A Glimpse Of The Web, Part III

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Scene Title A Glimpse of the Web, Part III
Synopsis {hiss}
Date January 10, 2019

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

"You almost had me."

There's silence from Richard Cardinal for a long heartbeat, the blue-white arcs of electricity reflecting off the polarized goggles he's wearing along with the crimson lightning that cracks and spits from him. Then his shoulders sink, a sigh breathed out against his scarf.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, Richard," he says, shaking his head slowly as he walks closer, stopping across from his future self and bringing his left hand up to push the goggles up, letting the other man see his face. Some blood crusted at the corner of his lips, chapped and cracking from his exposure to the cold, his eyes squinting a bit against the light. Unused to it, even

"I asked you a question, up there," he adds, voice lifting so it can be heard over the noise of the machine spinning up in the background, "What did it say? There was a note on Ronald Mallett's door when we showed up there. I don't think it was for me. I think it was for you."

"What did it say?"

Face to face with his younger self, Ezekiel is forced to consider an uncomfortable truth. The villain never considers himself as such, he is the hero of his own story. Now, surrounded by water tinged pink with blood, bodies soaking in six inches of ice cold death, he gives that notion due consideration.

“The way back, is closed.” Ezekiel breathes the words out, what the sign said for him. He stares at Cardinal, as if that should hold some meaning to them both. But it only proves something to Cardinal that he had been considering for some time.

It's the meaning of what the sign said when he got there. What was written for the Richard Cardinal of this time on Mallet’s door: Time is not a line. Either someone changed the sign, or two roads diverged in a wood further back than imagined.

“But, you're right,” Ezekiel admits. “The message — wasn't going to work. My road always ends here. Walter Trafford stood right where you are in our future. My failures are circles.” Sliding his tongue over his teeth, Cardinal exhales a ragged breath. “I’ll get it right next time.”

Overhead, the lasers of the Mallet device wobble and grind together as they spin. Bit the lasers are being bent upward, distorted by the insane gravitational force exerted by Magnes’ power gone berserk. “I had to think bigger.” The entire facility begins to rumble, pressurized pipes begin to blow.

Ezekiel’s eyes are that of a madman, stolen from Cardinal’s friend. “Welcome to the new beginning, Richard.”

There was a part of Richard Cardinal that hoped, that hoped desperately that he could talk some sense into his older self. That he could make him understand everything that he'd realized in that moment upstairs when La Mer began to play over the radio.

The final lesson of Edward Ray.

As he meets that gaze, though, he knows that these roads diverged a very long time ago. One of them learnt that lesson, and all the lessons that went along with it. The other wandered from the path and into madness. He could tell him about the family he’d overlooked, the reason he was wearing the bracelet around his wrist. He could tell him about the way his children look while sleeping. But he wouldn’t hear any of it. He’s too far gone, and realizing that about Ezekiel — about himself through a glass darkly — fills him with guilt and anger, a self-loathing directed outward at all the parts of himself that he hates made flesh.

“Joshua sends his love."

He brings his other hand up in a sudden, swift motion from his side with those final words, orange plastic beneath gloved fingers as he fires the flare gun dead on at the other man — a sudden blinding phosphorus flare within the chamber as he pulls the trigger, a flare that he knows would be agonizing if he still had his power, and lethal if he melted into the shadows.

The same power Ezekiel stole, just like he'd stolen Tyler Case's body.

Of all the things Ezekiel expected to be brought to bear against him, a flare gun was not one. He doesn’t notice the orange plastic, he notices the body language. He can read himself perfectly. He “knows” Cardinal has a gun, “knows” that he intends to shoot him. Ezekiel’s second greatest weakness is his hubris, that he thinks he can plan for every eventuality, that his luck will never run out.

It is with a smug smile that his entire body discorporates into shadow-stuff, a swirling mass of darkness that is like a second skin to him. But Ezekiel’s greatest weakness is light. Bright, horrifying light.

There is no muzzle flash, just a kssh-thoop sound as the flare gun is fired point-blank range. It is red light, ultimately, that is Ezekiel’s end. Not the light of Tyler Case’s ability, not the red of blood seeping from his wounds, but the burning red light of a flare. Unable to shift back in time, unable to realize what he has done to himself, Ezekiel is faced with the scathing light of the flare in his darkest of shapes.

There is a scream, a scream unlike any other that has been heard on this Earth, or ever will be heard again. Not even in Antarctica, when nuclear fission turned to shadow, was this wail so strangled, so mournful, so agonized. Richard Cardinal, spawned from a future darker than any other, does not die painlessly. He screams in wild, unfathomable agony as light burns away his incorporeal form. The ghost-scream will haunt the younger Cardinal until the day he dies; the sound of his own death ringing across history.

Scraps of shadow burn into smoke, clawed hands of darkness try to pull away but are consumed by that red glow. Light burns, boils, tears at the shadow until there is nothing left but flakes of ephemeral ashes guttering in the wind. A sickening sensation churns at the pit of Richard’s stomach, a feeling of finality that has never been so real.

Whatever it was Ezekiel was planning, whatever his last-ditch attempt in this room was, will never be answered. There is a smoke residue in the air, all that is left of a man who ruined a world’s worth of lives, on a chance throw at a better future. The weight of the scales for that soul’s judgment will be debated for years to come, whether the future they earned was better than the last. But this journey ended where it began for him, the serpent swallowed its own tail, and devoured itself.

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

"高天原" The name shakes darkness into light. A scream, a roar, and a sudden inhalation of breath.

A man lays in a field, surrounded by blood. Tall grass all around him, each blade streaked red. He gasps, wetly, pushes up to sit and looks and the holes in his clothes. Blood stains his body, gray and brown fabric is torn to ribbons. Fingertips touch bare skin.

He is alive.

Overhead, the 日 is eclipsed by the 月.

A ring of fire around a circle of black is an open eye. Gold ringing a black iris, gold glowing. One tanned hand reaches out an grasps his throat. Torches burn in the cave. "S-Sore wa— a— anatadesu! A-anata wa— ikite imasu!" He chokes out the words, the hand chokes him. A face leans in, hidden by dark hair. A smile; desiring, toying. His, pained.

"Naze watashi wa…" That smile grows, the hand around his neck tightens. "Shinu koto ga…" One dark brow raises. "Dekiru to omoimasu ka?" He is lifted up by that single, slender arm. Gold nails press into his skin, draw blood. Droplets float up, not down.

"Watashi wa anata o tsukutta." They With Eyes of Sun and Moon proclaims, piercing gold nails into pale skin. "Anata wa… watashi no monodesu." He can't breathe, can't scream. The thin, tan arm glistens with sweat. They With Eyes of Sun and Moon leans in, dark hair by fair hair. Lips nearly touching.

"Kensei," They With Eyes of Sun and Moon whisper, lips moving to his ear. English, now.

Just once.

"Tell me a story."

Before Barbara wakes up screaming.

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

Barbara offers a small nod and a smile. "Like I said, I don't believe this to be of critical need to the network, but this is a personal matter that I need your insight into."

She slides one of the pictures back over, looking at it carefully. "I'm sure you know what a precognative is, Elaine." She waits a moment for a look of recognition before continuing. "I am the opposite. I am able to see the past, in brief visions and glimpses." She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. "Typically, I recreate what I see in the form of pictures and paintings. THe visions are fleeting. However…"

She gives Elaine a more serious look. "The other night I had what I believe to be one of these visions in my sleep. And I could not understand a word of it."

Leveling her eyes with Elaine, she speaks a single phrase that she can easily replicate, to help the the linguist determine the language at hand - all Barbara had been able to figure was that it was Asian in origin.

"«Watashi wa,»" she speaks simply. She also hands over a drawing of one of the symbols she saw within her dream. "You will have to bare with me. I will have to replicate a language I've never spoken in my life for you."

"Don't worry. It's a secret between us." Elaine takes the picture, looking it over as she listens to Barbara. Setting the picture back down, she pulls out her notebook and pen, ready to scratch down any notes she might need. Her eyes, though, stay on Barbara.

"Japanese. You just said 'I', as in referring to yourself." She nods slowly. "Well, you're going to get a crash course in Japanese today. Just try and sound out words and I'll repeat what I think you're trying to say and you can determine if it sounds right."

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

“Ah’ got yer comics,” Kain adds, setting up the ladder and stepping to reach a high shelf. He pulls down a plastic bin full of the things in individual sleeves with cardboard backing. He nudges the stepladder aside with a booted toe and then circles back.

The box of comics is laid out on a folding table beside Liz. “Ah’ve got yer Batman, yet Spider-Man, couple’a old 9th Wonders.” Kain grabs one of those put and holds it up, depicting a goofy-looking rock monster with bright gold eyes on the cover that is screaming, “Who dares to DEFY ME!? I am Uluru the Invincible!”. The issue title is I Fought Uluru. Toward the bottom of the comic is a crouching figure in a fedora and jacket shouting, “Nobody believed me! Now I'm humanity’s last hope!

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

The sudden inrush of not merely sound but layered sound arrests Elisabeth’s movements.

Although her fingers turn on the shortwave set, her attention is pulled to the siren song of frequencies that she can feel. She pulls in an awestruck breath — such nuanced layers she’s rarely had the opportunity to experience. It takes her several long seconds, after closing her eyes to concentrate, to really focus on the sounds and categorize them, sort through them, and shuffle the frequency ranges she doesn’t immediately need to use to the back of her mind. Radio has a relatively limited band of frequencies and that has to be the focus right now… despite the lure of the sounds that she’s being bombarded with.

Only once she has managed to finally narrow her reception focus to the bands the shortwave can also reach does she begin the laborious process of mentally navigating the entire span of wavelengths. It’s relatively small, comparatively — radio bands are limited to a very particular range of frequencies. To listen to each one is simply an effort of time and concentration for her, and it’s one that Elisabeth relishes in this moment, seeking out anything that sounds like it could be broadcasts.

As the young gravity manipulator does his thing, el umbral changes. It’s subtle at first, but that blackness and the lightning start to take on a purple tinge, almost as if taking on aspects of his ability. At the same time, something else happens. It’s as if it reacts to Elisabeth’s narrowing of bandwidth of sound. It becomes softer, more focused, that roar fading slightly into the background. Mateo closes his eyes and clenches his fist, cause he can feel their abilities interacting with his. His body feels it. Like a clenching of muscles in his chest, the warmth in his nose, dripping down onto his lips. To Elisabeth’s fine tune sense of sound, she might even hear his heart skip a beat. Literally.

Magnes is used to this, or at least seeing the after effects. He probably never noticed while he does it.

Taking deep breaths, he tries his best not to show too much what is going on. Cause he knows Lynette is there. And he doesn’t want to stop this experiment. It’s a terrible idea— for one or two reasons, but at the same time kind of genius. And if it gets them out of this terrible world in the end, it’s worth it.

“Just for the fucking record!” Woods shouts as he holds the camera steady, fifteen feet away from the experiment and likewise tethered in chain. “I would like to point out this is the stupidest bloody fucking thing that has ever happened in my presence!” The camera sweeps from Lynette to Ruiz, then to Elisabeth and finally Magnes. “Absolutely pants on head fucking stupid!”

The purple-tinged, consuming void ripples like he surface of water for a moment. There's a disturbance in it, frays the edges like tattered cloth and sends arcs of electricity snapping from the edges to the ceiling and floor, loud pops and crackles. The radio is just blasting static, and even as Liz tries to filter through it for a scrap of something there's nothing other than noise.

The radio sputters, crackles and pops, and then there is just silence. There's no static, there's no white noise, and it isn't because Elisabeth filtered all that out. There was the normal background noise of this world that the radio was picking up, and then nothing.

“Is’sat supposed t’be extra creepy?” Woods asks as he zooms the camera in on the radio. Almost as if in response there's a high-pitched shriek that comes from the radio’s speakers, an audio screech like feedback from a microphone pointed at an amp.

Then, loudly, an unfamiliar voice of indeterminate gender calls out from the radio “Lynette, killing satisfies a dark part of you. Don't deny what you are.”

A different voice calls or over the radio, this one distinctly more feminine but likewise unrecognizable. “When you have your chance, kill him.”

“Mateo. Let. Me. Out.” The first voice calls again over the radio, followed by the same second voice again.

“I can't make your choice for you, I'm sorry.” She whispers, static briefly rising and falling behind the words, before finally turning back to static again. The strain of holding the portal open in such a fashion sends a stabbing pain behind Ruiz’s eyes and causes Magnes’ bones to vibrate, sending jolting pain up through his extremities.

Magnes suddenly stops, falling to one knee as the pain jolts through him.

That was… that was definitely a result. Something directly addressed them… and he can't help but feel it deep down inside somewhere. "I thought… I thought the Void was a figment of my imagination…"

He sounds absolutely terrified now, staring at the floor in horror, eyes wide. "That… that can't be right… that can't be real… that didn't just happen…"

Lynette glances over to Woods, because he's not wrong. But at least he gets to say I told you so later. It'll make his day. If they survive.

But the noise gets her attention back over to the radio. The static— but more importantly, the silence. Lynette's face falls, like this might be the first moment she's thought this was a bad idea. "Shut it down," she says into the quiet. But then she hears her own name coming through. Her gaze flicks over to the portal. The words aren't comforting, none of them. But it isn't until the voice addresses Ruiz that she actually does anything.

Once upon a time, before the virus, before the negation drugs, before the Hub, Lynette's power was a sight greater than it has been since. She reaches a hand out toward the portal, reaches for that electricity. Her eyes close as she pushes herself, focusing on pulling it back into her. She's not a fan of these voices and she's looking to turn them off. People nearest to her might see the need to move away, with her hand still on her chain and sparks starting to fly. The hand stretched out in front of her blinks away and then back again. And away again. Like she might be struggling to keep herself solid.

The microphone feedback sound is excruciating to the audiokinetic for just a moment. Then it’s all words… and sounds… and really fucking creepy. Because, you know… no one knows exactly where Ruiz’s portal goes, and clearly there is SOMETHING in the inbetween. And it raises all the hair on the back of her neck in ways she has never experienced before — and the woman has seen some truly terrifying shit, people. She is ghost white does something she hasn’t done in more than a decade — Elisabeth crosses herself. “Mother of God…”

As Lynette starts to move forward, Liz screams, “Shut it the fuck down! Shut it down!

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

The door to the laundry room lays on its side, screws and hinges lay scattered on the concrete. A hemispherical dent in the metal door makes it bow, it will never fit in the frame again. Inside, the washer and dryer have been pushed aside, facing away from one-another like arguing parents. The dryer's door is open, children's clothes spill out onto the floor. A t-shirt with Wolverine on it, a gray dress, a pair of socks with holes in them, forest green overalls, a puffy teal and purple windbreaker. He is crouched between the washer and dryer, fingers knit into his dark hair, crying.

She stands in the doorway, chin up, bare feet covered in blood. It runs down one side of her face too, ashes in her hair, bullet-holes in her Sunday dress. Gold eyes surveil the boy, hot like iron out of the fire, like embers burning in a pit. "Don't cry," she says with two voices harmoniously layered atop one-another, one a child's and the other an adult's. "Our parents weren't to be trusted. They were simple, scared animals." She approaches, bare feet leaving red evidence of her path.

The boy continues to cry, curled into a tiny ball with his head down between his knees. He's older than her by five or so years, but he seems so much younger now. All he can do is sob, quaking terrified sounds. She steps closer, taking a knee by his side, lifting one pale hand up to rest against the top of his head. Gold eyes flicker, and she exhales a breathy, "See." His eyes wrench shut, briefly turning a bright blue.

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

As Kaylee creeps over to the dead agent and his ear-piece, the house quietly creaks and groans as though it were settling. From her new vantage point near the kitchen, Kaylee can see the horror show inside and past the two bodies twisted like ragdolls. Inside the kitchen the green formica table is flipped over on its side, metal legs bent. Broken ceramic litters the floor, shards of plates scattered everywhere with silverware making a constellation of violence. There is the corpse of a man slouched up against the countertop nearby, broken cups laying at either of his side, every knife in the house perforating his body at different angles like a rendition of the Wound Man from Johannes de Ketham's Fasciculus Medicinae. He sits in a several foot wide circle of dark blood that contrasts the black and white tile floor. There’s more blood, coming from somewhere else in there, but Kaylee can’t see it at her angle.

As she reaches down and plucks the earpiece from the agent’s ear, she can hear someone screaming on the other end. It sounds like a man asking for a status report. But when Kaylee beings it near her ear, there’s a crackle of static and she hears someone else instead.

You have never fought for yourself. Only for the needs of other. Find your own desires. Find your true self. It’s a static-masked voice with an indiscernible accent. Immediately after, a different voice equally distorted by static chimes in. David Cardinal is alive.

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

This was a mistake in every possible way.

Kensei swings a leg off of his horse and drops down onto the ground with a clap of armor. He approaches Odessa with his sword he"Looks like we've got a good one today. I'll make this as quick as I can." With very practiced movements, Odessa slides the IV needle into the skin at the crook of Adam Monroe's arm and waits for the blood to fill into the flexible tube. They have several bags to fill today.standing over her with the edge of his sword against the back of her neck. Odessa can see the sandaled feet of that woman approaching, arms folded within the wide sleeves of her kimono, eyes burning.

Kanjoro wa watashitachi no hitoridesu ka?” Kensei asks of the approaching woman, who casts her baleful stare doJust like every other day.touch of her warm hand at the crown of Odessa’s head.

Kamisama,” is the woman’s response in a youthful voice. “Dochira mo.” There is an electric tingle burning beneath Odessa’s skin, something fiery like an infection. The womanAdam winces, but otherwise doesn't complain. He's used to it by now, she imagines. And it isn't as though any complaint is going to get him unstrapped from his seat. "Well, at least you're better at it than some of the others." His accent is crisp, so very cultured to Odessa's ears.odies are lifted into the air, floating as though they had no weight, casting shadows down around Odessa.

The woman turns, hand outstretched, and Eve’s headless corpse floats through the air toward her, now that it has been freed froWith her head tilted down and her blonde hair veiling her face, she smiles, just enjoying the sound of his voice for a moment. Her expression is passive again by the time she lifts her head. "We're going to be here a while." Sometimes he's left alone to donate and only checked in on when they need to change out the bag. Odessa never leaves him alone. Not unless she's called away. "Tell me a story, Adam."flash of light, sending Eve sprawling back onto the ground on hands and heels. She breathes in a deep, rasping breath and stares wide-eyed at the two figures. But the overlay of images and sounds and experiences makes it hard to focus. The drugs, the Refrain.

Karera wa koko kara kite inai,” the woman with glowing golden eyes states confidently. “Karera wa motonimodoru hitsuyo ga arimasu.” Raising her hand again, tThe sky is clear, cloudless and dim, a twilight or dusk that can't be determined. The horizon is cast a brilliant shade of pink and purple, and more stars than Eve has ever seen in her life shine overhead.blur of colors bending light at its edges like a prism and extending out in scintillating rings from her hand.

But it isn't dawn, or dusk, or any twilight hour she's ever experienced. The sun hangs like a dead stone overhead, jet black and ringed with brilliant gold in a fiery eclipse. Around the sun shift curtains of light more beautiful than the stars, shimmering and ephemeral waves of green that fade to blue, like the hem of a goddess' dress extending down from the firmament.agonizing pain and blinding light, accompanied by the sensations of weightlessness and falling alternating back and forth.

As Odessa and Eve fall through this light, they feel disassembled and yet at the same time whole andA child stands atop a grassy hill below the sun, no more than two years old and as naked as the day they were born, cast in a shroud of innocence in ways only children can be. The child raises a tanned arm over their head, fingers splayed, and the wind changes to swirl their dark hair about. They stare up into the eclipse, tears streaming down their cheeks.careening through the air, arms windmilling and screams involuntarily escaping their mouths.

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

Every part of Eve is fractured, broken, and spread out like pieces of a shattered plate on a tile floor. Screams echo in one ear, while gunfire pops in another, but there is also a mechanical grinding sound to be heard, the sobbing wails of an old friend's mournful crying, the lapping noise of ocean waves, terrified screaming, panicked breathing, and then a voice.

Eve feels a hand around her throat, and in the blinding infinite field of white something squeezes. Two gold rings form, brighter than the brightest light she has ever seen.

She feels something in her mind, in her skin, in her cells burning from the inside out. It tears her mind from her, pulls her apart like so much taffy and hastily throws her back together. Between the glowing rings, a black symbol is cast like an infinite shadow.

The symbol grows to encompass everything, and soon Eve is sitting up in a choking fit of coughing and agony. She is covered with dust and laying in the burning ruins of an unfamiliar city. Smoke rises up high into the sky and long banners with the symbol of Takezo Kensei hang from lap posts, tattered and frayed at the end. Bodies are piled up all around her, most of them have been desiccated and reduced to dusty bones and ashes within their clothes.

Adam stands, clear as day, atop a pile of the bodies in a sleek black suit. He holds the Kensei sword in one hand, back to Eve.

"This world wasn't mean for them," Adam explains in a low, rasping tone of voice. Blood drips from the blade of his sword, reflecting firelight in it. "It wasn't meant for human kind." As he slowly turns, he begins to descend that mountain of corpses, blood traced across his brow in the same symbol on the banners. His irises glow with a fiery orange light, like two rings of hot steel.

"It was made for our kind." Adam states flatly, pointing the sword at Eve.

"The Resurrection is upon us."

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

Joe can’t look away from the screen. He’s shocked to hear Brynn’s cry and use of an actual word, but he can’t break away from watching what is going on. It’s like the kid is in a trance. Caught up in the momentous events taking place on the stage that is Caspian’s TV.

At the shout from Brynn, Lance shoots her a shocked look — and then looks back to the television, shifting to sit up straighter, “This isn’t right, there’s something wrong, Cas— “

«Mother of God…» Elisabeth murmurs in horror.

«That… that can't be right… that can't be real… that didn't just happen…» Magnes murmurs in disbelief.

Lynette reaches a hand out toward the portal, reaches for that electricity. Her eyes close as she pushes herself, focusing on pulling it back into her. Her hand still on her chain sparks. The hand stretched out in front of her blinks away and then back again. And away again. Like she might be struggling to keep herself solid. It looks as though she’s turning into electricity.

«Shut it the fuck down! Shut it down!» Elisabeth screams, and as she does the lights in Caspian’s house flicker and gutter again.

Let. Me. Out.

The voice rumbles from empty air in the middle of the house, no longer emanating from the tape, from the recording. It is coming from inside the house. Again, Brynn can feel it pounding behind her eyes, vibrating inside of her skull. The furniture begins to rattle, the floor shakes, windows vibrate inside their frames and the lights switch off and on rapidly.

A full-fledged scream flies from Brynn's throat, her eyes squeezed tightly shut against something and her palms digging into her temples as she fights to block out the noise. It hurts!!

The rattling and shaking house, Brynn screaming, it’s got Squeaks on her feet and looking from person to person to video to person frantically.

“Turn it off,” Lance shouts, reaching out a hand in the direction of the monitor that the video’s playing on, his own ability wrapping around the technology in an unseen field that should be containing any sound that it’s producing. There’s only one problem.

It doesn’t stop making noise.

“Wh— what the— UNPLUG IT!”

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

“I had a dream that ruined me for over a month. Adam is gathering forces against the people without gifts. This world was not meant for them.” Gaze wild as she relays that message from the immortal. Plucking from her bag numerous drawings from that dream and the others before Eve slides them across the table; Looking Glass, Eve herself with gold colored eyes, Adam with an army at his back, his symbol on a flag. The Gemini symbol. Two golden rings. Four Horsemen in wicked armor.

“She.. it.. was there. She can see me.. eye to eye..” Eve touches her eyelid softly, dragging her finger down her cheek. “She ripped me from my body and flung me back inside. I had a stroke, I lost my eyesight. I lost.. my gift.” But Eve has not loss enough to stop.

“Kam, please. I can't let Mateo get hurt, I can't let my friends die. Not anymore.. not after Peter.. not after Liz..” a sad expression on her face all those deaths being relived in her mind, the moments she found out about them. The sorrow that sticks with her today.

“What is she? If not a she? Where is it trying to escape from?”

Seeing the drawings, Kam slowly moves a hand over her mouth and leans back into her chair, chest rising and falling with unsteady breaths. She swallows, tightly, and looks away as though she were shown something viscerally horrifying. It takes her a moment to regain composure, and even then only just.

“You need to destroy those.” Kam says in an uneven tone of voice, “you need to forget her.” Brown eyes level back on Eve, considering something. Something difficult. “What you drew here is a trick,” Kam tries to explain without explaining, “a trick played on you to…” she doesn't finish that sentence.

“Imagine something so terrible,” Kam reoriented the conversation. “That the mere knowledge of it made it more powerful. A violent idea so virulent that it takes root in the mind and feeds on others perceptions of it. A psychic parasite that is wholly Ego. Starved, it is powerless. Fed…”

Kam looks toward the window, brows tense and one hand gently brushing fingertips across her neck. “Fed, it is the end of the world.” Her dark eyes settle on Eve again, and there is no humor in Kam’s expression. “Depending on how many people you told, it may already be too late.”

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

“I’ve heard the voice before…” Kaylee slowly nods to the picture with the golden eyes, “It told me I never fought for myself, only for the needs of others.” Teeth catch at her bottom lip before she adds, “It told me to find my own desires.. To find my true self. Whatever that means, I don’t believe it. I fought for my own desires when I fought for the life I have now.” Pulling her eyes away from the picture, to the woman across from her, she adds. “Unless I’m just lying to myself.” A stirring at the back of her mind, is the only reason she doubts her reasoning.

Resting the notebook on her lap, Kaylee adds. “Still, beyond that, there was another voice. This one told me that Richard’s father was alive.” She motions to Luther, “It was right. We found him.” Her hand grips the notebook again, knowing Luther wasn’t going to like this part, even though she told him about it… somewhat before. “I was in Des’ mindscape when I heard it. I know she heard them speaking to her, too. I think she might be a key to whatever it is… when we went into her mind, something took my ability over. Used it.” This was something new, something she hadn’t told Luther or hardly anyone. “I could feel it. I knew it was there being used…. But I had no control. We saw into the world that was on the tape, though we didn’t know it at the time. We saw— I am pretty sure — the Looking Glass. It looked like that painting. The one Richard won at the auction. Pretty sure it’s there in another world, too.”

Realizing she’s rambling to this woman, Kaylee presses lips tight together to stop herself. Taking a deep breath, she can’t get herself to look at Luther. “The gold eyes are in my vision, too.” She holds up the notebook a little.

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

Barbara regards Squeaks once more with curiosity. She's finally noticed how the young girl continues to watch her, uncertainty clear, the way she takes the key that's offered to her and tests it immediately. She offers her a warm smile. "Is there anything I can do to make you feel more comfortable?" she offers, before looking back at the camcorder. It's an honest question, but she doesn't give too much opportunity to answer, instead turning her attention to the camcorder.

"Gold eyes," she repeats quietly, marked with a hint of hesitation. She runs her tongue over her teeth and sighs, before finally closing her eyes and reaching out to the device that is ostensible star of the hour.

And in that exact moment, Barbara feels a rush of static electric energy roll up her body from her fingertips to her skull. It's a sinus-expanding tingle that shocks her system in the way rapid air-pressure change feels, and—

Barbara wakes up on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, head throbbing and blood covering her mouth and nose, dribbled down her chin.

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

The walls are turquoise in this room.

sing sing sing walking in a ring

Night has come, making each square window a portal to darkness beyond. No city lights, no sky, no land; nothingness.

I can't feel, mother

A half-smoked joint smolders away in an ashtray by the cracked open window, smoke filtering out to the nothingness outside.

gone gone gone

An orange bottle of pills rests on a rumpled comforter, cap off, pills hidden within the tucks and folds of the blanket.

why don't they won't they love me

A slender, pale arm hangs over the bed, fingers twitching.

mother mother daughter son

Her dark hair is tousled, messy locks hanging in front of closed eyes that flick back and forth beneath heavy lids.

so lonely

Her lips move, mouthing words without speech.

so lonely

Words without speech.

I am

The sound of a gunshot startles Eve awake, eyes wide and fingers curled into the fabric of her blankets. She swings her legs out from over the side, tugging some of the comforter with her and sending the pills scattering to the floor with a tiny clattering sound. The window rattles, a strong wind, and it blows the ashtray off of the window sill, crashing to the floor as well with metallic clank, ashes scattering and a half-finished joint bouncing end over end. A second gunshot fills the air, and Eve's heart beats rapidly in her chest. She rushes to the door, but it's locked from the outside. Left, right, left again, she twists the knob back and forth. Panic fills her, a fist slamming against wood. Gillian locked her in, she thinks, and a third gunshot is clearly coming from somewhere else in the brownstone. This time with a yelped scream.

Eve's heart leaps out of her chest, and she scrambles to the desk by the door, picking up the desk chair and smashing it against the door. Scratches, scuffs, broken wood, but nothing. A fourth gunshot, and now tears are welling up in her eyes as she hears a cry for help. Eve turns toward the window, scrambling and pawing at the glass, lifting it up to open to the street. There's nothing outside, no ground, no city, nothing but darkness that extends out in every direction for as far as the eye can see. She paws the wall outside the window, rough and cold. Another gunshot, this time closer to her room. She looks back, wide-eyed and horrified, tears streaming down her cheeks. Someone is coming to the door.

Heedless of her own safety, Eve throws a leg out of the window, sits on the window sill and swings her other leg out. As she straddles the darkness, she feels something stir in it. A presence, watching. Then, a pair of narrow golden eyes burning in the dark like fire viewed through the crack below a door.

Eve

The voice rumbles like an earthquake speaking, like the crumbling of society was given a voice and all it had to say was her name.

Eve

The voice rumbles again, and Eve's grip on the window slips, smudging red across white-painted wood. Her hands are bloody. She looks back to the gold eyes in the darkness, lips parted and jaw trembling.

Eve, what have you done?

Her face scrunches up in an expression of uncertainty, and when the sound of a gunshot fills the air again — this time from inside the room behind her — Eve snaps a look back to the bedroom. She sees herself, standing there, looming over a body sprawled out beside her bed in a growing pool of blood. Dark red hair is tangled in the spreading stain, and Eve slowly raises the smoking gun held in her hand and points it toward the window. She steps over Jolene's body.

Eve

She pulls the trigger.

Eve!

She's standing by the wall, face nearly pressed up against the turquoise paint. Her pills are on the floor, ashtray scattered, joint unlit. There's no blood at her feet, and the wall — Eve leans back and looks at the smudges of black marred into the surface that take on a shape as she leans away. "Eve," the voice that had been demanding her in her dream is clearer now, not an avalanche but chicken. As Eve slowly turns from the disaster she scrawled on the wall in charcoal, she looks at a frightened Jolene, standing in the doorway of Eve's bedroom, looking at the strange drawing defaced across the blue-green paint.

"Eve…" Lene murmurs, green eyes flicking from drawing to prophet.

"…what have you done?"

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

“The river runs,” Is her answer to Tamara and Eve agrees, “All the way down.” A whimsical expression on her face as she settles back on her elbows again, regarding Tamara and Jim’s exchange with a interested look, eyebrows raise at their words. It sounds like.. “Cataclysm.” Shuddering at the thought but Tamara’s words of advice are dead on, more clarity will come. Not soon though. “Listen to sweet Tamara, she knows. We know,” indicating all three of them. “We help, each other. A trio!” Eve’s smile is warm and wide and she revels in the thought, though people with abilities she can relate too. It’s something even more special, bonding with the other precognitives. Her brother and sister Seer.

Eve looks up the sky with a frown as a thought crosses her mind, “It’s coming you know,” briefly she stops speaking to blow a breath at a loose strand of hair, “The Entity, Golden Eyed Demon.” This is breaking the rules of not speaking in order to not spread but these two out of anyone should know everything. “It spreads as we speak of it like a vile virus but.. I wanted you to be on the lookout and know. It’s coming.” Her encounters with the Entity are fresh in her mind and she gives pause quickly followed by another shudder running through her pale body, “Be careful please. It can see us..”

It knew them already.

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

Alice’s eyes narrow slowly, her posture straightens and she becomes an impassive statue as opposed to Eve’s emotional torrent. Alice's expression flattens, emotion draining from her face, and then her eyes close and she shakes her head and scoffs. “That was the past,” Alice offers in quiet consideration. “If you go seeking Adam Monroe you will die. He isn't just a man. He isn't just one of us,” Alice notes with a raise of one brow. “He's an apocalypse.”

Taking a step toward Eve, Alice keeps her arms crossed over her chest until she gets within arm’s reach. Then, one hand comes to rest in Eve’s shoulder. Not reassuringly, but more in a falcon-like taloned grasp.

“That's not a metaphor, either.” Alice explains. “Adam is predisposed to the end of all things. In the 1940s he worked alongside the Nazis and stood by as millions were killed, because he thought they could offer him an answer to what it is he was. They couldn't. But it offered him an insight into what humanity was. In the 1970s he wanted to turn a virus the Company discovered into a plague that would wipe out nearly all life on Earth to start over.” At that, Alice walks to the far end of the sitting room and retrieves a leather-covered tube with a strap on it from a rack of similar containers. Eve recognizes it as a canvas case.

Alice's eyes narrow. “Kazimir Volken gained that deadly inspiration from Adam.” There's a slow turn and Alice walks back to Eve, taking the cover off of the case and flipping through it to remove one canvas from inside, slinging the case over her shoulder by the strap afterward. “Whatever ties you have with him — cut them off. Let them go. Because if you pursue Adam Monroe…”

Alice looks back at Eve and rolls out the small canvas in front of her, which depicts a woman that is unmistakably Eve Mas laying in a pool of her own blood, face down on the ground with the Kensei sword in her back and a black silhouette of a person with gold eyes standing over her body. In the blood, Eve’s hand has swiped clean a shape of the symbol. The painting is signed Mas 09 at the bottom.

“You will die.”

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»

“I don’t know if you listened to the radio lately.” Kaylee’s voice is calm, but there is a stiffness to it. She’s at least managing pleasant, even though temptation hisses unhappily at the edge of her mind. “Or maybe heard any strange messages crackling over the radio that sounded tailor made for you?” Hands spread motioning to the crowd, picking up on the ones that have, vaguely pointing to them. She can hear you. “I know that voice and experienced it, even before that broadcast. What you heard was real. Whatever this thing is… It’s already out there spreading quickly and after that night, it’s going to really be picking up speed. That is part of the reason why we are here, we need help and unfortunately that means spreading it a little more to get the help we need.”

Kaylee’s attention finally shifts to her brother, giving him a forced smile, and motions to him, “Sorry Richard. Please proceed.”

Scooting in her seat, Squeaks pulls her legs under her so she can sit up a little higher. It’s easier to see what’s going on that way. Her head tilts slightly toward a shoulder as she wonders about that name. Adam Monroe isn’t one she’s ever heard, and her eyes widen when it’s implied that he’s older than old. A glance even darts off to Huruma when she gives a more exact age — never mind that he was a Nazi — someone that old probably has a billion stories. “Primal,” she whispers while getting comfortable on her heels.

“We have to talk about it,” the teenager thinks out loud. It’s not very loud though, and probably not meant to be heard too far. But she falls quiet again when Kaylee starts talking, and she covers her mouth with a hand to keep anything more words from coming out until Kaylee is done.

Then. “I heard it. On a video.” Squeaks angles a look, vaguely suspicious of all the grown-ups in the room. “But I think we need to know and talk. Because if we don’t we can’t know how to stop it or …even understand it.” It’s the same thinking she used before, when she talked to Eve about it. And with all these strangers finding out, it just makes more sense. More brains to make ideas. “Because… Because if it’s all kept secret and it shows up? Then… then we’re left scrambling and scared without ideas or answers.”

“Coward!” She screams at at the retreating shadow as everyone dived, Eve grabbed a pair of eclipse viewing sunglasses and cracks a wide smile at her comrade in arms, “Hot Hands you's a spicy. So Bright and Shiny.” There’s a twinkle in her eyes at Delia and she dips her head, yes girl that one. Rapping her knuckles on the table as Richard gets into more of the meat of the situation the seer leans in over the table, eyes still masked by the sunglasses she wears, “Very good young one.” A pointed look in Asi’s direction after Squeaks delivers that last bit of wisdom, “If we need redaction… then we've anyway and it's out there, reaching for us. Richard isn't speaking jabberbitch.” Waving her head in the air, a toss of the dark mane falling to the middle of her back.

“I've gotten to meet it. More than once. It was in ancient times, the time of the samurai.. it was inhabiting a young woman.. The power that it holds? It wants. Out. Everything Richard says, it's true… for Adam.” Eve’s eyes stay decidedly away from Monica's while she says that name instead settling on Huruma and Kaylee. Adam's former girls. “Well.. he's moving around us.” That much is obvious to some people in the room. “Dreamy and I took a dive into the mind of an old ass motherfucker and let me tell you.. Nazi is right. Hydra and Heisenberg, lots of science fairies. They wanted to give his specialness to another. His blood—” she stops and Eve blinks as something hits her. A flick of her gaze veiled by thick eyelashes to her wrist and a prominent vein that is there, momentarily shaking her head it might seem like she lost train of thought. Not unusual for the seer.

“There are few leads on him. Praxis Heavy being one of them.” The other.. that particular piece of the puzzle she was still noodling with. “If you find anything out about Praxis.. spot a snooty blonde immortal around. Do let me know.” The glint of white fang as Eve tilts her head to regard the people in the room. “If this thing can remake us in its image, that might be the endgame. A world where everyone is gifted.” Eve can't say she doesn't want to live in that world. She can't say that at all but not at the cost of her friends lives, none of them.

Huruma doesn't answer Delia. The truth is, she knows a lot more than she lets on. But she is past that stage of her life.

She does, however, acknowledge Delia's fear with a silent pressure of mental warmth, easing a reassured cloud around Delia's shoulders like a comforting shawl.

White eyes watch Kaylee as she speaks, pupils shifting away when she begins to talk about the voice. Squeaks' words are truer than Huruma would like to admit, as are Eve's, as far as it goes. Her eyes go back to Kaylee, silently projecting and hoping that the telepath picks it up without effort.

« I heard it. The voice in the radio. »

«CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT»


The Safe Zone

January 9th

2019


Legs kicking and fingers curled into her blankets, Niki Zimmerman awakens with hastened breathing and sweat slicking her brow. The room around her is dark, the world quiet outside her closed window save for the distant howl of wind. Her heart is pounding in her chest, prickling sensations tingling her fingertips.

In the bedroom window, she sees her own silhouette.

Eyes of gold, fading slowly.


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