Sins Of My Father

Participants:

kaylee_icon.gif luther_icon.gif tibby4_icon.gif

Scene Title Sins of My Father
Synopsis The search for clues on Baruti Naidu's dealings continue.
Date January 27, 2020

A Shitty Motel Room


"There is something I didn't tell you," Tibby starts and looks towards Kaylee and then Luther. The trio stand in a hotel room, inside the Safe Zone, not out in the middle of nowhere, there are plenty of windows. Tibby holds no gun.

"A year ago… I was taken. Changed." Gesturing to her arm and where they saw her charging herself days ago. Her HUD no longer flashes loud warnings about being in the same vicinity as someone like Luther, that's not something the small woman can explain, but this she can. "Some of my memories are… weird. But what I need is before all of that, when I was a child.. There was a ceremony… something my father led.. Something I witnessed as a girl… the chanting.."

Tibby winces as she remembers and tilts her head to stare at the window. "I am ready, when you are."

Being that this is only the second time that Kaylee has been around the woman, it is understandable that the telepath’s guard is up; but, she’s come unarmed… at least she doesn't have any physical weapons.

After the events of the last meeting, Bob would have pitched a fit if she mentioned helping out Tibby, so Kaylee asked Luther along. If Bob trusted anyone with Kaylee’s life, it was the former Raytech security chief. What Bob didn’t need to know was where they were going.

Kaylee touches Luther’s arm in reassurance and motions Tibby to sit on the bed. While she drags over one of the chairs from the little dinette, she asks the man, “You got my back?” She knows the answer, but the reassurance is nice to have.

The lack of physical weapons on Kaylee’s person does not deny there is one at the telepath’s disposal. One, arguably, more dangerous and hair-trigger than an actual firearm. Luther has no safety lock. But what he does have is discretion, and at present he exercises it with a short nod of his head and a move to draw the curtains of the hotel room shut. There’s no brandishings, no open veiled threats. Not even a grudge, technically speaking, as the man regards Tibby Naidu.

“You just remember not to lose yourself in there,” he says in a manner that might even vaguely be interpreted as friendly banter. He can’t help the bit of protectiveness behind it. The only phrase he gives Tibby is a flatter, “Whatever you find out, we’ll keep it to us only ‘til you say otherwise.” And a shorter nod than the one he gave Kaylee.

She watches the exchange between the two but keeps her mouth shut until they've finished and Tibby feels she's as ready as she'll ever be. It's a little uncomfortable to see how close they are, having each other's backs. The South African was mostly by herself in this world, not totally though…

Which was why they were here today.

"Sorry, in advance. For anything you see."

Tibby comes forward and drags her chair with her, plopping it down next to Kaylee and extending her hand. "Need to touch?" It's something she's assuming.

As Tibby sits, Kaylee studies her… the daughter of the man that kidnapped her brother and forced a young woman to sacrifice herself. It’s Luther’s comment behind her and has her sighing out to calm her nerves. A part of her wasn’t sure she could keep that promise, but… Tibby didn’t deserve the ire that her father’s actions had caused.

Once Tibby is seated in the other chair, Kaylee shifts to the edge of hers. “Touch will make it easier,” she explains in agreement to the assessment, but she doesn’t take the hand. Cool fingers move slowly to touch Tibby’s temple.

The telepath’s trust in Luther is absolute. Like a bungee jumper falling off of a bridge, Kaylee lets herself fall into the other woman’s mind. Only once her feet have touched the metaphorical floor does she pull Tibby into the mental landscape of the cyborg's mind.

Anxiety tingles through Luther like the faint sense of electric power his own ability wants to reach for. Both are kept in check as he bears witness to the interaction of the women. The man makes himself comfortable on the edge of one of the double beds in the hotel room, leaned over to prop his elbows on his knees and his chin on the knuckles of interlaced fingers. The faintest thought crosses his mind, anybody walking in on this scenario might have assumptions of what was happening. It’s a thought quickly dismissed as he watches. And waits.


Somewhere Else

Date and Time Unknown


Ombi-in isaiba amar sutiya!

Ombi-in isaiba amar sutiya!” Tibby can hear them all shouting together. From her position up on the balcony, they look like living shadows standing in a circle in the courtyard below. Hooded, robed, hands raised into the air. The ivy encrusted columns of the stone railing partly shield her from their view, were they to even bother looking up.

Ombi-in isaiba amar sutiya!” But it’s her father that has her the most concerned. He’s there with them, she can see him clearly from the angle she’s at. He’s just… chanting with the others. He just standing there, repeating the same phrase over and over again with his hands raised to the air.

Ombi-in isaiba amar sutiya!” They chant, all eight robed figures standing in the circle. But on the eighth reiteration of the chant, their arms lower and hands become shrouded in the sleeves of midnight blue and violet robes once more. Tibby recognizes her father’s face in the shadows, knows the severe lines of his cheeks, his wide smile.

baruti_icon.gif

“Brothers and sisters,” Baruti says as he draws back his hood, “I am so glad we could commune, here, in my home. It is a great honor to host this union, to see your faces again and know we walk the eightfold path together.” Another guest pulls down his hood, a thin and tanned man with more gray than black in his beard and little hair left atop his head.

unknown11_icon.gif

“It is kind of you to welcome us into your home,” he says with a look around the courtyard, to the illuminated fountain nearby, to the armed guards at the perimeter by the wrought-iron gate. “But you would be wise to keep your eyes on your blood.” The old man says, turning a look directly up to where Tibby perches in the balcony. Baruti’s blue eyes go wide and he flicks a look immediately in his daughter’s direction, but he can’t see her for the ivy curtain wrapped around the railing.

Kry haar!” Baruti shouts to the estate guards, sending them scrambling toward where he points. Tibby likewise scrambles back and away from the railing, turning on hands and heels as fast as she can, sprinting back through the doorway into the villa. Her bare feet slap on the marble floor as she skids past a glass display case in the hallway containing old stone tablet etched with triangular divots.

Kry haar!” Tibby hears echoing at her back as she runs, heart racing in her chest. Her feet squeak on the floor as she rounds a corner, throwing herself through a doorway with momentum intended to carry her down the hall. Except for the strong pair of arms that intercept her midsection, lifting her kicking and screaming off the floor before pushing her up against the wall. He feels like a giant next to her, like he is ten feet tall.

damian_icon.gif

He is tall, broad-shouldered and dark-skinned with wide features and thick dreadlocks. He carries Tibby like the giant he is, even as she protests with hammering blows of hands and feet against him. He brings her, not to her father, but into a bathroom adjoining the kitchen she’d been running through. He sets her down, feet square on the floor and shoulders in his hands, facing the bathroom mirror.

What is reflected back is a girl of twelve or thirteen years old.

Kyk,” he says in Afrikaans. “Kyk diep.” She does as he instructs, as if she had no other choice, looking deep into her own reflection. “Kyk diep en vergeet.


Present Day


Kaylee feels the hard cut of a circular memory reference, something buried deep and folded in on itself. She yanks herself away from the experience before becoming trapped in it. This sort of memory manipulation is unique, but it isn’t unfamiliar to her. It was long suspected that the Commonwealth Institute had a memory manipulator in their ranks, she had felt repressed memories like this from the survivors of the Ark, in the children that were retrieved from isolation there. She had even felt it in Colette’s mind in those days on Pollepel, memories of her torture in Natazhat wiped clean, leaving just scars behind.

Whoever this was, whoever the man with the dreadlocks is, he was not only someone from Tibby’s own past, but also somehow connected with the Institute. Someone who hadn’t been caught by Wolfhound, someone who eluded capture all this time.

Eyelids flutter, allowing held back tears to roll down her cheeks emerald green irises shine as Tibby gasps and falls forward to the ground on hands and knees, breaking contact with Kaylee as her mind races. "Vader wat-" She's left reeling from the memory as she slowly returns to reality, the present. Why did he send them after her?

What was she witnessing?

The small woman's hold body shakes and the HUD in her vision swirls with color as she almost passes out from sheer shock, something wasn't right. This wasn't what she expected. "Hoekom…." Tibby's fist curls in on itself, "Hoekom…?!" Her fist collides with the floor. One. Two. Three. The pain makes her sigh and she lifts her head to look towards the other two. Slowly she begins to come down from the shock of it all, remembering just where she was.

"….look…" Tibby grimaces and sits back on her heels with a slightly dazed expression on her face still. "…look deeply… and forget." Her voice is huskier in this moment as her chest rises and falls, slowing down second by second until a full minute passes and she closes her eyes to bow her head.

Tibby’s reaction is jarring, the fit being thrown isn’t much different than a childs. The telepath holds very still so as not to pull the upset woman’s attention. Tibby was dangerously close, with enhanced limbs. The only movement Kaylee allows herself is to hold a hand to Luther, to stall him reacting. Last thing she needed was to have to take him to the hospital again.

“That’s all of it,” Kaylee comments reluctantly once the other woman calms some, letting the hands finally drop into her lap. “Do… you know what the chant is saying?” A glance goes to Luther and in a moment, he knows what the two women are talking about as the memory is offered to him.

Some time in the interim of the first dive, Luther has shifted position. A brief period, even if it may have felt long in the mindscape, has given the man an opportunity to dig through a small bag brought along. He's just setting down a couple of juice boxes (sorry Carl) beside the television set when Tibby shudders forward. Even so, reflexive reaction has Luther shifting his weight for the pair. Kaylee's hand pauses him. Angled brows furrow. He blinks, one moment unsure, the next moment knowing. He glances between Kaylee and Tibby, choosing for the moment not to exacerbate things.

"Everything alright? You want to stop, or keep going?" His question directs more to Tibby. He can't help the simple slip of sympathy that enters his tone when he asks even as he sits back down where he had been. "The hell is it with these fathers?" grumbles Luther under his breath, a glance sent to Kaylee. Even her paternal situation, he's aware, holding some deeply unsettling situation Tibby finds herself in.

"No… its old.." Comes Tibby's answer to the question on the chant and she's still breathing heavy but she slowly starts to calm down.

"That man…?" He was a man or a boogeyman with the way he just appeared and took her memory of the event?! To know her father allowed that is heartbreaking but also he might have been trying to protect her of course. "That… was like an obeah ceremony. Witchcraft, Magics." A ceremony for what? Tibby still can't place the language and it frustrates her.

"I don't…." she's confused as Kaylee is and even offers Luther an tired look, "I don't know."

“Father’s tend to do what they think is right for their children.” There is a barely contained bitterness in those words. In fact, it might be dripping with it. “Whatever the reason, he felt that it was dangerous for you to know about it.”

That Tibby doesn’t know what the chant said was disappointing. A mystery that needed to be solved. Kaylee’s lip press tightly together for a moment, before falling into an easy smile again. “I may know someone that could tell us,” Kaylee comments, which immediately after she holds up her hands, “I need to go talk to them alone, since she works for Yamagato. Call it a hunch, but I don’t think having you there will go over well.”

Kaylee gives Luther a glance before she says to Tibby, “You need to lay low for a while. I found out recently, there are people hunting your father and if they learn you’re his daughter…. They might not hesitate to use you as bait.”

"Staten Island shacks aside, there's places around to stay that'd have better resources," Luther adds, frowning in thought. "You said you were taken and changed. Those people, are they after you too? " That's a more immediate problem, another factor in this round of revelations. He glances to Kaylee, hesitation evident. Taking this on had already gotten them on some radars, no doubt. The least of which, RayTech's security teams mainly concerned with their executive member's safety.

Luther pauses, brows knitting together as he makes a decision he hopefully doesn't regret. He looks back to the telepath, then Tibby. "Go back in," he advises quietly. "Maybe there's something else." And to Kaylee he adds, sharp brow skewing up, "Want another pair of eyes on it?" Meaning, he's willing to join the dive, as a tether or a participant.

"Maybe," It's said in a quiet tone and Tibby wraps her arms around herself. Maybe this would be easier the more the learned. Maybe it could all mean something besides confusion and heartache. What was her father doing?

"I will wait," The answer to laying low and not tagging along, the notion that people would want her as bait makes her eyebrow raise and she grips a knee and leans forward just a bit, "The sins of my father follow me," A bitterness in her voice as she walks back to her chair and picks up her knife, tossing it in the air and catching it by the hilt before it drops too far to the ground.

"They are not after me. What is done is done. I am no longer Expressive but I am not just… human. Something in between. A mix," Is Tibby's retort to Luther, turning her head ever so slightly in his direction. Being of mixed heritage had already prepared her for being considered other though this surely was an extreme on that front, "I am where I am supposed to be." Behaved, for the most part. Klaus hadn't been seen for months. Waugh either but her directives were the same. For how long? How long could she stay the course when her father was over off the side of the road burning so bright of a light, a distraction. "But movement is, necessary. I have many places to wait." To hide.

Luther earns himself a cold smile from the small woman who leans her back against the table and props one leg up on the chair. "You care of my safety? Kaylee, the Giant has a heart." A light tease for the man, "Thank you Reuse."

"A week? We speak again,"

There is a small shake of Kaylee’s head at her friend’s suggestion. “There isn’t anything else, I’ve opened all the doors, that was the only memory of Mazdak. Her father was good about keeping her ignorant of his connections.”

“Be nice,” Kaylee chides Tibby with a smile, standing from the chair. “Besides, I already knew he has a big heart.” An hand moves to rest on Luther’s arm, a quiet plea to not react. “You just have to peel back the layers to find it.” Luther gets an affectionate wink.

There is pity for Tibby’s situation, but the woman didn’t need to see it. “One week. If you need to talk before then, you have my number.” Kaylee gives a shrug, like it isn’t a big deal to offer it. “I understand the burdens of a father’s sins. I wear my father’s daily, but… I don’t let it define me.”

Kaylee nudges Luther’s arm with an elbow. “Shall we go, big guy?”


Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License