Magnetic North

Participants:

harris_icon.gif sabine_icon.gif

Also Featuring:

gabriel_icon.gif julien_icon.gif sabine_icon.gif

Scene Title Magnetic North
Synopsis Sabine Hazel is asked to revisit an old memory of her time with the Institute.
Date June 25, 2021

"I know it looks like a compass, but it's more than that…"

The day that intervened between the surgery and now has been an eventful one. Julien Durmont and Sabine Hazel have revealed themselves to be more than just co-conspirators willing to sign on to Gabriel's particular bandwagon and opened up to be a somewhat tragic case of Romeo and Juliet juxtaposed against a backdrop of the post-bomb world. Here in Colobanth's labs they've shown Gabriel Gray much of their research into what the Company has been perpetrating. But all of this, what Julien and Sabine have revealed, doesn't feel like the Company that Gabriel remembers. It feels more like Pinehearst.

"We're not sure how it works, but it only works for Julien. He holds it and it just… spins."

Some of the technology being developed at Colobanth is confusing, and the device that Sabine has decided to show Gabriel is one of the more puzzling pieces. On the outside it looks like a wristwatch compass, save that the framework for it is coiled with copper wire and it doesn't point north. Nothing here, this Compass, these research projects, none of it seems to feel like the direction the Company was taking, and yet at the same time it makes sense to Gabriel that these leaps would be taken, just not by this group.

"There was only the one here, but there's documents referencing others that this was modeled after."


Eleven Years Later

Rikers Island Prison
Rikers Island
NYC Safe Zone

June 25th
3:12 pm


"And this was when Julien willingly traded one of his copies to Gabriel Gray in exchange for his help?"

Agent Michel Harris sits at the bedside of a much older and weary Sabine Hazel. Her pallor is cadaverous at best, dark circles around her deep-set and bloodshot eyes. Sabine cannot sit up, can barely turns to look at Harris. She is no longer restrained, no longer confined. The strongest woman he'd ever met no longer has the strength to eat solid food on her own. It makes the meetings like this all the more important. Any one could be their last.

"Yes." Sabine says with a dry voice. "Gabriel… learned how to replicate himself, and he—the girl Clara—and Epstein helped us get back to the States."

Harris glances at his phone on the table beside his chair, quietly recording their conversation. "Confirming you mean Avi Epstein? Formerly of the CIA?"

Sabine nods, closing her eyes. "Nobody called him that back then," she admits with a wry smile. "Gabriel just called him Aviators." There's a hint of a fond smile as Sabine remembers that time, turning her head to more fully regard Agent Harris. "What does any of this matter? It's all in the past."

"The past has a way of coming back to haunt us." Harris explains, fully believing in that axiom. "Now, did you ever return to Colobanth after you left? I know your partner Julien did, to hide your daughter away in safety. But when you left Antarctica with Gray, was that the last time you were there?"

Sabine closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, then shakes her head. "No."


Ten Years Ago

Colobanth Antarctic Research Station
Antarctica


"Almost done."

Julien Dumont kicks back in a crumbling leather office chair, feet propped up on a dust-covered desk. Nearby, Sabine Hazel sits on the corner of the desk, cradling a wood and metal device in her hands. She looks at Julien, rattling the device—a makeshift compass—around.

"You ever regret this?" Sabine asks, holding up the compass. "Bringing this back the last time?"

Julien frowns, then shrugs as he watches a the archaic computer on the desk index file records. "If it wasn't us they would've sent someone else. You're stressing too much. Short term: it sucks. Long term: fuck 'em." Sabine is about to retort when a loud beep from the computer indicates that it's finished the requested query.

Sabine sets the dusty old compass prototype down on the table and slides off to stand behind Julien, hands on his shoulders. He scrolls through a list of files with clicky arrow-key taps.

/~deleted/local/archive/010783SOLAR.mxt
/~deleted/local/archive/010883SOLAR.mxt
/~deleted/local/archive/010983SOLAR.mxt
/~deleted/local/archive/011083SOLAR.mxt
/~deleted/local/archive/011183SOLAR.mxt
/~deleted/local/archive/OCTMIRRORTEST.mxt
/~deleted/local/archive/011283SOLAR.mxt
/~deleted/local/archive/AMATERASUPROJ.mxt
/~deleted/local/archive/CRJOURNAL7.txt
/~deleted/local/archive/011383SOLAR.mxt

"Can you open the journal entry?" Sabine asks, squeezing Julien's shoulder. He nods, typing a prompt into the command line. A raw text journal page appears on the screen line by line, and as Sabine reads it her brows grow more tightly furrowed. By the end she stands up straight and sucks in a sharp breath, hurriedly moving over to where a satellite phone lays on the desk.

"What?" Julien asks, not making the connection she did from the text. "What is it?"

"Shh," Sabine hushes, plugging the phone into a direct link to the facility's satellite dish for a signal boost. She dials a number and paces as far as the cord will let her until someone picks up on the other end. The man answering the phone call sighs deeply, followed by a tired exhale of:

«Cardinal.»

"I found what you were looking for." Sabine says with an anxious tightness in her voice. She can hear him shuffling around on the other end of the line.

«You're serious?»

"We went back to Colobanth, for the compass protypes." Sabine explains, looking at the compass on the desk, then Julien. "It's not what you thought. It wasn't a person they imprisoned."

«What… was it?»

"It was more of…" Sabine starts to say looks at the computer and the recovered journal entry, slowly shaking her head.

"…an entity."


Present Day

Rikers Island Prison


Harris sits forward in his seat at Sabine's bedside, hands folded in his lap. "An entity?"

Sabine nods, then looks at Harris. "You know the one," she says rather directly. Harris nods, glancing at his phone, then wrings his hands together.

"How much information did you find on it?" He asks, almost afraid of the answer.

"The journal was from the perspecive of a woman named Charlotte Roux, a researcher at Colobanth." Sabine explains. "But it wasn't about her research, but traumatic memories she was re-living about being possessed by a consciousness from beyond our reality. Richard had been trying to piece together information on an event the Company had… hidden. You know that one by now too."

Harris nods. "So what you're saying is that he was aware of the Entity in 2011?"

"To some extent." Sabine confirms. "That's all I really know. This would have been pretty early in the year." Harris nods, reaching over to stop the recording but hesitates. One last question lingers.

"Do you think what he did—that stuff up in Alaska–do you think it was connected to this somehow?" Harris asks, cradling the phone in his hand. Sabine closes her eyes and shakes her head.

"I don't know, Agent Harris." She says in an exhausted tone of voice. "The only person who would is Richard, and he's dead."

Harris nods and turns off the recording, then stands up from his chair. "Thank you for your time, Sabine. I'll send Noelle in."

A tear rolls down Sabine's cheek as she smiles, wearily. "Thank you."

Secrets don't matter anymore, not when every minute with her daughter is at stake. Once, Sabine Hazel would have put more weight on things like loyalty and secrecy. But now, there's only one thing guiding her: Noelle.

She's Sabine's magnetic north.

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