Keep Your Eyes Peeled

Participants:

elisabeth_icon.gif eve_icon.gif kaylee3_icon.gif richard_icon.gif

Scene Title Keep Your Eyes Peeled
Synopsis An incredibly discreet meeting in a incredibly discreet place.
Date May 5, 2019

Little Darlings


The voicemail left on Richard's phone was frantic, the same for Kaylee's. She demanded their presence tonight. At Little Darlings, something about an emergency.

Inside of the club the music thumps loud while the lavender lights wash over the seats and stage. A woman with a body on fire writhes on the stage around the pole, nobody dares throw any dollar bills until she's finished.

But the main room isn't where Eve waits for the siblings. Instead they are directed to the backrooms, where the music is quieter and dulled to a low hum.

“This is not someplace I’d ever thought I’d step foot in.” Kaylee admits as quietly as she can to Richard over the music. Which isn't very… at all. Watching the fire engulfed dancer as they pass on the way to the backroom, brows tip up. “At least I know where to go, if the Scout thing doesn’t work out.”

It is hard to know if she is serious, since they reach the room Eve is waiting for them. There is a bright smile for the other woman. “Hey, got the message…” Obviously. The message had been urgent enough that Kaylee is still dressed from her evening run, a hoodie and leggings.

“…while I know we’re not related, you’re basically my sister, don’t put that picture in my head,” Richard pleads in a pained tone, rubbing his forehead briefly as they walk along in together, heading for the backroom. He glances back, though, checking out fire-wreathed booty appreciatively for a moment.

Then his brain substitutes Kaylee’s, and he grimaces, turning back to their path since appreciating strippers has been stolen from him today. He’s in civvies; BDUs, a black t-shirt, a baseball cap.

As the two walk into the backroom they encounter a pacing Eve, the pale woman's head bowed as she mutters to herself. "Blocks… city blocks.." her form covered by a short simple purple dress and long black overcoat, sleeves pushed up. Crimson lightning crawls up from her fingers, tiny burns at the cuffs of the coat but she doesn't seem to notice as tiny bits of white smoke waft up towards the ceiling. Not bad enough to cause the alarm to go off.

She's agitated.

Stopping short the woman turns her gaze and looks at the siblings with blood red eyes, "You made it," her rasp is even more hoarse, her movements jerky until she goes to a nearby seat and slowly settles herself. Eve had only seen Richard the once since her return, Kaylee it hadn't been so but for the telepath, she looks better. Hair brushed albeit a little wild at the moment for perfectly good reasons. She's eating.

For Richard, it's probably a little bit off. The woman displaying bursts of red energy, if only he had saw her months ago. "Sit sit please, thank you." Eve's eyes settle on a piece of white paper bathed pinkish in the light of the room. Gently her fingers take the paper and hold it in her lap.

"I have a warning."

The clothes were new and a good sign to Kaylee, even with all the bursts of energy. While she didn’t mine the nudity, she was still relieved that the other woman was clothed. There was a time that she would have hugged the other woman, but not now. Moving to settle into a seat, Kaylee insteads offers a smile and a relieved, “You are looking amazing, Eve. Big improvement from when I last saw you.”

The piece of paper is noted as she leans back into the chair, a glance going to her brother out of the corner of her eye. Legs crossed and leaning on one of the arms, Kaylee gives Eve her full attention. “Warning?” There was a time that mean that the ex-seer had a vision.

A rather dubious - and somewhat alarmed - look is shot in Kaylee’s direction at her words. “This is an improvement?” Richard asks rhetorically, looking back at Eve and contradicting his sister, “You look like hell, actually, are you sure you shouldn’t be in a hospital somewhere…?”

Of course he’s been saying that for years, but it’s for an entirely different reason this time.

He steps along over, easing into a chair and admitting, “You usually do. What’s up?”

"No hospitals." Eve raises her hand and shakes her head. "No doctors, no science fairies." She had enough, Gabriel's advice. Her own determination was at work. "I'm figuring it out, I do wish we could fly together though." Grinning towards Richard as she turns that grin onto Kaylee.

"D'aww stop it, I just brushed my hair. You look as beautiful as ever." Dragging pale fingers through the raven mane as red sparks sizzle at its end. Eve notices but ignores it, it's just her new normal.

As to why she's called them there, the piece of paper. A sketch. Is handed over to Kaylee facing up for the two to share. On it, a girl knocking over city blocks. Her eyes are gold. A new addition. "I saw that months ago in Yamagato, seeking The Host before.." Eve swallows. "Her death." Not being able to talk to Kam again was something Eve would beat herself up for. She should have come back to her sooner. Things weren't like they are now through. "It was the Vessel, Psychic Well known as Sibyl Black… Blocks… city blocks.. she knocked them all down." the former seer pauses and looks up towards the ceiling, the muted bass still vibrating the seat.

"I didn't understand at first. How that child with Eileen inside could be the end of us." Tapping her fingers along the arm of her chair with anxious energy. "A young paparazzi Emily, let me know that the body of Sibyl, once liberated of Eileen's consciousness… has vanished." The tall woman grabs her knees as her gaze stays upwards, "Jumping through hoops, to conclusions but it's not in me," that she knows of.

"No.. what do you think would make a perfect host for an interdimensional being hellbent on affecting our world." It's world, Eve's sure if they ever spoke that's how The Dragon would frame it. The oldest always claimed things of the sort.

The paper is snatched out of Eve’s hand with a hissed, “What?!” Not in anger at Eve, but in surprise at the news. She looks at the image and her stomach sinks. Eyes are glued to the image of the girl. “If anything can live in that pit, it is that thing” Kaylee has seen that black hole in person and somehow wasn’t pulled into. “Especially, with the knowledge of it out there. It could easily continue to feed the pit.”

Looking at Eve, the image is offered to Richard so he can get a good look at it. “So that thing we let out is probably in Sibyl’s body? Shit…” Kaylee shakes her head, brows furrowed. “Shit.”

This was bad, for sure. Kaylee finds herself grasping for some sort of silver lining. “At least we know where it went.” There had been no clue of it being there before hand. “Maybe..” She huffs out a sigh, “Maybe if we’re lucky, this is a good thing because of that psychic void.”

Kaylee was really trying here.

“Let me guess, you’re anti-vax too?” Richard’s words are a dry quip, wit soon left behind as the former seeress starts talking. His lips purse in a line, expression growing grimmer by the moment. Leaning over when his sister snatches the paper, he takes it when offered.

“Great,” he breathes out a sigh, “Just… just fucking great. Okay. We have a lead, anyway, it may be in the body of Sybil Black… and hey, yeah, maybe. Maybe it’ll be trapped there, we can hope.”

The paper’s set back down, and he rubs a hand over his face, “Good to know. Anything else?”

She was on her way back from Rochester when the message arrived, so Elisabeth is late — or rather, later than the Ray siblings. By the time she arrives, she has the calm demeanor that says she rather expects to be walking into an ambush or combat or something bad. It did say 'emergency.' And what the hell is Little Darlings??

A strip club? Elisabeth has to pause and stare at the dancer on the stage as she goes through. Whoa. Well, all right then. Back room of a strip club. What even the fuck is she doing here?
When she is admitted to the room, though, both eyebrows shoot to her hairline. The voices and faces are oh-so-familiar… and Liz has seen Eve look much much worse. "Jesus fucking Christ," she breathes. Because although she's been told that Eve is alive, this is the first time she's laid eyes on her. "Do I even dare ask?" she queries.

"I know, I know." It's the scary but it also is information, "We can use this. A body can be found, a body can be hurt." Among other things.. "That well.. if there was anything left of that child inside… if there was some way to push it down further where it would get lost in the abyss." Swallowed whole.

Sacrifice is the only way.

Eve just wasn't sure if the sacrifice was obvious, it wasn't at the Crossing.

As one of the travelers themselves enters the place and Eve's old friend the pale woman sits up straighter with a grin on her face. "Look at you, well traveled, a mother. I gave them a gift, I thought it meant your child." Rising from her seat she goes to Liz and embraces her. Quickly before she's skipping back and sitting down, "Don't like to touch long, might sunburn ya." A snicker before the woman is looking back over towards the siblings.

"What have you learned?" Richard and Eve come here to exchange, beyond these walls things might feel different but within the pulsating lights and thumping bass of the place they found common ground. Meetings of the flesh, without the you know.

"There are a lot of pieces, some soggy, some not, all fitting in this puzzle." Eve frowns and rubs her thumb along her elbow with a flick of her crimson eyed gaze to the ceiling again. "The science fairy," her frown deepens, the beginnings of a sneer, "Dr. Allen, we spoke. All those experiments he had the Dark One and his Vanguard do…"

"Hydra. Gemini."

"A Devon.. that the Hound boy? I believe he is apart of this Hydra. A dream, Delia and I shared."

Even as Eve mentions the child, Kaylee’s head shakes slowly, the picture back in her hands again… unable to leave it alone. “I’ve been in Sibyl’s head, Eve. Only one in Sibyl’s head then was Eileen. The girls mind was probably consumed shortly after her ability kicked in.”

The arrival of Liz gets a grin and the pictures is offered to her when the woman seats herself. “Welcome to the party, Liz. Eve was giving us a lead on that thing that came through the portal with y’all.” Something they didn’t have before.

The mention of Devon brings Kaylee’s attention right back. “I helped him recover memories. There were three,” she offers up. “But I only saw two of them before…” She trails off any glances at her brother before she continues a bit sheepishly. “I ended up in the hospital.”

Speaking of… there is an impish curl to Kaylee’s lips as she scoots forward on the seat and leans towards the seer. “Which won’t be happening anymore. Delia found a way when we couldn’t, Eve. She broke it.” The curse. Which… may or may not be good news.

“Hn— oh! Hey, lover,” Richard says with a faint smile as he turns to look to Elisabeth’s entrance, waving her over before looking back to Eve with a serious expression, “You spoke with Doctor Allen? What did she tell you? We still don’t have a lot of data on Hydra and Gemini, at least on my end— I know she was working on Eclipse too, but I don’t even know what that one was about.”

His hands spread a little, “And I haven’t found a scrap of information lately on Umbra or Tarterus.”

As his hands drop, he shoots a surprised look to Kaylee, “They broke that block in your head?”

Elisabeth's hug on Eve is tight, if brief, and she shoots Richard and Kaylee both a small smile marred by faint worry lines between her brows. "Heya, handsome man," she greets as she drops into a seat next to them… because this isn't at all different than years ago, is it? Deja vu anyone? "There were more than three. Someone else…" She slants a glance at Richard, but declines to name the somene, "pulled a couple more." They can talk about that later, though.

Tipping her head, she takes the picture and studies it for a long moment. "Project Umbra was research on how to stop the entity," Elisabeth tells Richard absently. "And I may know where to find a bunch of files on it," she adds as she looks up at the group of them. "I need to go to DC. Next week." After they make a trip to the Exclusion Zone. "No idea if what I know from other places is actually usable in this timeframe, but I've seen enough mirrored bits and pieces to think it's probably time to go do a little grave robbing."

Her tone is really matter-of-fact about this idea, as if it's just like talking about walking across town to go find a good coffee. This is what her life has become is likely to always be — she is starting to just accept that fact and roll with it.

Eve's eyes narrow at the news that there was just Eileen in there and then widen at the news of the curse and her head tips back, "You are his heir Miss Mind, there is nothing standing between you two now." That sits for a moment for the pale woman and she absorbs what the others say her back straightening and stiff as a board as words from her favorite mythology book are thrown around. "Umbra… spirits that live in the underworld. Tartarus is a prison."

"I got to speak with Science Fairy Allen because of a very honorable friend in the government! We went to say hello after the ol pulling of strings and flashing that fancy badge of his!" That manic grin wide on her face. "She had much to go on about, when my friend gets her notes I'll sneak some photos for us!" Wink wink.

"Hydra. Dreamy and I went on an expedition inside Adam's head, nasty place. Nazis, tear gas, Germany, no. drugs," The absolute worse offense of all while being inside the immortal's head. "He took pieces of people and mismatched them. An arm from one, leg from another. Swapped. Pieces of him..? He wanted them to feel what the other felt, cerebral matter. "Those Nazi science fairies gassed us, we were the subjects. Poor souls."

Eve rubs her knees and her gaze drops back down, "Gemini… is robbing someone of their gift… and giving it to another. A chemical version of what Peter's dad could do. Adam and his science fairies were trying to make mosaics, artificially. The cult of science knows no bounds." Slapping her knee with a twitch of her eye, "They couldn't make it stable for more than one gift. She said the Advent Virus research done by a Meier and.. my cousin Odessa helped.. something about HERV-K, it degrades." Eve stops and squirms in her chair, she doesn't like to think about how her cousin is a science fairy. She's the only exception to her utter disdain for the field. Her fear of it. "I think… What happened to my gift? I think that's what happened to me and this bag of bones but naturally… not induced." Swallowing, the woman looks down at her hands as red lightning runs along her fingertips. "My visions of the Dragon… were closely connected with the symbol of the Gemini and I couldn't catch the piece of why, not until Adrienne revealed her wicked ways. The science explains it," UGH. "I think The Institute was somehow using the Dragon's… essence to do this."

… "And Eclipse. The one that excites me most of all." The only one really. The nature of her ability and well… whole life is a daunting and depressing thing to think about and though the answers lie in Gemini so do they lie in Eclipse from Eve's perspective. "Adrienne was following our lineage, our bloodlines. All the way back, trying to find the First. She tracked it to ancient Japan, where Dess and I met it on our time drug trip. The First, Mother and Father, The Dragon. All different names but the same thing." That particular adventure Eve still had nightmares about. "Finding Adam and the golden eyed woman in the red kimono, he beheaded me," looking over at Liz because Kaylee and Richard know the story already. "But that thing put me back together again." She's silent as she had gone off track and the reorientation takes a moment. "Adrienne was making a map." Back to being excited, "I'm gathering what I can of it and asking a friend to help recreate it!" What a fun project.

As for Liz's own info Eve tilts her head, "The ghosts… who have you learned about these from?" Looking from Richard and Liz. Liz's line if thinking sounds as logical as anything to Eve, she nods excitedly at the word time. "You go girlfriend, trips trips! Wheee." Back to business though, "Finding Umbra is a mondo priority dingdjngding!"

“Yes,” Kaylee first says to Richard, but then turns to Eve with a shake of her head. “Was his heir. Pretty sure he wrote me out of the family bible after I ran away.” At least in her mind. He hadn’t really made any serious effort to help fix her, leaving her where she was. Which hadn’t been a bad thing in the end, but still it left that little twinge of sadness that bubbled up now and then. Those what ifs.

A part of Kaylee wants to volunteer to go with Liz to DC, in fact she draws in the breath to do so; but… she was still in the middle of training. A day or two for the exclusion zone was okay, but a longer trip like DC right after was pushing it too much. So she sighs out and just listens to the others talk. The telepath felt a little out of place, her own attempts had failed so miserably, he had nothing to really offer at the moment. Only absorbing what they say. Much of which is pretty disturbing.

“Why would Adam want that?” Kaylee blurts out suddenly. “There has to be a reason he’s trying to make mosaics. When I worked for him, he always had a bigger plan. Everything was a means to an end, even me.” Though Kaylee never really found out what he wanted with her in the end.

“Richard?” Kaylee looks aside to her brother, “Think you can work your magic and get me access to the Kensei collection in Yamagato? I need to see the collection, but I come up against roadblock after roadblock.” Especially after the leadership change, “I feel like there are clues in that collection.” She looks between the three of them. “Clues that may help, why else would I have a nightmare set in that place. There are connections between this, my father, and… I think maybe my mother too.” She remembers the model of the apartment from her memory. There had to be a reason it was there. “Not to mention, maybe some answers about that thing in my head.”

“Oh?” Richard lifts a brow slightly as Elisabeth says she has an idea where to look, and he nods slightly, “Alright. Let me know what you need, if anything… we know that Umbra was making some sort of inoculation, but to what…”

Then he trails off, staring at Eve. “Wait. Wait, you said that the original Project Hydra… they were trying to make people with implants of Adam’s parts feel what each other…” He brings a hand up, rubbing over his face, “Hydra. Hydra. Of course. That was the project where they made Magnes, the… Adam’s genetics are quantum-entangled. That’s where the Adam clones are… like a hydra, one mind and many bodies. What the fuck.” He’s not making a lot of sense, but he’s verbalizing some thought patterns. “They theorized that Adam’s genetics worked similarly to the Dragon’s genetic-restructuring ability, might be able to counter it. Maybe that became Umbra?”

A grimace, “Christ, but they redacted everything, and now Caspar’s dead. Great. Fucking…” He glances over to Kaylee, “Talk to Monica, she probably knows who you could talk to.”

Elisabeth frowns just a bit at Kaylee, something perhaps niggling her about the Kensei collection. But it's been too many years since she spoke with Kaito and he never really said much that was helpful in this context anyway, so if something ever was said by him or by Hiro about Kensei, it's lost to the past for her. "Mosaics are multi-powered people, yeah? So… maybe he thinks if he makes enough of them, … " She trails off and adds, "He's trying to save the world… maybe by just plain getting rid of non-Evos altogether? Going back to that old plan of making everyone have powers?"

She glances at Richard. "If you want to talk about the project that made Magnes… you should talk to Magnes. He did a shit-ton of research in Bright on his own origins. There were a lot of Company projects and programs that were redacted but… he worked for Pinehearst for a couple of years. I have no idea what precisely may be lurking in little brother's head on this front — I was dealing with the more day-to-day problems of how everyone was reacting to shit and trying to seriously stay on the down-low." Arthur could have used any excuse to terminate the lot of us.

"Magnes and Isa might be able to give you some thoughts on the quantum entanglement. Honestly, I never understood what half of her degree was about, but both of them were studying that shit." Shoving her hand through her hair a bit, she shrugs, "If the grave is there — it's not going to be Broome's, so I have no idea what I'm walking into with it — but if it's there, I'll just bring all the data in the coffin with me." She wasn't kidding about grave robbing.

"He says this world was made for us not them." Echoing Kaylee's sentiments. "Inoculation?" Eve's eyebrows raise and she leans back. "How strange… maybe to shield against… its influence?" Then there's the manner of clones of Adam and Eve shakes her head, "That… ah ah.. okay. That.. multiples.. this must be new. Samson could ping him in China." At the time, a year ago. More? The timeline was fuzzy.

"He wants to be a mosaic himself." Her eyes widening, "Of course that's why the science fairies have been using cattle.." Eve glares down at the floor. "He professes to be for us," gritting her teeth, "He butchers his own kind. False messiah." Eve could go on but she catches herself, none of that is new information for her. "Clones of the pizza boy… maybe that was my dream…" it's all confusing. Her remembering memories that weren't hers.

The talk of how Adam's genes might be able to combat it, Eve looks down at her own hands. She was reborn from both Adam and The Dragon's hands. If that even meant anything at all. The raven haired woman shakes her head and continues to listen to the others.

She repeats her earlier question, "Where did you hear about this Tartarus?"

“Liz is right,” Kaylee pipes up, looking up at the others, having nothing to add util that point. “Magnes knows a lot about himself, but not why he is the only surviving clone and the only one with original’s powers.” Hand fold together and a thumb rubs against the opposite palm as she turns thoughtful. “He called me over to Benchmark to talk about Varlane and to… to tell me that Varlane thought of me as family.” There is a twinge of sadness, but Kaylee shrugs it off.

For Eve, she explains a little further, “Before everyone came back, I found Varlane… another clone. He… was like a child mentally, but he was connected to the others clones, especially Magnes. Well, somehow Magnes was mentally pulled into Varlane’s head… while Magnes was still in that flooded world.” That was a fiasco.

Turning back to Richard, Kaylee continues, “He told me a lot of what he knew about himself, Arthur gave him a file on his creation. He might be able to fill in the blanks of what you do have.”

“Gillian’s adopted kid, Squeaks— Jac— she runs with the Lighthouse kids? She was one of the Company kids, Maury had some guy experimenting on her. She was inoculated as part of something called Project Umbra, but we don’t know what it was an inoculation from yet,” Richard admits with a slight grimace, “I keep hoping I can turn something up that I can reassure her there’s nothing to worry about.”

A nod, then another, “I’ll talk to Magnes, see what he knows about Hydra, try and piece everything together. And— some old Company records, they were experimenting with Adam’s genetics using old Hydra records, with the idea of using his ability to immunize people to the Dragon’s power. Wondering if that turned into Umbra, eventually. Odessa’s father was working on it, but he’s dead, so he’s not going to be answering any questions.”

Elisabeth has really offered all that she can to the topic at hand here. She sits back in her chair and watches Eve thoughtfully, taking in the differences in the woman she remembers as a friend and the one in front of her now. Invariably some mental comparisons between this and other Eves also have to be made. She listens, uncertain why this was an emergency. Under the table, her hand creeps sideways to rest lightly on Richard's thigh, the contact a simple touchstone for her, grounding her here in the present because sitting here like this is eerily reminiscent of talking to Flood Eve, despite the differences in appearance. And some part of her is warily waiting for the Weird Shit to start.

Her head nods slowly to her brother, before she falls silent again. Kaylee’s focus falls on Eve briefly, before she is lost in thought again. “Do we even realize what we let loose into the world?” Clearly, her mind has come back around to the reason they were here to start. “It might be contained in the body of a little girl, but I’ve seen what Eve’s seen… before…” She motions to all of Eve. “I’ve talked to a piece of it, that thought of it as God. I’ve seem post-cog visions. I’m kinda scared guys. This is the thing that gave Adam his ability, that gave Edward his ability” That alone was its own mystery. Why did it do that?

“Without even being here, it’s manipulated our lives and now it is loose on the world.” Kaylee picks up the drawing and hold it up towards Liz and Richard sitting next to her. “It’s looking to destroy, probably, humanity. It tried it in Adam’s time, it seems,she might be poised to do the same here, too.” It wasn’t hard for her to see the emergency there. They knew the apocalypse was coming in the form of a little girl. “I mean can you blame it? We keep banishing it…” Which gave hope too, but this time all knowledge of stopping it had been lost.

A thought flickers into her mind and she is almost reluctant to admit to it, but Kaylee does, “So many people want to take out Adam, but he might be the best person to tell us what it’s motivation is,” there is a pause, before she adds, “Or even maybe this Joy.”

"My other young niece…" Eve comments, Squeaks was more and more involved in this and it worried the older woman.

As to what they let loose. "I made a choice because I believe in us." It's that simple for the former seer. She runs her hands along her shins, electricity crackling as she does so. "We have faced what appeared to be a god before." Though Kazimir was defeated, the conduits still persist. There's an abrupt switch of her expression as she turns her head towards Kaylee, "It… gave Edward his foresight." That makes Eve think. She chews on her bottom lip and stares into Kaylee's blue eyes.

Joy.

"I need to speak with them. All three. Pieces of this puzzle, their reach goes so far back. Windy corridors." Shaking her hands in a motion like so. Eve takes her eyes off from Kaylee, "Stopping them is the only option, we can use Adam's help and defeat him. I can't.. we can't let so many without gifts be erased." Killed. Genocide. "If everyone had gifts we wouldn't have this problem."

“No, we’d have entirely different problems,” Richard comments dryly, his hand sliding over Elisabeth’s on his leg and squeezing her fingers gently, “I agree to a point, but unfortunately we don’t have the full Formula available to us. I’ve got part of it, but with the other half and the Catalyst lost, it might as well be scribbles on a napkin.”

“We can’t assume to know what it wants, but we know it’s not good,” he frowns, “We do need to talk to Joy, at the very least. I’d love to talk to Adam, too, but he’s… slippery, and crazy as a bag of cats. Joy seems to know best what’s going on. She let Devon go, told him that Adam’s methods for ‘saving the world’ weren’t acceptable.”

"I wonder why it is that people always want to take the drastic paths to changing things," Elisabeth sighs. Twining her fingers into Richard's, comforted by the touch, she says, "Joy would be a good contact to have, but she indicated that it wasn't going to be possible to get to her. I don't know if getting a translation of what they were saying in Dev's head will help. But Elaine would be able to, I'd imagine."

Shoving her free hand through her hair, she breathes out a slow breath and then props her elbow on the table. "If he's behind Praxis, maybe he's reachable. I just don't know if he's as crazy as Zeke was." She eyes Eve. "And don't take this wrong, lovely, but you're not exactly the most helpful emissary."

"Being as old as he is… the sense of direction is hazy. Delusions, you think you know people. All those decades… centuries, but they can still surprise you. That's his mistake." Underestimating. It had been Eve's problem with Adam before now she knew better. A decade can teach you these things.

"Praxis is his gateway, his way of gaining a foothold in this world. A group of buddies and I will be gone very soon, more answers, more pieces. It's good to note, he loves the shadows and abhors working in the light." Waving her hand as she stretches her arms outward towards the ceiling with an audible crack of her limbs. Eve's eyes flick to the back wall, shaking her head with a cackle as she throws her head back. "Helpful emissary."

Gripping the edges of the chair she sits in, the pale woman drags herself forward, gaze passing between the three of them. "A decade ago, before any of you were involved in this…" Eve's brow furrows as she finds the word, "Mess. Me and my friends made a mistake. The consequences of PARIAH's mistake are now being felt by everyone else." Shaking her head as she runs a hand through that midnight mane, "It's mine to right, ours even." Monica and Alexander were in this, they both knew what their group had done. "And we will."

Brows furrow at Eve’s words, the telepath sitting up a little straighter in her chair. Anger makes her bristle a bit and her jaw clenches. “You can’t talk about uniting and then say things like that. You only think it started with all of you.” She points out.

“Yes,” Kaylee confirms for Eve. “This thing gave my father his ability. Probably to the purpose of manipulating us towards the very ends of its release and where we are now… this whole — fucking — can of worms started the day that thing gave Edward his ability. Hell, maybe even before that. When it gained life.”

Motioning to everyone in the room with the swirl of her finger she adds, “We all have equal stake in this.” Kaylee looks at the rest, before standing, her words tired and clipped. The strain of the last few months shows and clearly is shortening her temper. “Its everyone and no ones by rights for different reasons.“

“The immortal sonuvabitch would’ve gotten out eventually,” Richard waves Eve’s words off in tacit agreement with his sister, fingers brushinf vaguely through the air, “If not then, then when the Company fell apart, or when Moab got raided, or… any number of fucking times. What matters is making sure he doesn’t destroy the world with whatever plan he has to save it.”

His fingers squeeze back against Liz’s, and he looks up to Kaylee, “Siddown, sis, you’re right — we’re all going to work on this.”

"According to everything I've seen, Eve? It happened a hell of a lot longer ago than PARIAH," Elisabeth replies quietly. "What does intrigue the hell out of us that … although I didn't see Adam personally, he was friends with Ryans in the Flood world. And he was not there what he is here. He was in Level 5 there — I know that from Captain Ryans. Adam stuck with him through thick and thin… and Ben here said they were friends at some point. So it begs the question… what did Adam learn that sent him off on the path that he's on now?"

She looks between the others. "The Company was never a thing… not the way it is here. People had no real understanding of powers at all. And I … don't know for sure, but it seems to me if Adam there had a power, he'd have been … stronger. So what the hell happened here?"

"Miss Mind, no no you misunderstand." Eve shakes her head and looks over at Richard as he speaks, "The path will be laid regardless yes, it could have been any one of us whose future incarnation almost ruined our world but you have shouldered the guilt for that more than anyone." Eve's expression softens for Richard, they don't speak about that often. Not this. Not in front of anyone else either. "So you understand, where our guilty hearts lie and why." Because he felt at fault for something that wasn't even his fault. "We do all have equal stakes. We all live on this plane. There is a duty, that we haven't abandoned yet."

Well, when you speak about the war… Eve doesn't even go there with the Ray siblings.

"It tricks, it deceives, there is no sure way to know what knowledge we learn about it can be trusted or not." It's frustrating, the generating of the idea. Eve knows how useless it was to attempt to stop a meme. She was one herself and it almost never fully slowed down. "Unless your father was around in the 1600s in Japan? Not likely, he's another stepping stone."

They all were honestly.

Liz's question is noted and she tilts her head, "The branches you've been too should be helpful, the different twists and paradoxes our world can go through ." There's no reason it can't lead to something, cross referencing what you know in between dimensions. "But where I first saw them. Both?" Eve shudders and wraps her arms around her waist. "Before any of these timelines were branched over, divergent points. A common point in their history." A finger twines a strand of hair around.

"He was It's sword. They walked the earth like gods back then. Adam was enthralled, I don't even think he really knew what he was doing when he beheaded me." As to why Adam is so different here.

"Perhaps the redaction. There are a number of things. It sounds like you have a trip to find something out on Umbra." Nodding at Liz, The Spirits. "I'll gather what I can and we all meet, soon." Eve looks between the three of them. "This might be the hardest thing we've had to face, collectively. Shadows and golden eyes, the conduits imbalanced. More than one, more than two. Three. Three." Three times death, three cosmic entities…

“If the vision Joseph gave me mean anything, he will be again if we can’t stop it from happening,” Kaylee says from behind her chair, fingers gripping the back of it. Maybe a small defiance against her brother’s order to sit. There is a tension in the woman’s shoulders. “I’d like to keep it from happening, for his sake as much as ours.” Everyone deserves free will.

Addressing, Eve, the telepath gives the red-eyed woman a sheepish smile, “I’ll be anxious to hear what you find on your trip, hoping you’ll be able to help me with some of my own questions.” Some she probably didn’t even know she had yet.

“And Liz,” Kaylee looks her way a touch hesitant. She wasn’t going to do this, but, “If my schedule allows for it… I’d like to go with you on that trip. Could use the distraction to be honest.”

“We don’t know how the Ahayu’da play into this yet,” Richard admits, slumping back in his chair a bit and bringing one hand up to rub between his eyes, “I’m starting to set up another intel network, get people moving. I don’t trust the government alone to know how to handle with all of this— this is our area of expertise. Hopefully they trust us enough to let us work, although I’m suspicious of the witches lately. They’ve been acting… oddly.”

“As for the Flood…” He frowns, “That timeline was highly divergent. The Company never even existed, not as we know it. Things were different that far back.”

Elisabeth shrugs just a bit and says, "Whatever caused it, they're not wrong to at least make some attempt to talk to the crazy man." Just because it didn't work last time doesn't mean it won't work this time. Yes, yes, the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Then again… what did she just spend 7 years doing? Over and over again, jumping blind into a damn wormhole. So eh. "If nothing else, maybe it'll keep him distracted from the fact that we already know he's behind shit here."

Blue eyes flicker to Kaylee and she smiles. "Actually, I'd love the company," she admits. "And I'm quite sure your brother," Elisabeth nudges him with a shoulder, "would feel much better if I wasn't going alone anyway. We have to be back by the first, … can't exactly be late for my first day on the new job, and you can't either." She grins. "Then we'd really have some 'splainin' to do."

"We will Miss Mind." She assures the telepath and her look is determined. She reaches over and grasps Kaylee's hand. "I promise. The Mothers don't know a thing I ran into them and Miss Aria-" Eve feels a tug on her center of gravity and she clutches her stomach. "Ahh." Slowly she stands and grins at her friends. "I think we all know what to do. I-" Eve sneezes and as she does so her whole body ripples with red lightning, crackling over her skin and clothes. "I..have to step out."

Wincing in pain the woman chuckles and closes her eyes as she backs away to the door. "My farts have gotten just horrible, you wouldn't believe." Except Kaylee could, she saw it in action. A pale hand goes out to snatch at the door frame, smoke curling up from where her hand lays, the crimson light within her making her veins begin to glow. "Be safe friends,"

Kicking the door open the former seer looks back one more time. "Keep your eyes peeled." And Eve is barreling down the hall, shrieking for people to make way. She has to relieve some gas.


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