now.”

There. Noncommittal- I didn’t say she was dying, just that she needed help. I didn’t let on too much about the circumstances, either. I just told the truth. And I always say, reluctant honesty is the best policy, on account of It fostering character growth or something.

Come to think of it, I was starting to see why characters in the books that father always read me didn’t just dump their deepest, darkest problems on each other as soon as they met. I’d always been of the mind that most of their problems would be cleared up if they were just honest with each other- that was my thinking behind the examination. But now, I was seeing firsthand the dangers of sharing information with new people. If I told Gram or Tandi the wrong thing, or presented it the wrong way, I could see myself winding up abandoned.

Cook seemed safe, though. Where Gram seemed to care only as it related to running an effective team, and Tandi didn’t seem to care at all, Cook seemed endlessly fascinated by most things. In the examination room, she had been interested by my hand, by her own strange biology, and seemingly just by me.

Based off of that, I was pretty sure she wasn’t testing me or looking for a reaction when she asked that question. She just really wanted to know.

“Oh. I’m gonna guess that what she has is terminal?” ventured Cook, trying to make scary eye contact for some reason. I sighed.

“...Yeah. My mom has cancer. Nothing I can do about it, but I know some doctors who I’m hoping to convince to come back and help. My Aunt Julie is kind of a big deal there, and I’ll bet I could guilt trip her.”

“Oh.” We both sat in silence.

Well, there went keeping that part a secret . Still, it didn’t really matter- if I was desperate enough to mosey on up from Primm to New Vegas and beg for help, anyone with an ounce of brainpower could guess that the situation was pretty serious.

I started munching on my strips of bacon, which admittedly brightened my mood a little. I think I was on about the third piece of bacon when Cook finally decided to try to restart the conversation.

“I’m really sorry- not about your mom- well, obviously about your mom, but also about…

"Bringing it up like that,” I said, finishing her thought for her. She tugged at the hem of her dress.

“Yeah. I don’t always think before I talk.”

Well, I could understand that, at least. Not that I didn’t think before I spoke, but that I didn’t think about the right things before I spoke. I’ve always tried my best to be kind to everyone, but my idea of kindness is a lot different than most people’s. For example, most people will tell you that they’d like for you to tell the truth, which is good- I like telling the truth, makes me feel better- but when you tell them the truth, they get all upset and tell you that you shouldn’t be so mean. It’s infuriating- if they want me to lie, why don’t they fuckin tell me so?

Well, actually, maybe that’s a bit too much to expect, but it would be nice if they didn’t preface it with, “ Be honest ,” seeing as how they expect the opposite. But I digress.

“It’s okay- I have a similar problem,” I replied. Then I thought back a little, and decided to be proactive. “Actually, can I ask you a quick question?”

Cook nodded. “Ask away!”

“When you say, “be honest,” do you mean it? Like, I’ve noticed that a lot of people tell me that, and then when I tell them the truth they get all freaked out. You ain’t going to do that, right?” I asked. She grinned.

“Oh, thank gosh- I thought you were about to start asking me about my past or something. Um, no, I definitely won’t freak out if you’re honest with me. Actually, I kind of hate it when people mince words to make things sound better,” she replied, scooping up another few strips of bacon with her machete. She offered me one.

“No, but thank you!” I instinctively backed up a few inches as the blade came within chopping-distance of my nose. She smirked.

“More for me, I guess.” I watched with confusion and fascination as Cook flicked her machete, tossing all three strips of bacon into the air, and then subsequently caught them with her mouth. I couldn’t pretend that that wasn’t kind of impressive, but I honestly wasn’t sure how to show my appreciation for a stunt like that.

“That was kinda nasty,” I offered. Cook scoffed at me through the bacon.

“Oh, come on, you’re a doctor! Isn’t your bar for what’s, “nasty” a little higher than that?” I shrugged.

“I never said that stuff wasn’t nasty. But, I poke around people’s guts all the time. I don’t think I’ve ever watched someone do that before,” I replied. That was a little bit of a fib- I actually didn’t root around inside people’s internals very often. In fact, yesterday was the first time that I’d done anything that involved so much blood. But, I’d seen father do the same thing a thousand times, and I’d practiced on corpses and looked at diagrams, gotten a sense for what it was like. Even by that time in my life, the smell of blood on skin was one I wasn’t ever gonna forget.

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment- I made a doctor sick to his stomach,” she said, finishing off the last of the bacon and wiping her mouth. I shook my head.

“No, see, I didn’t say you made me sick, I said it was “ kinda nasty- ” there’s a big difference!”

“You two, shut up and pack your shit! We’re leaving!”

We both turned around to face Tandi, who had been stalking up behind us, helmet underneath her arm. She looked a lot better in the morning sunlight than she did in the sickly glow of the flash-lit shed. Her hair flowed behind her as the wind blew, and she was able to stand at her full, impressive height, which was at least a foot taller than me. Cook and I were both completely dwarfed by that woman.

“I’m already packed--Isaac isn’t, but that’s my fault. I fetched him for breakfast before he could finish,” said Cook, and I silently appreciated her jumping to my defense like that. Tandi rolled her eyes at us with her entire upper body, and pointed in the direction of the shed.

“Well get to it then! I’m gonna scout ahead, check the usual places. Don’t do nothing stupid,” she suggested, slipping her helmet back on. Before I could think of a clever retort, Tandi was already out of earshot. She gave Gram a lazy salute as she strolled past him, and he tossed her something- a rifle, I think. She caught it with practiced ease. Then she strode behind the boulder, and out of sight.

“She’s real scary,” I decided. Cook shrugged.

“I like her. I mean, she’s not usually this mean- She’s just not a morning person. Give her some time, eh? She’ll warm up.” I gave her a look that suggested the opposite.

“Really? What could she possibly like about me? I’m a small-town doctor, she wouldn’t let someone like me tie her boot-laces!” Cook looked annoyed now. Were they actually friends or something?

“Yeah, and I’m a cook, if you couldn’t tell! She doesn’t care what you do, she cares what kind of person you are. As long as you aren’t a complete coward or one of Caesar’s cronies, she’ll be fine with you.”

I sighed. “Okay, maybe. I’m still just gonna stay out of her way unless I’ve got to.” Cook didn’t argue with that. I looked up at the hillside that the shed lay behind. “Do you want to help me pack up?”

She shrugged. “I guess. I’ve really got nothing better to do.

That was fine by me.

-Break-

“How’s that yellow brick road song go? We should be hummin’ that right now,” suggested Tandi, strolling beside me and Gram. Cook was sitting on the top of the wagon, enjoying a midmorning snack of NCR rationed trail-mix.

“You mean the Elton John one? It’s like, “ When are you gonna come down, When are you going to Land -“ started Gram, getting into the rhythm of the song with his gravelly voice. Tandi shook her head.

“Nah, not that hippy shit! I’m talkin’ about the one that the little brat in the wizard movie sings!” I perked up at that.

“You’re talking about the Wizard of Oz!” I replied. That movie was like, one of three that I had ever seen! Tandi nodded.

"Yeah, that one! How’s the song go?”

“Well, it’s like, “ Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Follow the Yellow Brick road !” and then there’s a trumpet thing and then they start singing that they’re, ‘ off to see the Wonderful Wizard of Oz ,” I explained, doing a happy little jig as I sang each musical number. I couldn’t see Tandi’s expression, but I don’t think she was very impressed.

“That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said. After a brief pause, she began to hum the song. I hummed along, and eventually, Cook caught on and started humming too. Gram just looked annoyed.

"We’re off to see the wizard ...” Gram rolled his eyes at me. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz! Come on, sing with me!”

“Yeah! I’ve heard you sing before, you’ve got a great voice!” said Cook. Tandi just kept humming along, walking forwards just a little faster than the rest of us as she hummed. The humming was surprisingly recognizable, given that it was being so grossly distorted.

“The Wizard of Oz is one becozzzzz…” I started, grinning evilly at Gram. He lit a cigar.

“I consider this your fault.”

Tandi began to hum louder, and Cook took that as a cue to join back in. I just grinned and kept humming along, happy to lighten the mood for the other two. It was getting really hot, after all, and we had already walked a couple of miles this morning.

Still humming, I checked the route guidance on my pip-boy. We were currently bound for Sloan, a little NCR mining town to our West, which was still many miles away. Thankfully, the highway was flat--slightly downhill actually, so the journey wasn’t even hard on my legs. Mom and I would go hiking up to the old cell tower back in the day, and I’d been keeping in decent shape by running the neighborhood almost every morning since then.

The others weren’t tiring either, which was refreshing. Tandi was so well exercised (and determined) that she could probably walk up a 90 degree slope, and Gram just seemed to be perpetually strolling through some sort of imaginary park. It wasn’t so much that he was fit, but that he saved his energy so well that it was almost supernatural.

Cook, on the other hand, was not big on hiking. I didn’t get the impression that she did any sort of dedicated exercises, and she was a lot heavier than any of the rest of us. So, she usually just sat on the top of the wagon, occasionally getting down and walking with us for a while. It was kind of fun to wave to her and shout back and forth from the ground to the top of the caravan though, so I didn’t judge.

Despite my ability to keep up, I still got the sense I was doing something wrong. The sun seemed to be getting to me a lot more than the others, which was strange considering how much time I spent outside. I was fanning myself off, taking little breaks behind the occasional shade-granting boulder, and even staying hydrated (despite our best attempts to run out our water reserves before we reached Sloan.)

So, I gave myself a mission: as we walked, I tried to look out for things that the others might be doing differently. At first, my search was fruitless--I didn’t notice anything different. We were all wearing long sleeves, (Except Cook, who was still wearing a sundress, and also keeping her back to the sun which I think meant she was taking my advice.) we were all walking at a comfortable pace, and we were all taking steps to stay hydrated. Then, as I was doing a quick scan, I noticed something-

H A T S

They all had hats!

Gram wore a bowler hat, Cook wore a baseball cap with a maple leaf on it (or sometimes a floppy hat,) and Tandi was rocking her ranger helmet. Did it really make that big of a difference? There was only one way to find out.

“Hey, Gram! Do you maybe have like, a hat I could use?”

Without even turning around, Gram chuckled at me- had he been expecting this? Did this happen to every new recruit or something? I felt a little bit like I’d failed another test.

“I was waiting for you to ask. Yeah, I got a few choices. You wouldn’t believe the difference they make!”

So he had been expecting this! I tried not to look forlorn as Gram stopped the Brahmin, opened up the back of the wagon, and ushered me inside.

I hadn’t ever seen the inside of the thing. The frame of the wagon was made of wood, I noted, and it had open sides, but Gram had covered it in brown-colored blankets, except for the place where a spigot for getting water stuck out the side of the wagon. The doors in the back weren’t locked in any sort of way, although there was a bar that Gram had to slide so that they could open up, probably so that it wouldn’t come open by accident.

Inside, there was a big black box- in fact, the frame of the wagon had been slightly modified to hold the thing, it was so big. The box was clearly locked, and it took up almost all the space inside the wagon. In the space that the box didn’t take up, there was a machine gun, a laser rifle, cooking supplies, some sort of emergency-medical-supplies box that I was pretty sure was made to hold stimpacks, a bunch of tangled up electronics that I wouldn’t even try to identify, and a few hooks with spare clothes hanging on them. At the tip of each hook was a hat or helmet, bobbing pleasantly as the wagon came to a complete stop.

“Well, Isaac, take your pick- if you can’t reach it, we can get Tandi,” said Gram, indicating the helmets in the very back of the wagon, a space that was hard to reach on account of the massive black box. I gave it a kick.

“What’s in here?” I asked. Gram shrugged.

“The NCR wouldn’t tell me- they just said that it was important, and sent me on my way.” He leaned over like he was getting ready to spill me a secret. I gave him my ear. “They promised me a hundred-thousand caps for this. None of those NCR dollars- good, solid caps. And a hunded thousand, do you know what that could buy? That’s enough to disrupt this economy in a big way. That’s more than I’ve made on every other shipment combined.”

Normally, I didn’t think much about money, but I had to admit that the number floored me. The things that a man could do with a hundred-thousand caps…

Of course, it was the NCR offering the money, so I was pretty sure Gram was going to get fleeced somehow. They would impose some ridiculous tax on his payment, or just plain sweep him under the rug, since the whole deal had presumably been made in secret. That was how the NCR operated- it was part of why the Followers had been so reluctant to work with them, and why father had hated them so much. And to be honest with you, I couldn’t disagree with him. The NCR wanted a police state, and freedom wasn’t something I took lightly. I figured that people don’t need a bunch of jackbooted thugs with barking-irons telling them how to live their lives, when they had been perfectly content before. Raiders were a problem, sure, but the NCR had really only made the problem worse by acknowledging the issue and then failing to do anything about it.

Of course, the NCR was also the only thing keeping the legion from coming in and killing us all, so I tolerated them for that. No matter how much the NCR might’ve sucked, they were better than Caesar’s Legion. At least some of them thought they were doing the right thing, even if most of them were hopelessly corrupt…

“Isaac? You gonna choose a hat?” Asked Gram. He only seemed a little bit bothered.

“Yeah, of course. Sorry,” I murmured, and started scanning the hats on display. There was a floppy hat, a tan ballistic helmet, an old firefighter-helmet, a police cap, another floppy hat...

“I’ll take the fire helmet,” I said, and pointed at the scratched grey helmet that shared a hook with a bomber jacket and a couple of sundresses. It didn’t have quite the same sun-blocking properties as a floppy hat, or the safety features of a ballistic helmet, but I’d worn a fire helmet before and it seemed like it would perform both roles fairly well.

“Alright. Can you reach it?” I nodded.

“Hell yeah I can reach it!” Though it was on one of the farther hooks, I compensated by pushing myself up to the top of the black box with one hand, and reaching for the helmet with my weird hand. I wasn’t tall enough to pull it off the hook, so instead I knocked it off from the bottom and grabbed it from on top of the black box. Once I had secured it, I let myself slide down.

“Got it,” I muttered, and slipped the helmet on. Because of some convenient rigging inside the helmet, it was surprisingly snug on my head, though I could feel it bob a little when I moved.

“Well, it’s loose for sure, but it’ll give you some good shade. Has your decision got anything to do with the thing on the front?” he asked, poking me in the center of my helmet with his finger, right where the emblem sat. I nodded sheepishly. Part of the reason I had picked it was, indeed, on account of the cool blue star of life on the front. I knew I wasn’t anything like the paramedics of the past, but I had considered them to be a sort of ideal when I was younger. Since then, I’d never quite shaken the idea of being like a pre-war medic.

“Well, come on, let’s not lose any more time. We’re closer than you might think,” he said, leading me out of the wagon. He shut the doors, and looked over the caravan with a big grin.

"In fact, riiiiggght around this bend, we’ll be able to see Sloan. We’re booming along today, just absolutely killing it! Who knows- maybe we can even get back on the road after we stop,” he continued, clearly trying to get a rise out of us. On cue, Cook groaned obnoxiously, and Tandi mumbled something about armor plates and sweat. I groaned too, but my heart wasn’t in it- I was on this journey to save mom, and the quicker it went, and the fewer hitches we ran into, the more successful I was likely to be.

“Sloan-Ho!” shouted Cook as the cart rounded the bend in the highway that had been necessitated by two giant, rocky hills. Tandi snorted at that, and I gotta admit that I smiled a little too. The town of Sloan, though still far away, was now straight ahead.

New Vegas was a long ways away from here, but I was glad that we were already making so much progress. Considering how well things had been going, it was all too easy to forget that I was on a tight, invisible timer, slowly counting down to, “too late.”

[+]

#fallout #fallout fanfic #fallout fanfiction #fallout fandom

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irondevilpunisher · 6 years

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My Punisher Review

*No Spoilers*

This is the series I’ve waited years for, ever since the 2003 film starring Thomas Jane (which I still love btw). I don’t know what it is about the Punisher’s story of a broken man out for revenge that has me so entranced, because lets face it this isn’t an original plot. Its been done many times; example Death Wish. I guess it has a lot to do with how its executed that keeps the Punisher fresh and interesting just like its titular antihero. Plus I’m a sucker for antiheroes and people just can’t get enough of this guy. So did the series do this iconic MCU character justice? Yes it did and more. However there are some issues I had with the series that I will get into but first let me talk about the highlights.

Let me start off by talking about the acting powerhouse that is Jon Bernthal. For me he stole the show in DD2 so I didn’t expect anything less in his own standalone series. And believe me he absolutely kills it in this. He kicked ass. In my opinion Frank Castle is Jon Bernthal’s baby now and forever; he embodies that character like no other. I’ve loved Jon’s work since his Walking Dead days (despite my loathing for Shane’s character). When I heard he got cast as the Punisher for Daredevil’s 2nd season I thought “hah, I wanna see what this guys’s got” sure enough Jon blew me away with his outstanding performances and won me over indefinitely. I just did not expect to fall even more in love with this character under Jon Bernthal when I had Shane still lodged in my mind. That said entering DD2, Shane was nowhere in sight.

He definitely had quite the load to work with but Jon seamlessly brings a near perfect blend of vulnerability, humanity and lethal infusion. What he did with the Punisher in Daredevil’s 2nd run, he takes it to the next level in the spinoff series. The layers and complexities he gives Castle are nothing short of brilliant. One minute he can make you laugh, then scared, then break your heart which isn’t an easily accomplished feat at all considering how brutal Frank can be. You wouldn’t think it watching how violently Castle exacts his own brand of justice but Jon’s portrayal for the most part comes across as oddly endearing, sympathetic, charming and even relatable. Frank is such a tortured and tragic individual. He’s just likable even when he’s not trying to be. He was a family man, a marine and a patriot to his country. Frank had problems in his marriage yet was completely in love with his wife. Struggled with ptsd which is why he had issues connecting with his family and maintaining other relationships. And he’s incredibly selfless. Frank’s torn love for his fellow soldiers and his family is actually bittersweet and very human.

There is no one more deserving of their own series than Frank Castle. And Jon hit a grand slam with this one.

Moving onto the second highlight of the Punisher series, David Lieberman aka Micro aka Frank’s new geeky buddy/partner in crime. This guy was freaking awesome! I mean seriously I loved this character right out of the gate. He stole all his scenes. And the best part about Micro is he wasn’t just there to be the comic relief or the techy sidekick, he really humanizes the Punisher. Brings out a lighter more laid back side to Frank’s persona. The two characters just play off each other so well, Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach have such a natural instant onscreen chemistry, its actually touching. I could watch their scenes all day. I really enjoyed following and witnessing the connection between these two men deepen as they worked together throughout the series. Their relationship is without a doubt the core of this show. And Moss-Bachrach made me feel so much for Micro’s character in terms of his isolation and alienation from his family. I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing opposite to Jon’s respective Punisher. Micro is literally the best friend Castle could’ve asked for, totally has his back 100%. Such a welcoming addition to the Punisher’s brutal world.

Frank really needed this guy to keep him balanced. Polar opposites yet they have so much in common at the same time. Its like watching the Die Hard version of the Odd Couple only better. I don’t know what’s in store for Micro next season but (not to spoil you) I just have a terrible feeling he may suffer the same fate as Frank judging by how his seasonal arc ended. I sincerely hope not but if we go by what happens in the comics you know that the Punisher/Micro are a package deal. They’re in it together all the way.

Other highlights include Ben Barnes as the show’s villain Billy Russo aka Jigsaw/former best friend of Frank Castle. Holy crap this guy was scary as he was sexy. The interesting theme I found in this series was human nature and how sometimes it can be catastrophic. While Frank is so open about his grief and rage. Russo is the opposite, he’s the calm before the storm. His rage is more on the inside which makes him all the more dangerous and a worthy adversary to Castle. Strangely enough I really liked this character. He doesn’t set out to be evil just doing what he feels is right. Russo harbors so much pain and anger, dealt a lousy hand in life. And Barnes kicks a hell of a lot of ass in this role. I even enjoyed his complicated romance with Dinah Madani. They had nice chemistry together and quite a few steamy scenes that were pretty ship worthy which makes their inevitable conflict that much more heart-wrenching. Although I wasn’t entirely fond of Madani in the beginning and found her many times naive when it came to Russo, Amber Rose Revah did play the part best to her ability. She also had a fascinating cat/mouse thing going on with Frank Castle and I loved her dynamic with fellow agent Sam Stein.

Most of the supporting characters are good and compliment the show’s lead very well. The flashbacks and dreams of Frank with Maria were bittersweet and heartbreaking as they were essential. In a way Maria acts as Frank’s guardian angel and conscience. Flawless chemistry between these actors. It hurt knowing Maria and the kids were dead yet I kept wishing they weren’t every time Frank had a moment with them. I have to commend the casting decisions for the Punisher people because they really wanted actors who gelled in the limited time they had. And fortunately they did. Jon does some fantastic work involving the Frank and Maria Castle stuff, particularly in the last couple episodes of the series.

Sarah Lieberman is a doll. I absolutely loved her character and her interaction with both Frank Castle and her husband Micro. Jaime Ray Newman is gorgeous, talented and so underrated as an actress. She’s strong as she is vulnerable and sweet. She really brought out a softer and much kinder side of Frank that was needed to keep his character grounded enough so that the Punisher wasn’t just strictly about murdering people. In fact her chemistry with Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach was an accidental surprise and really had me torn because after watching this series I proudly ship the hell out of them both. The unexpected connection that Frank develops with the Lieberman family is some of the most powerful bits of storytelling. This broken man who’d lost his own family he in turn gains another and its some of the most simple yet entertaining parts about this show. I just really enjoyed Frank’s interaction with Sarah and the kids. And I’m looking forward to where the writers take them next season, hopefully its in a good place.

Karen Page, it was so nice seeing her again after Defenders. DAW is just stunning as she is awesome as this character. She wasn’t in the Punisher that much but I will say this show gave her a hell of a lot more story time than Defenders did. I really looked forward to watching Karen extend her reporting ventures and learning how she’d been dealing with the aftermath of Matt Murdock/Daredevil’s supposed death. Suffice for me to say this girl was hurting badly. Though [minor spoiler] Matt nor Foggy’s names escaped her lips even once on the Punisher, the way DAW played it so subtly internal made me think they were on her mind the entire time she was onscreen. Karen was definitely wearing masks while she was in Frank’s presence. Hiding from him and herself as much as she was using work to escape her pain. And that obvious grief only provoked a more reckless side in Karen to say the least. I won’t say what that was of course being that this review is supposed to be spoiler free.

The one thing I will touch on about Karen’s appearance that I didn’t enjoy would have to be the plot she was given in the Punisher. Which brings me to my low-lights of the series.

The Kastle stuff was fantastic in DD2 I loved their scenes and their dialogue in that season of Daredevil. Both Bernthal and DAW managed to create an interesting dynamic between Frank and Karen, a unique bond, mutual respect and understanding. And I thought that relationship would’ve translated beautifully in the spinoff as it’d done on DD. However in my humble opinion it did not. I just didn’t feel the connection between these two characters was genuine as it had been in DD2. While some stuff was touching [like the hug between Karen and Frank at her apartment] there were parts about their interaction that had me rolling my eyes. I’m talking cringe-worthy moments [like Frank’s little “she’s family” outburst with Micro and the elevator]. It just felt so out of place especially when Karen’s name did not come up on Frank’s radar when she wasn’t in episodes. There were times it seemed as if I were watching a soapy Kastle fanfic instead of the EPIC story of Frank Castle/The Punisher.

Don’t even get me started on the fact that Karen’s role in this series was minuscule or that the B-plot she was involved in was horribly predictable, badly written and unimaginative. Far as I’m concerned the whole Lewis Wilson arc was the weakest part about the Punisher. It only served to give Karen’s character an excuse to stick around longer and to satisfy the dreams of a certain section in this fandom. I understand very well why Karen was used instead of Claire Temple to bridge Punisher with Daredevil; she developed a bond with him. It only made sense for the writers to use her for that purpose. But for me this is what slowed the series down. And as much as I love Karen and seeing her developed further this show did nothing for her. We didn’t get any insight into where her head was at after Defenders which is what the Punisher really needed to keep all these Netflix MCU worlds connected. She doesn’t really share any personal or meaningful conversations with Frank as she’d done previously. So because of that, Karen Page’s addition into the Punisher felt disjointed and awkward.

The veterans/gun-control plot part of the Lewis arc really wasn’t needed. It worked for an episode after that this part of the plot took me out of Frank Castle’s story. Hopefully next time the Punisher writers will stay focused on the main storyline they’re telling and less on the preachy bits about today’s society.

Overall this was a really strong start for a freshman series. Its flawed and far from perfect but still badass and entertaining. The action/fight sequences and stunts were gritty and excellently choreographed. There’s plenty of guts and gore in this show so if you have a weak stomach you might want to avoid the Punisher. And the bodycount is fairly high, it wouldn’t be the Punisher if it wasn’t. The pacing is decent. The writing in most of the episodes was modest, most notably in the last 3 episodes. Its definitely one of my top favorite Netflix MCU shows. I sat on the edge of my seat from the start to the end. So much potential for better seasons to come but all and all I finished this show feeling very satisfied and wanting more.

A worthy addition to the netflix MCU. Oh and that freaking intro man it has to be my favorite by far!

Final thoughts go to my fellow Karedevil shippers:

I know its been a rocky road for all of us after DD2 and Defenders. Some of you have chosen to abandon ship while others are only slowly losing faith in the DD writers. It might seem hopeless right now but as I said in my Karedevil post Karen Page’s path is still pointed towards Matt Murdock’s. Her state of suffering in the Punisher only clarifies how much Karen still loves Matt. Her fears and concerns for Frank’s well-being came from a place of her own personal loss. She did not want to lose another person she cares about just as she felt she’s lost Matt, I strongly believe this.

Its not over between them its only the beginning. Besides no one ever said the road to true love would be easy. So hang in there guys DD3 ‘Born Again’ is coming and I anticipate great things. Charlie believes in Karedevil and knows they’re meant to be just as we do. The only thing the Punisher writers did for Frank and Karen was give their fans a few tasty snaps and closure, kinda like what DD2 and Defenders did for Mattelektra fans. There is still plenty of hope left for Matt and Karen now that she knows his secret and that they remain part of each other’s lives. Until then we carry on chilled.

Now here’s a lovely Charlie gif for you all.

#the punisher #frank castle #karen page #karedevil #frank x karen #david lieberman #micro #frank x micro #sarah lieberman #maria castle #billy russo #frank x sarah #micro x sarah #jigsaw #dinah madani #frank x maria #marvel's the punisher #my punisher review #MCU

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