Time Is A Thief

Participants:

ff_glory_icon.gif veil_icon.gif

Scene Title Time is a Thief
Synopsis Everything is as it seems.
Date June 25, 2021

I know what time is

There is an electrical snap the moment Glory jolts up from the floor. She is shaking from head to toe, struggles to stand and collapses back onto her knees, gloved fingers fumbling with the release latch for her visored helmet. The moment she gets it off with a hiss of pressurized air she exhales, retches, and vomits on the concrete floor.

Time is a thief

Wiping at her eyes, Glory loooks around the room. Electricity leaps off of spines rising out of the black walls. Narrow columns around her bristle with copper plates arranged like leaves on a tree, all of which hum like tuning forks. Glory lurches forward and rests her brow against the floor, hands curled into fists.

It'll steal into bed and rob you while you sleep

«Success?» a voice disembodied booms from the ceiling. Glory shakes her head, gasping for breath, drumming one fist against the floor to an arrythmic beat.

And You'll never feel it

«Success?» The voice demands again.

It pulls off the covers

"No!" Glory shouts, eyes wrenched shut. "No it wasn't fucking successful!" She screams, throwing her helmet across the room. It clatters across the floor, then rolls into the darkness beyond the illumination cast by a triangular spotlight overhead. But just before the helmet rolls completely out of sight it just… stops.

and rifles through your head

"Walk me through it." A woman with a smoky voice calls from the dark. Her dark boot rests on the top of the helmet, then gently kicks it back toward Glory. The helmet rolls to a stop just out of arm's reach.

Then you'll wait to find you can't remember what you just said…

Glory's dark eyes are fixed on where she last heard the woman's voice. She freezes in place, then looks around as if uncertain of where the woman is now. Glory swallows tightly, trying not to make too much noise as she slowly rises to her feet. In the same motion, she discreetly reaches for a fixed-bladed knife sheathed at her hip.

It happens to everyone.

"Where's Doctor—" Glory starts to ask, but she's cut off by the sudden sensation of warm breath on the back of her neck. A woman a few inches taller than Glory, face hidden by a black veil, stands right behind her. Glory feels a hand on her wrist, guiding her hand toward the sheathed knife.

Just like the father of my father

"Go ahead." The veiled woman purrs at the back of Glory's neck, winding the other woman's fingers around the knife. "The others were quicker."

Time stole his mind

Glory struggles, pulling her hand away and quickly turning around to face the veiled woman who— isn't there. Glory's eyes track left and right in a sudden rush of panic. She pivots, checking behind her, then left, then— the veiled woman is on her right. The knife is missing from its sheathe. Glory feels the cold kiss of steel under her chin and freezes in place again. The tip of the knife, slides up under her jaw dimpling — but not piercing — her skin.

And I can't forget that one-fourth of his blood is mine

"The Doctor had to step away." The veiled woman whispers at the side of Glory's face, cool against the bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face. "But I want to hear. Everything."

I try not to worry.

"Okay," Glory whispers. Then, after clearing her throat, she repeats it louder. "Okay." She says nothing else until she feels the pressure of the knife relent, and as she side eyes the veiled woman she's certain she can see a smile behind the black fabric. This time she wouldn't make the same mistake, won't blink, won't look away.

Please don't come for me

The veiled woman steps away, the knife is no longer in her hand, it's back in Glory's sheathe. She feels the weight as though it never left. She can't be sure it ever did. If any of that even happened. Glory immediately brings a hand up to rub at her neck. "But, I'd like to know who's asking." Glory asks.

I promise I'll be great

"Asked you first," the veiled woman says in a sing-song voice. It's answer enough for Glory.

Just let me keep what's mine.

"I was there. Then." Glory's hands start shaking again. "Insertion point was off by half a dozen marks, maybe more. It was hard to tell, everything was…" She starts to look away, then thinks better. "Blurry. Out of focus."

Please don't come for me

The veiled woman listens in silence, her features as shrouded as her intentions. Glory finally looks away, giving up the staring contest. She'd always lose. "Volken was there," Glory continues with a quaver in her voice, "the negator," she's checking names off a list. "Odessa." Glory looks the veiled woman as dead in the eyes as she can on saying that name. For a moment, neither woman says or does anything.

If you must then just please wait and let me have some time

"I… Things got focused. I got ahead of the line. They were distracted, just like the briefing said. I got inside the vault and…" Glory shakes her head, tugging off the armored gloves of her suit, throwing them to the floor so she can rub her face with her bare hands. "Everything scrambled."

Please don't come for me

"Describe it." The veiled woman says with a lilt in her voice. "Describe the oeufs brouillés."

Mind over matter (it don't matter) when you're as mad as a hatter…

Glory glances up at the veiled woman, brows knit together in momentary confusion. Then she exhales a sigh into her palms and drags her hands down her face. "It's like… every nerve in my body was reversed. I tried to walk right and I raised my left arm. It was like vertigo and… I don't know. I don't know."

It's hard to draw a clear distinction

"They listened." The veiled woman says with a click of her tongue. "But they didn't listen."

Who you are, who you were

Glory squints at the veiled woman, her eyes narrowing. Something she said, it has hooks in it. Now Glory is listening. "What do you mean?" She quickly asks.

Through the looking glass, the past and future begin to blur

"The knife," The veiled woman hisses, suddenly holding Glory's knife in her hand again, twirling it between long and spindly fingers, "won't let itself be stolen so easily."

And no-one can blame you

Glory takes a step forward; slow, deliberate. Not out of fear, this time, but respect. "I don't understand," she pleads. "I wasn't there for the knife."

Well they say the world is what you make it

The veiled woman pinches Glory's knife by the tip of the blade, then begins waggling it up and down in the air. Soon, the repetitive motion causes an optical illusion that makes the knife look like its made of rubber. "Waves," the veiled woman says, "the river has waves."

You think, speak and breathe

"I don't understand!" Glory's voice tightens as she yells, trying to keep her voice down in spite of her frustration. "Please, just tell me what I need to do. I wasn't there for the knife."

And those rules still apply, stuck in a world of make believe

"Weren't you?" The veiled woman asks, and Glory's eyes track from side to side, as if reconsidering something. She looks down at her feet for a moment, then sucks in a breath and looks up at—

You make the best with what you're given…

Nothing. The veiled woman is gone.

Please don't come for me

«Success?» A voice booms from the ceiling, and Glory nearly jumps out of her skin. She looks around the room, her heart thundering in her chest. It's only now that she hears the tinnitus whine of the humming copper plates again, she hadn't even noticed the silence until it was gone.

I promise I'll be great

«Success?» The artificial voice demands from above.

Just let me keep what's mine. (let me keep what's mine)

"No." Glory says clearly and firmly, looking up at the ceiling. "Fragment at section 3, mark 12."

Please don't come for me

«Where is your knife?» The voice asks.

If you must then just please wait and let me have some time

Glory looks down at the empty sheathe at her waist, confused. She takes a breath, formulating an answer. Truthful, but discreet. "I must have lost it."

Please don't come for me

«This will be noted.» The voice confirms, and a pattern of red lights briefly flash overhead. White lights then come on one by one, flooding the black room with illumination. A door opens up in the far side, out to a plastic-sheeted clean room where figures in hazmat gear wait.

Mind over matter (it don't matter) when you're as mad as a hatter…

Glory starts to turn to the door, but the voice overhead booms loudly with one final question. «Did you experience any anomalies?»

Off with her head, off with her head…

Glory hesitates, looking down to the floor where her vomit should be. There is none.

Paint the roses

"No." Glory says with a whisper. Then, with more confidence. "No."

Paint the roses

Silence hangs in the chamber.

Off with her head, off with her head…

«This will be noted. Please proceed to decontamination.»

Paint the roses

Glory nods, and walks into the bright light of the open doorway.

Paint the roses


The Pelago

June 25th
2021

5:09 am


Sucking in a sharp breath, Glory bolts up on her cot, nearly striking her head against the underside of the bunk above her. She stifles a scream by sucking back a lungful of air, then throws her legs over the side of the cot and cradles her head in her hands. Her heart races in her chest and sweat rolls in thick beads down her forehead and neck, dripping off her chin. She scrubs a hand over her mouth, gasping for breath as if she'd been suffocating. All around her, dim light illuminates the common bunks where dozens sleep under the pale blue light of a stormy dawn.

Sitting on the edge of her cot, Glory cradles her head in her hands and winds her fingers into her hair. That was the second dream this month. They're getting worse. It is getting worse.

"It's coming."


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