Participants:
| Scene Title | Silvering |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The Deveaux Group's expert comes to aid Elaine and Rhett in their investigations of the Yamagato Mirror. What they find defies explanation. |
| Date | February 8, 2020 |
It’s been weeks, but the memory of that conversation at the Clocktower Building haunts the back of Elaine’s mind.
Settling back into work at the Fellowship has been challenging. The mirror that sits at the crux of this entire situation was moved into an isolation storage facility on-premises. The negative space in the overflow storage where it once was serves as a constant reminder to Elaine of unresolved issues. Of questions left unanswered. Questions about herself, questions about her memories, her very identity. Sitting at a desk and reviewing import lists of new museum pieces, looking over catalogues of the Fellowship’s overseas museums to see what could be brought in for new exhibits, writing performance reviews for Fellowship employees, none of it feels fully real. There’s a disconnect.
Halfway down the checklist of recent imports, the phone on Elaine’s desk rings, startling her out of her thoughts. The red light on the phone flashes urgently, the small LED screen angled toward her indicating the call is coming from the front desk.
Elaine’s Office, Yamagato Fellowship Center
Yamagato Park, NYC Safe Zone
February 8th
2:12 pm
“Sorry for disturbing you, Ms. Darrow,” comes the front desk security guard on the other end of the line, “but there is a Damian Sullivan here to see you?” She wasn’t expecting any guests. “He says that Claudia Zimmerman sent him.”
Suddenly, Elaine’s world comes into laser focus.
"Oh!" Elaine's voice comes out a little more like a squeak than she expected, and she clears her throat a bit as she continues. "Yes, that's fine," she says, composure regained. "Please send him to my office, if you would." Perhaps she hadn't been expecting a guest, but she had still been awaiting something. This, hopefully, was it.
As soon as she's off the phone, she takes a moment to survey her desk to straighten it up a bit. It's not a matter of trying to look presentable for a guest, though that's perhaps a mild concern, it's simply a way for her to organize her thoughts, to focus on something in a professional manner rather than a personal one. Shuffling a stack of papers off to the side, she sits back at her chair, glancing briefly at where her cellphone sits near the edge of her desk.
It takes a few minutes for Elaine’s guest to make his way up to her third-floor office, giving her stomach time to twist over the unknowns. The man introduced as Damian Sullivan enters Elaine’s office from the hall, gently nudging the door open as he does. He’s significantly older than Elaine, gray hair bound in thick dreadlocks that hang loose over his shoulders. His dark skin contrasts against the coffee and cream color of his suit, accented by a gold fabric pocket square.
“Ms. Darrow,” Damian greets with a broad smile, as if she is an old friend. “I apologize for the late arrival and the short notice, but I was a few states away when I heard Ms. Zimmerman had a need for my skills.” Approaching Elaine’s desk, Damian offers out a hand to her with a warm smile. “Damian Sullivan, it’s a pleasure to finally make you acquaintance.”
He acts like he knows her, or knows of her. In spite of that, he wields this familiarity with a gentle touch, with kind eyes, with sympathy.
"Mr. Sullivan," Elaine greets warmly, despite the knots in her stomach. "It's a pleasure to meet you as well." She accepts the offered hand, grateful that she didn't know the meeting was happening prior—less time to be nervous and no clammy hands. "It's alright about the timing, it's better to come late and at short notice than not at all. I'm very glad Ms. Zimmerman was able to arrange this."
The sense that he knows her somehow is not overlooked, but when she doesn't immediately place why it might seem that way, she lets it rest as a side thought. "Please, have a seat," she offers with a gesture to the chair in front of her desk. "I hope your trip over hasn't been too problematic."
“Traffic is lighter these days,” Damian admits with a lopsided smile, moving to take a seat at her desk. “But when I heard who it was that needed my help,” he says with a gentle clap of his hands together in his lap, “I was eager to come.” Realizing this moment is a touch awkward, Damian smiles apologetically and spreads his hands. “I realize you and I have never met, but we share a common acquaintance. You helped Hiro Nakamura, many years ago, subvert the actions of a man named Samuel Sullivan.”
Damian shifts his weight to rest one elbow on the arm of his chair. “But that was a long time ago, and the Sullivan Brothers are long gone now. Which I suppose brings us to the present day,” he says with a motion of one hand to Elaine. “Of which I am more than happy to help.”
Elaine laughs, leaning slightly on the surface of her desk. "The past does seem to have a funny way of coming back around." It's a joke with more than one meaning, but it only amuses her for a half second before she looks serious, even if there's still warmth there. "I'm certainly glad you can help. This is an interesting situation, both professionally and personally."
She pauses for a half-second. "How much, exactly, did Ms. Zimmerman fill you in on? I'd assume you know just as much as everyone, all things considered, but with all of the paperwork, I'm never sure anymore."
“I know everything,” Damian confides. “Memory is my specialty, in the way language is yours. There was a time when, if you can believe it, I ran a house of mirrors at Mr. Sullivan’s circus. Mirrors offer a reflection of who we are, and what are memories if not imprints of those reflections.” It sounds almost too good to be true. “All I need is access to the mirror,” he says with a slow spread of his hands. “Whenever you are ready.”
Always safe to check. Elaine nods, one hand going to her cell phone. "There's someone I'd like to be here for this. Let me just get him here and we can go right to the mirror. It shouldn't be long." The cellphone is scooped up neatly in her hand and she gets to her feet to step away for just a moment. Not for privacy so much as she feels rude being directly in front of someone while on a call.
Damian nods in wordless concession to Elaine, then turns to look at the way the sunlight refracts through the windows of her office. His eyes wander the glass, then drift to the floor, and he wrings his hands in his lap in silent contemplation.
Silent concern.
Thirty-Eight Minutes Later
The Fellowship Building, Isolation Storage
A shiny, plastic visitor’s badge swings with the cadence of Rhett Thorne’s steps down the concrete-walled corridor. Ahead of him, a Yamagato Enterprises security officer escorts him through the basement hallway just off the elevator. Up ahead at the end of the hall, Rhett can see an open metal door with a keypad next to it, and through the door Elaine standing in clear view.
Down that hall, Elaine and Damien are not the only two to occupy the fifteen-by-twenty concrete room the mirror is kept in. Kimiko Nakamura stands with arms folded across her chest and one hand at her chin, looking at the tall mirror shrouded by a white drop-cloth. She regards Damien with momentary suspicion, but has so far not spoken more than three words since they arrived.
Rhett looks uncomfortably at the security officer that stopped by the basement elevator, looking down the hallway. He's seen this movie, this is eerie. "That way?" Rhett asks from the officer that has stopped escorting him. Still, he leans out a little, and spots Elaine.
That means he ditches his elevator escort to trot down the hallway, easily baited by the sight of Elaine straight down the hall and through the metal door. He edged it open further with the edge of his forearm, not his hand, and comes up behind Elaine with a question on his expression, if not vocally, inspecting Damien with a reserved curiosity.
Regardless if there's any sort of tension between the people in the room, Elaine's anxiety is more directed towards the mirror. There's a little bit of that anxiety that dissipates when she spots Rhett. He's offered a smile, and a slight raise of a hand as a greeting, but she keeps her welcoming to that before she looks back at the small cluster of others.
"Well then, I suppose this should be it?"
She's not entirely sure. It's not the first time working for Yamagato that's yielded a surprise visitor for something like this. Still, she doesn't expect anyone else, and her attention drifts back to Damien.
The look Damien affords Rhett is one of brief recognition, but Elaine does not see the same familiarity that she saw on her introduction. He steps aside to make room for Rhett beside Elaine, then looks to Kimiko with one dark brow raised.
“Mr. Thorne,” Kimiko greets Rhett with an incline of her head, threading a lock of dark hair behind one ear. Her attention moves to the shrouded mirror, then to Damian. “Mr. Sullivan, what can we expect from this performance?” She asks, perhaps a little coldly.
Damian fixes her with a look when she calls it a performance, but there’s no venom there. It’s more amusement than anything. “I believe Ms. Zimmerman chose me to assist with this because of my ability,” he explains. “I can suppress and elevate memories, focused through reflective surfaces. It’s a form of mental manipulation on a telepathic approach, rather than an actual physical manipulation of the brain’s chemistry. I can,” he turns to the covered mirror, “feel a vibration coming from the glass, a resonance in some sort of physical distortion. Sort of the way the needle on a turntable makes sound from a record’s grooves.” It isn’t a perfect analogy, but it’s the best he has.
“Given how my ability works, I can… project the memory imprinted in the glass into your minds,” Damian says carefully, followed up immediately by, “with your consent, of course. You will see it in the mirror’s surface, though that is more a trick of the mind.” As he says that, Damian waves his hand in the direction of the mirror. Perhaps there is some theatrics and performance to this after all.
“All that said,” Damian warns, “I will not know what will be shown until it has been. I have no way of determining the content until it is revealed. However, as I am a medium in this process between yourselves and the imprinted experience, I would be the one to suffer any untoward effects, not you all.” Then, with his voice lowered he adds, “Though the chance of there being a physical risk in seeing something is likely low. The emotional risk…” Damian doesn’t answer that part. He shrugs it away, instead. He doesn’t have a good answer for the emotional risk.
Kimiko sighs through her nose, turning dark eyes to Elaine. “This is your personal affair,” she explains, even though she’s invited herself into this moment. “You’re the one who gets to decide if we go forward with this. And,” she turns to Damian, “for what it’s worth, I consent to receiving these memories, should Elaine agree to.”
"Hello," is what Rhett contributes in answer to Kimiko. He's brief and reserved in general, and moreso in a situation where there's stress of this type. He's on alert, tense, but broadcasting a calming exterior for Elaine's benefit as he stops next to her and slightly back. He's there to support and help her, not distract from the situation.
The speech about Damian's very specific and bizarrely perfect ability makes him dubious, but he doesn't add anything verbally. He'll wait and see.
"I expect there's a good chance for an emotional risk, yes, but this isn't an opportunity you just say no to," Elaine glances to Rhett for a moment, then to Kimiko, then to Damian again. "It's personal, but it wouldn't be attached to this mirror if it didn't have some significance to other people. It's not for just me."
The personal bit is the easy one. It's what she's not expecting that's the worry. She nods. "Right, consider me consenting. I'd like to see whatever's in there."
Damian leans back behind Elaine to get a look at Rhett on the other side of her. “Will you be joining us?” He asks in a gently urging tone. “I wouldn’t think to expose you to whatever might be imprinted on that mirror without a verbal approval.” His eyes drift to the floor and he straightens back up, occluding himself behind her tall silhouette again. “Otherwise, you are welcome to remain in the room of course. Just don’t expect too much in the way of theatrics.”
Kimiko remains quiet, hands folded behind her back and jaw set. There’s a nervous anticipation in her features that Elaine hasn’t seen before. It’s the expression of someone who is anticipating the delivery of bad news, as if she has some inkling already of what may be imprinted on the mirror. She, too, angles a look at Rhett out of curiosity for how he’ll answer.
"You're… broadcasting mental images? Like a dream?" Rhett asks, caution apparent. He's not the type to just agree to things; they've seen it before with the struggle over the NDA. Rhett's regularly jamming his heels into the concrete in his protection of Elaine.
"I think we'd better see it," Rhett says, though, in perhaps an odd swing verbally. He'll protect Elaine, but she needs whatever it is. "If she wants me there, I'm in."
Elaine takes the briefest of moments to study Kimiko's expression with some curiosity before she looks over her shoulder in Rhett's direction. He's given a smile. "I know it sounds a little weird, but…" She glances towards the mirror once again. "We'd better see it." Seeing that Rhett's given his okay, she turns her gaze to Damian again.
"Okay. I think we're ready." She'll speak for them all, in this instance.
“You won’t feel a thing,” is Damian’s attempt at consolation as he steps past Elaine and walks over to the covered mirror. Kimiko squares her shoulders, breathing in and holding the breath as Damian drags the sheet down off of the mirror. The dark frame is revealed, the silvered sheet of glass with faint imperfections making the border look fuzzy and cloudy. His eyes search the etchings in the frame, seeing them for the first time.
Damian steps back, looking at the tall mirror with tension building in his neck. Slowly, Damian begins to run his forefingers and thumb together, building a steady rhythm matched in each hand. He steps forward, brings his hands up, and touches them to the surface of the mirror creating a ringing sound, like a finger running around the rim of a wine glass. His breath hitches in the back of his throat, but the sound is drowned out by panicked screaming that suddenly fills the room.
“Oh my God!” Sobs an unfamiliar woman’s voice. “Oh my God!” Damian steps aside, eyes wide, revealing the mirror showing a night-time country landscape sprawling out before them, as though the mirror were some sort of doorway to Narnia. The landscape is bathed in hues of blue and green, dark stands of pine trees in the distance beyond the dimly-lit field of flattened grass.
The vision swims, bobs, pivots. It looks like a first-person recording from a helmet camera. A pair of hands come into view, nicked and cut with small, bleeding scrapes. Some of the underbrush looks like brambles. “Oh my God,” the unseen woman says in a shuddering whisper. She looks up and the view pivots, revealing a spiral-shaped aurora of green light gently twisting in the sky. A curtain of pink and teal descends from the aurora like the hem of a celestial robe. The aurora borealis, but in a spiral configuration.
“Oh my god, where am I?” The woman shakily whispers. “Oh my God,” she keeps repeating. She’s in shock. She’s terrified.The onlookers get a glimpse of her feet, one shoe on and the other foot bare and covered in scratches. It is clear, now, that these are memories as recalled by the person who lived them. Just as Claudia had suspected.
It’s only taken a few reiterations of the same phrase for Elaine to recognize the woman’s voice. Roselyn Darrow. Her mother.
Elaine fumbles for Rhett's hand. She doesn't look to attempt to make sure she finds it, she just lets her hand move to find his as her eyes stay fixed on the mirror. She's not sure fully what's going on, but she can hazard a vague guess. The voice is one she hasn't heard since she was a child so there's almost a sense of foreignness to it. It was definitely her, though. She clears her throat, just slightly.
"That's my mother, Roselyn Darrow." They're odd words to come out of her mouth, an introduction of someone dead to the living. The introduction probably isn't even needed.
Rhett takes her hand, squeezes it immediately, his eyes turning to check her, though the tone from Elaine is telling him a lot. He watches her stare at the mirror, more of his attention on the living woman next to him than the mirror for the moment. He releases her hand, but not to step away, but to pull his arm around her her waist, his other hand coming across for her to grip if she wants a hand as a lifeline. Then he watches the mirror with her, from the more close position.
Kimiko takes one step forward, jaw set as she watches the display. It’s like she’s waiting for something. The addition of another crying voice echoing as though from the distance has Kimiko’s hands balling into fists. Now another expression that Elaine has never seen on her before manifests: fear.
“Hello?” Roselyn calls out, stumbling through the aurora-lit field, the crying sounds like a child. Roselyn seems to recognize it and her pace picks up. The sound of her feet rushing through the tall grass is as clear as her hastened breathing. “Where are you!?” She calls out. The sobbing grows louder, closer, and Roselyn’s pace picks up.
As the scene plays out, Damian turns to Rhett, Elaine, and Kimiko with an assessing look, then turns back to the mirror with marked curiosity on his face. Inside the frame, Roselyn’s perspective continues through the field in a jog until she reaches the source of the crying. There is someone laying in the partly-flattened grass, a child of no more than five or six years old in a fuzzy, pink zippered jacket.
“Are you okay?” Roselyn asks, and her hands come into view as she bends down, rolling the child over in the grass. Dark hair is plastered to the child’s brow, blood slicked across her hairline and runs down her forehead and the right side of her face from a cut somewhere on the top of her head. The child exhales a ragged, wailing cry.
“Otōsan!” The child cries out. Dark eyes stare up at Roselyn, reflecting the spiral aurora above them. Roselyn picks up the girl, pulling her to her chest and touching pale fingers at her scalp, finding a short gash in her hair near where her part is. Those fingers come back wet and red.
“Ssh, shh,” Roselyn whispers. “Subete daijōbu,” she whispers into the girl’s hair. Watching the scene play out, Kimiko swallows audibly and quickly lifts a hand to wipe a tear from one of her eyes with the side of her thumb. She tries to feign that this isn’t affecting her, but it clearly is. As Roselyn starts to talk more, the vision takes on a gaussian blur, loses cohesion, and looks like little more than noise and blotches of color.
She hadn't been sure what to expect. Certainly, the presence of her mother was the first step, but whatever came next was she couldn't have fully been able to plan for. Elaine's hand, while still clutching Rhett, eases slightly. There's confusion there, but it's not fear and she manages, for a moment, to allow her gaze to slip across the room towards Kimiko. There are questions that she doesn't ask audibly, and one she does.
"Was that…?" She doesn't complete the question. She doesn't think she needs to.
"What did they say?" Rhett asks, out of the loop language-wise, but then he follows Elaine's gaze to Kimiko, and falls quiet, leaving other questions to wait behind what Kimiko will say. He strokes the back of Elaine's hand with his thumb in a slow circular motion, blue eyes sharp and analytic, watching the mirror even still as the shapes cloud and become blotches.
The next thing he says is directed towards Damian. "Is that all of the … recording?"
“She was calling for her father,” Kimiko says, her voice tight. “Elaine’s mother told her, everything is okay.” Her eyes avert from the mirror, even as Damian steps beside it and brushes his fingertips along the engraved frame.
“There is more,” Damian confirms, “but this surface is old. It has not been treated well and the silvering on the mirror is a poor surface to contain the imprints. Much of what I feel here has degraded over time. Glimpses of colors, bursts of sound, and things that do not translate outside of my thoughts. Emotions, smells, sensations.”
Damian presses his fingertips to the mirror’s surface again. “Let me see what I can…” he makes a noise in the back of his throat, head angling to the side, eyes closing. The surface of the mirror glows softly with a warm afternoon sunlight. There are blurry shapes and muffled noises, like sound muddled by being underwater. The light dims, dark shapes move through the frame, things blur and distort like a funhouse mirror. “Here,” he says, having found something substantial.
Inside the mirror comes a view of a reflection. It is a woman in her twenties with short, curly red hair and dark eyes. Her lips are parted, one eye closed and the other open, applying an eyelash curler to the lashes of her open eye. Music plays in the background, echoing into the bathroom through an open door visible in the reflection. Elaine recognizes her mother immediately, but to see her so young and so vivid.
A distant sound of a knock causes Roselyn to stop what she’s doing, set the eyelash curler down on the side of the sink, and turn away from her reflection to the bathroom door. She walks through a spacious loft apartment, brick walls and tall windows on one side view out to a stunning view of Midtown Manhattan and judging from the quick glimpse of the skyline, a Manhattan of decades past. She comes to the door, peering through the peephole.
In that dark, tunneled view there is a broad-shouldered and heavy-set man with thinning hair on the other side of the door. Roselyn must recognize him, because she leans away from the door and unlocks it. “Hey,” she says with a look up to the older man. Her voice is tense. “I ain’t been in any trouble, so unless there was something you— ”
“Please step aside,” he says with a gesture of one hand, and Roselyn does so immediately, even though the action seems incongruent with her tone. She takes two steps back and one to the side, allowing the burly man through. “Roselyn,” he says from outside of her field of vision, “we’ve gotta take a trip.”
Roselyn turns, her vision blurs and then refocuses. “You piece of shit,” she whispers sharply, “did you just get in my head?” The burly man turns, squinting at her. “You’re an asshole, Maury.”
Maury smiles in a way that implies he doesn’t care, looking around the apartment. “I thought we told you not to go out?” Maury asks, and Roselyn looks down at the floor, then around the room, and back to him.
“I ain’t,” Roselyn says flatly.
“Doing your makeup just for your cats, then?” Maury asks, looking at her over his shoulder. She doesn’t say anything in response. “You need to come down to the Bronx facility, we have some… paperwork for you to fill out.”
“Paperwork,” Roselyn says suspiciously. “Maur— ” The vision loses cohesion, Roselyn’s voice cuts out and soon the image blurs on the edges. It ripples and takes on an indecipherable quality again.
“Maury Parkman,” Kimiko says flatly. “He was a telepath, Company agent. He’s also quite dead.” There’s a hint of something more biting in her tone when she notes Maury’s deceased status. “He must have been Roselyn’s handler after the Crossing. Damian, how much more of this is there?”
Damian shakes his head, frowning. “There isn’t much more that is coherent, but… there’s… give me a moment,” he says, as if just noticing something unusual.
Elaine's less sure of this memory, mostly because she doesn't quite understand the meaning. There's still some tension, but Rhett's serving as a physical anchor. It's probably a very good thing he's there. She doesn't elaborate once Kimiko explains the Japanese, but she's also watching Kimiko's reactions a lot more closely now. She lets out a slow breath.
"I know his grandson. Robyn's raising him now." It's an odd thought, being mixed up in all of this. She doesn't know Maury, but her instincts tell her this isn't a great situation—and she's glad that it's over. The tone of Damian's voice catches her attention and her gaze shifts to focus on him, though she doesn't speak. Is there more?
"That's…. A coincidence," Rhett observes with a lift of both eyebrows at the name of the the kid that Robyn is raising. He's heard about Matty, but he writes most of that off as an odd coincidence. Most of what Rhett is doing now is remaining as a physical comfort for Elaine, since the visions of people he doesn't recognize don't phase him even a little; just strangers. He's well suited to help her weather.
"Why keep these images? As opposed to any others," Rhett wonders aloud, skeptical, but mostly trying to let the others discuss it. He doesn't have much to offer aside from staying with Elaine: but he knows that's something she needs, and he's glad to be there.
Damian, partly distracted by whatever it is he’s doing by the mirror, chimes in to Rhett’s question. “There was much more, once. They are degraded beyond repair because of the way they were imprinted into the physical surface of the mirror. It is a poor receptor for this ability. This feels…” he trails off, going silent for a moment and angling his head to the side, “…like a test run. A trial for the material, perhaps. I cannot say for certain.”
Kimiko, who has been awkwardly silent through much of this, shifts her attention over to Rhett and Elaine. “I have been at this long enough to suspect coincidence is not as common as conspiracy.” There’s a subtle touch of humor to her tone, but it feels forced.
“Here,” Damian says, which brings Kimiko’s attention back to the mirror. “There’s something— ” he’s cut off as a crackling haze of red sparks dance over the glass. Damian steps away shoulders squaring and hands coming up to protect his face as another snap of crimson electricity arcs out from the mirror to the ground a foot away from Elaine. After that discharge, the sound of voices fills the air.
"Somehow, for some reason, Kimiko Nakamura is dead in this world."
The voice of Magnes Varlane is a familiar one to both Kimiko and Elaine. Kimiko straightens both at the familiarity and the content, her jaw sets and attention briefly flicks over to Elaine, then back to the mirror. Magnes is not seen in the reflection. Instead, there is a living room, somewhere different than the last one. Out curtained windows a sunny day and urban streets are clearly seen. The room is well-appointed, modern furnishings and respectable decor. It, like the other visions, is shown from the first-person perspective of…
…someone eating a slice of pizza.
The focus point turns, "But back home I know her, she's in charge of a very large company, one of the largest in the world. She taught me martial arts." Magnes is visible on one end of a sofa, likewise eating Pizza. He looks clean cut, hair well-groomed, he's taking care of himself which feels a bit like an oddity among oddities.
"Don't need the actual degree," Elaine hears her own voice come out of the mirror. "With computers, if you can prove yourself you can get a job anywhere. I've heard big companies will hire you if you prove yourself skilled enough. Plenty of people learn without a degree. I think that the college would have more access to material than I could just learn online." The perspective bobs as she nods. "I'll be hard, too."
"Not that I'm suggesting it," Magnes changes the topic, mouth half-full of pizza, "but if you met the Magnes in this world, you'd probably experience some of what the other Elaine did." There's an awkward look in his eye, something between shame and regret. Damian winces and makes a soft but audible sound before the image starts to sputter out. Cautiously, he steps back toward the mirror and hesitantly touches his fingertips to the glass to try and tune whatever it is in.
When the mirror comes back into focus, the scenery and lighting has changed dramatically. It is dirty, grimy. It looks like a dilapidated hospital turned into a banquet hall. The walls are streaked with water damage and rust, fluorescent lights illuminate everything with a sickly, desaturating pale white light. The perspective is directed down a long table where Magnes is clearly visible, but his hair has grown out along with a shaggy beard. He looks exhausted.
The sound of a chair pulling out from the table draws Elaine's attention in the vision over to a bearded man in a knit cap standing up from the head of the table with a tired grunt. He scrubs both of his hands down his face, and an older man sitting diagonal to him looks increasingly uncomfortable as he eats, wide blue eyes scanning the table. Slowly, he sets down his fork and starts to push back his chair. “I— I have some tests to run, I should— ”
“Stay.” The man in the knit cap says into the palms of his hands, dragging them down his face, “by all means Doctor Ford, please stay. Enjoy your meal. I insist.” The lanky Doctor, halfway out of his chair, stares with the wide, frightened eyes of a wild animal, then slowly eases back down into his seat.
“Donald. Please," draws Elaine's attention, a man in a wheelchair is set at the table across from her. Dark hair, in his forties, wearing dark-framed glasses. "They've— they've clearly had a long trip. Just— ”
Don raises a hand, which draws Elaine's attention to him. The man who was just speaking looks away sheepishly and grows quiet, eyes focused on his lap. Exhaling a sigh, Don sits straightens his back and looks at the food, then up and around at the others gathered here. “Mr. Varlane is right,” he says with a thin and strained smile, “I should've… known who I was dealing with better. I should’ve— of course, you all react better to actions more so than words or…” he leans in, motioning to Magnes. “Posturing, was it?”
The obvious tension in the air is gut-wrenching. The Elaine of these visions looks up and down the table, and those watching the vision get a quick glimpse of close to a dozen other people sitting at the table. Elaine looks back as Don settles back down in his chair and takes a plastic fork in hand, he twirls it with one flexible tine dimpling into a fingertip. “I know who you are. I know you can condense gravity,” he motions with the fork to Magnes, “I know you have those lovely portals,” is said with a motion to someone Elaine isn't looking at, “I know you can modulate audio frequencies,” again is directed to someone out of frame..
“But, the whole fate and destiny thing?” Don clicks his tongue and in the vision Elaine's breathing is hastening. “Not a big fan of that. I like to imagine that we’re all guided by a higher power. Someone bigger than all of us, who… eventually… is going to come back and clean up the mess we’ve made of their world.” Don continues to twirl his fork as he talks. “You asked what I want? Well, you've met my acolyte, Else.”
“I suppose the easiest way to explain what I need is to lean back on my Catholic upbringing,” Don says with a flick of the fork against his knuckles, “because I need the three of you,” he motions to Magnes and some people out of frame “to help bring about the second coming. Because, like I've told my followers here… this world isn't going to fix itself. But there's someone who can.”
Don slowly overturns the fork in his hand. “The first of our kind. An entity so powerful, this flood?” He waves one hand, flippantly, “gone. Our dead loved ones? Back. I've seen the face of god, my friends. She's real.”
But Don’s tone doesn't match his upbeat demeanor. “But you're probably thinking I'm some sort of religious lunatic. And that's fair. That's fair.” Tapping the fork against his knuckles again, Don glances to a man in his twenties standing apart from the table, an automatic rifle held on a shoulder strap and kept pointed down at the floor in a relaxed stance. Don then back down the table. “What'd you call all this? Baby’s first power trip?”
“Don, please,” someone out of frame pleads..
“You were right about one thing,” Don says, snapping the plastic fork in half. “I do know how to rattle you.”
As soon as he says that, gunfire erupts inside the mess hall. Multiple rifles from the security team, firing on the table. A blonde woman sitting near Elaine is hit in the back, shoulder, neck, and head. Blood sprays across the food, across a bald man sitting on Elaine's other side, and a bullet whizzes past Elaine close enough to part her hair, but she can't see what else happens as Magnes leaps from his seat and throws his arms around her, tackling her to the floor.
There's screams, horrifying and pleading screams and automatic gunfire. Everything is a blur of black and denim as Elaine's face is smothered into Magnes' shoulder. Even when the shooting is over, screams fill the air. There's the sound of a hand slamming onto the table amid the screams and cries. “Take Mr. Varlane to a fucking cell,” Don's voice is a howl of anger, “and the rest of you— does anyone else need to be made into a fucking example!?”
As the screams continue, Damian visibly breaks his connection with the mirror once the shock has worn off. The red, crackling static remains, but he does not tease more imagery out of the mirror. It all happened so fast and judging from the horrified look on his face, he may have cut out the feed even faster had he been able to react fast enough.
“I am so sorry,” Damian whispers, looking back to the viewers.
The sight of her mother's reflection had been enough for Elaine to sink back to Rhett for support. A face she hadn't seen since she had left for Scotland when she was fourteen. The bomb destroyed her and all the pictures that remained—she had nothing until now. So, for a moment, she's completely still, the memory of that face burned into her head. She was so much younger. But there's supposed to be something more.
"Ms. Zimmerman said that using the mirror was more of a test, it's no surprise that it's not really holding well," Elaine replies, glancing at the others. "Maybe they're not meant to be entirely the most significant… except to maybe a few people." Her gaze shifts briefly towards Kimiko. Whatever she might be about to say next is torn away as the crackle of electricity arcs close, causing her to stumble back against Rhett in both surprise and fear. She seems to be ready to speak again, but this time the unexplained electric ghost is showing them something, not just speaking.
So she's silent. Instead she observes, suddenly surprised to find that the other Elaine's memories really do seem attached. So she watches, trying to make sense of everything happening. Even if it's not her own memories, it's unnerving experiencing seeing the memories of some kind of iteration of her. But seeing traumatic events? That she couldn't have expected. Rhett is, once again, a much needed pillar of support both physically and emotionally. She's at least on her feet still. She tries to make sense of it, to make it make sense for everyone else as well.
"That's Magnes, my ex," she explains for Rhett's sake. "Our ghost is definitely sharing memories of the other Elaine." Said ghost is carefully monitored, as it has not disappeared into the void. Was it waiting for something? "I'm not sure why it's sharing them, but it's definitely them. I'm…" She hesitates. "I am not sure what happened at the end. Some of the things said…" She's not sure what to say about it. Some of it made some sense, thanks to what Richard told her. Her gaze goes to the fact that the ghost isn't gone. "What… does it want?"
What Rhett got from this is that Kimiko is dead somewhere. That Kimiko is subject matter suddenly is also baffling. What does Kimiko have to do with any of the memories? Is she in them? There's not much information for Rhett to use, so he nods a little to Elaine.
His face closes up even more when Magnes is brought up and identified, as it does with watching some of the vision. Watching Elaine interacting with her ex isn't great fun to him, but he isn't revealing it so much as just looking disconnected. The action with the guns doesn't really seem to phase Rhett; he's observant, frowning. "Memories of other Elaine," Rhett echoes current Elaine. "—-How does the 'ghost' have both your mother's memories and another Elaine's? Wouldn't they all be from one viewpoint?"
"Do we—-" Rhett changes his mind and aborts his question. He'll just sound out of the loop. He leaves it alone.
“Damian?” Kimiko asks, her voice still tight. She would like an explanation for that as well.
“This is something else,” Damian says with a hint of uncertainty, squinting at the crackling red light dancing over the mirror’s surface. “This is… like a sympathetic vibration. This energy. It is an additive to the impressions in the silver of the mirror. In fact it may have inadvertently caused some of the degradation.”
Damian turns his back to the mirror, looking to the others. “This is a presence, a living being or— an echo of one? It feels like memory and thought stripped of physicality. A ghost in the most literal of senses. A soul, if such things exist.” He turns to look back at the mirror again. “I don’t know why it chose to inhabit this space, maybe it was drawn to the vibrations of the impressions in the silver… maybe it was chance, or…”
Damian hesitates, his eyes narrowing.
“Maybe it was fate.” Damian whispers, reaching out to the mirror again without fear or hesitation. Before Kimiko can stop him, his fingertips touch the glass and there’s another explosive blast of red electricity, this time it throws Damian back from the mirror, sanding him flat on his ass. He raises his hands to shield his face as the energy erupts from the mirror and arcs out in snapping bolts directly at Elaine.
There's limits for Rhett.
Seeing Damien move forward at the mirror makes him act from instinct. To protect Elaine. He couldn't protect his sisters, but he can act here. And he does it without much thinking at all.
Rhett pulls hard at Elaine to try to jerk her back, while moving to intercept the source of what's attacking Damien, and coming for Elaine. He kicks out, hard, at the mirror, as he attempts to pull Elaine clear and safe, in the sudden assault on them. The mirror is clearly attacking them: Damien has fallen, bolts are coming for them, and he'll stop it at whatever cost to himself.
The split-second stroke of crimson lightning harmlessly passes through Rhett and Elaine as through it were just a light show. But Elaine and Elaine alone can feel a bone-deep tingling sensation, a vibration in her hands and fingertips, hear a crackling in her ears and a blurriness to her vision.
Physically, Elaine's not able to do much. Mostly because, in the first place, she'd been taking everything in and didn't have time for much in the way of reactions. She's easily moved, pulled back and out of the way, far before she can even react. There's no pain, but there's confusion.
In the same instant, Rhett makes contact with the mirror and the antique shatters from the force of the blow. A shower of violent crimson static fills the air, grounding out harmlessly with audible pops and crackles. Glass rains down to the floor in jagged sheets, sliding harmlessly off of Rhett’s shoe. The pieces of the mirror shatter as they hit the floor into even smaller fragments, reflecting the room in multiplicity.
Then, all around, Elaine hears muffled voices. She hears a tiny voice, a toddler. A girl.
“Mooom,” the voice calls, and behind her eyes Elaine sees darkness. A doorway, a little red-haired girl about the size of a sack of potatoes with a stuffed animal clutched in one arm. She turns her back to a silhouette in the doorway. “Someone’s heeeere.”
It is a woman, silhouette by light, cast in darkness. Glowing blue eyes.
The stranger puts a gloved hand on the top of the little girl’s head from behind.
Tears that aren’t hers well up in Elaine’s eyes.
“Addie,” Elaine says aloud to the room, but she didn’t intend to.
The mirror, shattered, sparks and sputters no more. All is silent, and all is still.
What just happened? Elaine blinks a few times, more than once, attempting to shake off the moment of whatever it was. She struggles to regain her full focus and works on doing so, entirely trusting Rhett to do what he might need to in order to keep them safe. She's a little too out of sorts to do much of that for herself at the moment.
Kimiko stares in vacant confusion, one hand clapped to her mouth. Damian, on the floor, looks at his hands and then back over his shoulder to Rhett and Elaine. The energy discharge has triggered an alarm, audible down the hall. A security officer steps into the room, waved off by Kimiko, but not dismissed.
“Is everyone okay?” Kimiko asks, looking with wild eyes around the room.
"Elaine?" Rhett asks urgently of her. The lightning didn't harm him, but he checks on her, turning inward towards her, both arms around her now, focused on her expression and wellbeing.
"Who's Addie?"
"I'm okay, I think," Elaine isn't entirely sure how much of that statement's true, but she doesn't need medical attention, which means she's okay enough. She gives Rhett a nod, resting one of her arms on his, doing her best to find some way to reassure him that he doesn't need to be in a state of panic. Her other hand wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, blinking away whatever water was still there. "She's my—"
She cuts herself off, momentarily very confused. She doesn't continue right away, instead giving the room a quick glance before she looks to Rhett. "She's Magnes' daughter." It's still a little confusing, but she's getting her bearings a bit and she manages to look between Damian and Kimiko. "No one was hurt?"
Addie's Elaine's daughter, with Magnes. Elaine's daughter, Magnes' daughter. This shadow he's worried about made real. Rhett takes the blow really hard, and his expression closes like a vault. The loss crawls in his heart. He still holds her, though, but he stops looking at her and looks over at Kimiko and Damian.
“I’m fine,” Damian says as the security officer helps him off the floor. He looks to Elaine, then back to the mirror. “I’m sorry about the— ”
“It’s fine,” Kimiko interjects, motioning dismissively to Damian. “We have a medical team at the main building, security can escort you to get checked out, just as a precaution.” She turns dark eyes to Rhett and Elaine, tension pulling her features taut.
“Are you okay?” Kimiko asks both of them, uncertain.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Elaine offers her assurances. "It was just a… little strange, that's all. I'm fairly certain I'm uninjured and that things are as well as they can be. That whole thing was… interesting." She opens her mouth to ask Kimiko something when she catches that there's something a little off with Rhett. She blinks at him a bit.
"Are you okay?"
Now she's asking.
"We'll get checked out by medical," Rhett agrees to Kimiko when she meets his gaze by looking over at himself and Elaine. Rhett finally brings his eyes back to Elaine and pulls his arms back, trying to check her face and eyes by bringing his hands up to cup her face.
"You mentioned Addie is yours. Do you know who I am?" Rhett asks her directly, with caution, and flicks his gaze back to Kimiko pointedly. It reads 'help me' in a quick message. For the reason made clear with his question.
Kimiko offers a shallow nod of acknowledgement to Rhett, then motions with her chin to the security officer that helped Damian up. “I’ll call over to medical and get a shuttle over here,” he says, checking Damian one last time before headed to the door. Kimiko doesn’t intrude on Rhett and Elaine’s moment, though from the way she regards them in her peripheral vision, she is as curious about the answer as Rhett is, for entirely different reasons.
"Of course I know who you are," Elaine looks back at him. "Look, I'm not possessed or something, it's still me. I just…" She swallows hard. "I think it shared some memories, if that makes sense? I don't feel any different, I'm still me, you can ask me any questions you like to prove it, I just saw their daughter for a moment. Like a memory. Maybe she was hoping I'd go save her."
She shrugs a little bit, but offers Rhett a smile, then another one in Kimiko's direction. "I'll get checked out by medical just in case, but I think things will be alright." Her eyes linger on the woman for a moment. "Ms. Nakamura, when things are settled, perhaps we could talk about this?" She certainly doesn't want to ignore the fact that this had somehow been personal for more than one of them.
She didn't tell him who he was, and that's causing some concern. "Do you know who I am?" Rhett asks again. Rhett is watchful and detached, careful. "We should all be checked, whatever that was passed through our bodies," Rhett answers, but he lets his hands drop from Elaine's face.
Kimiko's desire to go get on the shuttle is clear, and he steers Elaine a little that way.
Kimiko offers Elaine a patient nod, angling a side-long look to Rhett. She doesn’t talk over their exchange, but it’s clear she’s eager to have a conversation about the matter once things have calmed down. She, however, doesn’t seem concerned for her own well-being. But then, she wasn’t irradiated by whatever energy passed through Rhett and Elaine.
Instead, Kimiko walks to Damian, resting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Sullivan, I appreciate your assistance in this delicate matter. Obviously,” she looks to the shattered mirror, then back to him, “we need to keep this confidential.” Damien nods, rubbing one hand at the back of his neck, brows furrowed. He has more questions now than answers. When he looks back to Rhett and Elaine, there’s worry in his eyes. Kimiko sees it and squeezes his shoulder, gently.
“They’re in good hands,” Kimiko says plainly, smoothly. The unspoken and not your business is clearly understood. Damian dips into a nod, then disengages for Kimiko and walks toward the door, pausing briefly to look down at the broken mirror, then steps out into the hall.
"Rhett, I promise I'm good," Elaine assures him. She leans in to plant a kiss on his cheek as an extra bit of reassurance. "I know who you are, I know I love you, and I know things will be just fine." She lets out a deep breath, then turns to look in Damian's direction. "Mr. Sullivan, I know this was a little dramatic, but I appreciate all that you've done, all you helped with. Seeing my mother's face was… that in and of itself was priceless. So thank you."
She looks back between Rhett and Kimiko. "I'll be fine. A lot to process, really. But I'll be fine."
Rhett remains unreadable; if he is buying the reassurances or not. This is quite serious to him, if his family is being fractured by this other reality. It isn't the first time he's felt this tearing. It's extremely stressful, but he buries it all deeply in the interest of the medical visit.
"Let's see what medical has to say," Rhett says kindly, and nods to Kimiko to lead on.
It takes a moment for Kimiko to register Elaine and Rhett’s compliance, her attention fixed on the shattered mirror scattered across the floor. She breathes in deeply through her nose, then flicks a quick look in Elaine and Rhett’s direction before nodding and turning to lead them to the door. Damian, for all that he was thanked, likewise seems distracted by the supernatural events that unfolded here and his questions regarding what it is he saw.
As Kimiko approaches the door, questions are on her mind as well. Questions of free will, of predestination, and questions of just how far her father’s machinations may have spread.
And how long his shadow could be, even so long after his death.