Participants:
| Scene Title | Pyramid Scheme |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Thes scheme comes full circle. What are any of us doing here? |
| Date | August 26, 2019 |
“I’m in a pyramid.”
….
“I’M IN A FUCKIN’ PYRAMID, BITCHES!!”
Several passersby falter and look up from various electronic devices, coffees, or conversations to eye the strange woman at the top of the escalator. Isis stands with triumphant, gloved little fists raised overhead, disheveled garnet waves shaken out free behind her, and eyes wide as her erratic gaze shoots to-and-fro over the lay of the pyramidal city-scape below.
August 26, 2019
Noon Local Time
“Ahem.” Isis slowly lowers her arms, taking the left elbow into her right hand and pressing her thumb into the soft, fleshy crook. “‘Scuse me. First time out west,” the redhead excuses away her exuberant reaction and steps forward onto the downward escalator.
“Actually, it's a ziggurat,” a vaguely familiar voice calls back.
Several steps below Isis, partly hidden by the people between and the fact that the figure is small-ish, is a shock of red hair.
Also vaguely familiar.
Squeaks, spending some free time wandering through the massive city contained within thick walls of concrete, is maybe a half dozen steps nearer to the floor than Isis. She's also looking back instead of forward, one blue eye managing to find space between shoulders to peer through.
One hand on a hip, the other on the conveyor railing, Isis replies without yet bothering to looks for the source raining on her parade. “From where I’m standing it’s definitely a…” The slant of her perspective on the moving escalator reveals a plateaued surface outside a distant window. Isis grunts, only to adjust the set of her shoulders. “A variety of pyramid.” … “Thank. You.” The last two words a little nippy, Isis turns and cants her head from one side to the other as she finally attempts to find the Debbie Downer responsible for this new revelation.
A little gloved tap-tap on one shoulder. “‘Scuse me, sir.” Tap-tap on another. “Ma’a-…YOU!?” The businesswoman has just barely moved when Isis’s eyes grow wide. “What’re you doing here?!”
“Taking the escalator to the next floor,” Squeaks answers slowly. Why else would she be here? She stares up at Isis for a moment longer, then faces forward so she can see when to step off the moving staircase. Which she does with practiced movements, one hand gripping the railing to aid in balance while she transitions with a step from moving to stationary ground.
“I live here.” The teen continues once she's stopped, out of the way of others wanting to disembark from the escalator. “Up there I mean. But I'm allowed in the city when I'm not wanted somewhere.” One finger motions upward as she explains this, to where the private residences are. “How come you're here?”
Isis’ twitches suggest shes only just barely reigned in the urge to clamber through or over the parties in front of her. She wrinkles her nose until the last step disappears into the seam at the bottom of the escalator and she’s free to move aside towards Squeaks. “Wait, but what about New York? How did you get here?”
“Me?” Isis brows pop up incredulously, a hand steepling upon her sternum. “I …” There’s a little twitch at her left eye before her lashes narrow slightly. “Well, it’s your fault really,” she deadpans, but quickly cracks a bright smile. “Inspired, at least. But, anyway, I needed to see some specialist doctors and an old friend. Now, I’m right as rain. I think?” She bends her left arm once or twice before tucking her gloved fingers in her pockets, thumbs hooked into belt loops.
A slight squint of her eyes implies disbelief at Isis’ answer. How she could be at fault for someone doing something is a mystery. Squeaks huffs softly before explaining her presence again. “I was brought here, from New York. I don't live there anymore.” Obviously, since she said so already.
“How is rain right?” Squeaks tilts her head a little bit to one side. “Also what happened to you? How did I inspire you?”
Isis stills. Stares. After a moment her face takes on a scrunched effect. “How is rain right?” she agrees in the echoed query. “That one’s going to bother me,” she admits. “I’ll get back to you on that…”
With a resigned sigh, Isis gives an invitational little tilt of her head and moves away from the escalator and towards the waist-high glass panel and stainless railing that keep distracted passersby from falling to levels below, and in this case permits an excellent view of the the Zigguarat beyond. She bites her lower lip and considers something other than the scenery…
February 12, 2019
Eric Doyle Memorial Children's Library
Two young women sit at a table, a neat stack of books nearby. The only thing seemingly similar between them - a shared haircolor.
Squeaks doesn't appear surprised by anything that Isis says. She's maybe a lot more curious, but not surprised. The part about the dead chick in a cloud is puzzling and gets a murmured, “Dead people can't be clouds.” But she doesn't say anything else while the woman talks. She only listens.
“There's no questions in what you just said,” is the first thing the young teen points out. And it's said with a searching quality, like maybe she missed the question in all the words. “Why are you afraid of dying? And what's science got to do with slice? Are you afraid that being slice makes you die faster? Or that you won't die because you are slice? Or already dead because you have powers?” The girl pauses, thinking about her own questions before going on. “Are you slice? I am, it's primal. But I'm not dead. Not even close.”
Isis laces her fingers together, knuckles turning white as she digs her short nails into the back of each opposite hand. "I mean, slice used to be comic book and fantasy right? I mean, now it's real, it's science, it took all the magic outta of it. Maybe that’s before your time. Maybe it’s always been around for you. And yeah, I'm fucking-… Shit. Crap. Sorry," she briefly goes down a diminishing line of cusses trying to correct foul mouth in front of the teen. "Yes. I'm afraid being slice is going to get me killed. Aren't you? My thing isn't going to save me, certainly doesn't make me immortal li-…"
“Like Adam.”
She finally finishes, the voice is crisp - two little words enunciated to sharp, quick bites. Resting her forearms on the polished steel railing, gloved fingers laced, Isis lets her hazel gaze slide back to Squeaks. “I thought you’d inspired a way to save me from myself, by becoming someone else - Adam.” A little tension lines her small jaw. “I was wrong.”
Of course Isis was wrong, but Squeaks doesn't point that out. You can't be someone else, you can only be you. But, “That still doesn't explain what happened.” She will point that out, because she knows the question was dodged. “Or why you're here.”
No one was supposed to know she was here. It's supposed to be a secret. The teen pushes her eyebrows up to her hairline as she watches Isis.
Isis looks to the smaller girl with a quick shift of her hazel gaze to one corner, her visage remaining turned towards the open expanse of levels and levels beyond and below. She considers Squeaks a long moment. A slow blink and her eyes are once more on the passersby below. How many of them know… anything worthwhile. How many of them are just cogs in the pyramidal machine? How big or small of a cog is she?
She clears her throat and shrugs. “I took some derivative of a specimen from someone Adam had helped. Some kid half-removed from Richard but too-far removed from Adam. I got really sick. Nearly died.” Her gloved hands brace the stainless railing. “Adam saved me. Gods only know why he bothered or… what the fuck I’m supposed to do now, kid.” She takes a deep breath and, with obvious effort, turns herself away from the railing to better face the girl. She lowers her head and her voice…
“I dunno what you’re doin’ here kid, but if I may make a suggestion… Get out.” Isis’s gaze flickers with the effort to hold Squeak’s own, to add weight to the two quietly lingering words. Get out. “That guy’s got more demons in his head then even I know how to bear.” She rolls her shoulders back as if she could shed the discomfort that comes in recalling the voices - so many voices - that came as part of the Adam flesh package.
“He's made a lot of mistakes,” Squeaks agrees, with an absent seeming shrug. Who hasn't made mistakes? “But sometimes… sometimes you don't see the better option to get to your goal until after you've made your move.” Hindsight and all that, it's a marvelous thing even if it's only available once a thing is done. “But I can't leave. I like it here.”
Isis shakes her head slowly, a hand coming up as though to reach out, but thinks better of it - even gloved, shying from contact. “I’m not talking about the past. I’m not talking even about the present.” She licks her lips, considers her audience, and gives a surrendering side-bob of her head. Best to just be literal with this one. “I’m talking about the voices.” She taps her temple by way of clarification.
“It’s a cool place, kid.” She looks back up the escalator, tilting her head back to consider the impressive reaches of the ziggurat. Her nose twitches and her attention comes back around with a reluctant shake of her head. Nothing more.
What voices? Squeaks’ face scrunches a fraction, confused. She follows Isis’ gaze up, watching the people on the escalator then looking to the floor beyond. “There's a lot of voices here,” he hedges an agreement. She's not wrong, there are plenty of voices, all kinds of conversations mingling together.
Blue eyes slide back to the woman, suspicious. “But…” she hesitates, front teeth scraping against her lower lip. “That's not what you mean. Are… you having voices in your head?”
Hazel eyes meet blue. Holding. Considering. Isis lifts her gloved hands and makes a vague frustrated strangling gesture out in front of her. Really, what’re the chances this is actually safe to talk about, after all? What is this kid - this lovely infuriatingly litteral kid - even doing here?!
“Not in my head, kiddo,” she hisses. “His. I’m all for some internal dialogue. Hell, even a good moral debate from time-to-time.” That’s normal, right? “But, not that.” Isis roughs a gloved fingertip over her pale eyebrow and sighs. “I don’t know what you’re doin’ here kid, and for once, I’m not sure I even want to know.” Raised brows suggest that this little admition surprises even Isis. “But do you, uh… have someone back home you can call? Someone you trust? Someone that knows you’re here?”
“Maybe the voices are his own internal dialogue,” Squeaks points out, eyebrows raising. Because it’s totally possible that whatever voices there might be are really just Adam’s own very long history replaying. She shrugs dismissively. “You know he’s busy with a lot of things, and he has a lot to think about. That’s probably all it is.”
As Isis continues, a flicker of suspicion crosses the girl’s expression. Is she trying to find out without asking? Trying to …do what, she couldn’t even begin to guess. “I’m okay here.” Again, her shoulders bob with a dismissive shrug. “This is the safest place I could be.”
Isis’s pale brows crawl up and then down again, a single deep wrinkle forming between them. “I’ve never understood the impulse to lie to one’s self. It’s even more pathetic than lying to others.” She chews on the fleshy inside of her cheek, but it devolves quickly into a twitchy little movement of her nose. A lift of the chin raises her voice slightly. “555-1210. If you’ve a good memory, that’s my number. Because…” Instead her hazel gaze just slips away over the steel railing, to the tops of little heads milling about below.
“As much as I idolize ancient cultures… “ Some more than others. “If the history of the pyramids and ziggurats,” There’s a playfully snarky side-eye given to Squeaks here. “Is anything to go by - I don’t plan to be here when it repeats.” Her glove dulls the resolute slap of her hand on the railing before she turns away. “Good luck, kid.”