Liberi Fatali

Participants:

helena_icon.gif rajas_icon.gif

Scene Title Liberi Fatali
Synopsis Or: Sons and daughters of fate.
Date June 12, 2009

Village Renaissance Building, Cat's Penthouse


Fate: From the Latin fatum, "prophetic declaration, oracle."

Rays of sunlight shine bright and orange through the curtained windows of the Village Renaissance building's penthouse floor. Padding on quiet footsteps through the apartment, it has been one empty and quiet room after another. Cat's private sanctum is rarely vacant without forewarning, rarely does the nerve-center of Phoenix uproot without warning. It's, perhaps, the serenity of the silence here that is the most unsettling to Helena, the way warm late spring breeze wafts in through open windows, causing curtains to swell and sink, the way the noise of the traffic outside seems just a bit less oppressive.

In Western thought, fate is the force or agency, God or other power, outside man's control, believed to determine the course of events before they occur.

One more room to check, and even the entertainment room is quiet. Knox has been gone for two days, ferreting out members of PARIAH who still linger in hiding in the city, using his contacts to try and dredge up support for Phoenix from the people who watched Cameron's dream — ironically — go up in flames. Allen Rickham has become the hermit of Village Renaissance, hold up in his room, only coming out from his self-imposed isolation at request. But Catherine, Catherine should be somewhere, should be answering her phone, should be here.

According to Hindu thought, man is not ruled by fate but shapes his own destiny by his actions…

The sudden buzzing vibration of Helena's phone in her pocket is a horribly inappropriate and startling thing, and once the plastic annoyance is withdrawn from her pocket, a notification on the closed front reads new text message. A prayer, a hope, a thought that perhaps it's Cat, leaving a last-minute message to say she had a show to play, or a friend to visit in town.

…which have their concomitant reactions.

(R.Ajas): //Helena, I think Cat is in trouble.

Helena stares for a moment at the message, uncomprehending. Cat's rarely the type to get herself into shenanigans. She's one of the most careful members of Phoenix, and well - she sort of has to be, since she holds an awful lot in her head. Moving to sit on the couch, she positions her phone in her hands to start texting, thumbs working at well practiced speed.

(Helena): What's going on?

(R.Ajas): //I don't know, she got a text message last night, it passed by me. Something just popped up on my radar today — a news report. I have a bad feeling.

Another text message immediately follows on Helena's phone, one transferred to it from Cat's, and the content of it is dubious and unsettling.

(M.Chesterfield): Can't go to your house. Not safe. Arthur has lost his mind. No one is safe. Get out of New York.

(Cat): Will meet you at house in Hartford tomorrow evening.

(R.Ajas): Then there's this.

At that, the television in the entertainment room clicks on, and before the picture warms up, Helena can hear the voice of a news broadcaster, " — was the tragic scene today just outside of Hartford Connecticut. Fire officials and police are saying that the cause of the fire is unknown at this time, but authorities speculate that it may have been arson." Once the picture comes in, the image of an enormous three-story house engulfed in flames surrounded by fire trucks, ambulances and police cruisers floods Helena's vision, the bug in the corner of the screen is Channel 7 Action News, a Connecticut television station. "Police have stated that the owners of the home were not present at the time of the blaze."

(R.Ajas): The location was too coincidental, so— I looked it up. The house is registered to a Mason and Jennifer Chesterfield. I think something bad's gone down, Helena. I'm picking up the signal from Cat's iPhone in the vicinity, but she hasn't turned on her tracking GPS. I don't know what's going on.

Helena's expression pales, and she begins typing without even looking at her thumbs while she's doing so.

The Hindu view acknowledges fate only in the limited sense that man is subject to his own past karma…

I'm going to call for some assistance and try to get to Hartford as quickly as possible. Pull up the address for me please! I'm going to head right out there. Stay in touch, Rajas!

which are a driving force in each incarnation

Message sent, she rises and flips the phone into calling position and dials. The first person she calls has their voicemail on. "Something's happened to Cat. Her family's house in Hartford is burning down to the ground as we speak and there were messages from her dad saying she shouldn't trust Arthur and her replying saying she'd meet him down there. Call me back as soon as you can, Peter." And with that? It's time to go through the Phoenix rolodex, even as she's on her way out.

seemingly out of his own control.

On the rooftop of the dispensary in Staten Island, the phone Peter left behind the night he fled the building lays forgotten beneath a piece of plastic furniture.

Battery dead, but message received


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