Volume Fourteen: Five Years Gone

Storylines » Volume Fourteen: Five Years Gone

Time and again, people from the future have traveled to the past with the intention of changing their lot in life. Hiro Nakamura, the Moab escapees, children from a blighted wasteland, and even Richard Cardinal himself. The scion of Edward Ray has made his final move, constructing a device that he believes can open a window in time through which he can deliver a message to the distant past, a warning powerful enough to change the course of history as we know it and erase every tragedy that has since come to pass. But where, or how, does this end? Prophets are blinded, and moments in time beyond the ascribed opening of the window are nothing but darkness. Time travelers have seen it happen before, leading up to monumental changes to history that would erase everything that had come after. Is it right to fight the future, if it is a brighter one? Or is survival a matter at all costs? There's only one way to find out.
Date	Scene	Description
11/01	If At First You Don't Succeed	Cardinal meets with a captive Elle to discuss her involvement in the future.

Beneath the streets of Cambridge Massachusetts, the Institute has constructed a self-contained arcology housing thousands of Evolved and Non-Evolved alike. Dubbed the Ark, the arcology is intended to weather the changes of catastrophe and, if rumors are to be believed, changes to history itself. Within the subterranean compound, willing and unwilling guests remain a captive audience alike to the leadership of the Institute. But for all the Institute's careful planning, their machinations are unraveling at the seams. Infiltrators and traitors alike threaten to dismantle the Ark from within, and the Ferrymen with their allies intend to bring all of their resources to bear to crush the Institute once and for all.
Date	Scene	Description
11/1	A Way Out	After Liette the leader of the Institute and threatens everyone's security, Doctor Luis finds himself presented with the difficult decision of what to do with her sister Julie.
	The Voice of God	Cardinal contacts Simon Broome to warn him about a potential threat to the Ark.
	Cry Havoc	When Lene discovers what happened to Elle, she and Liette hatch a plan.
	Black Queen	After an unsettling revelation, Kathleen journeys into the one place more dangerous than the Ark.

Hiro Nakamura has been obsessed with changing time since the bomb first destroyed Midtown. Ever since then, his life has been a misguided quest through history, and one that he cannot give up. When confronted with the futility of his own mission, Hiro turns to a young visionary capable of offering him insight into his own personal quest for justice. But all of Hiro's best laid plans come spiraling out of control when a younger version of himself arrives from the year 2006, and every single thread that has been criss-crossing the lives of those affected by the bomb come together at last. All good things must come to an end.
Date	Scene	Description
10/04	What He Couldn't Finish	Gabriel and Eileen move to stop Sylar from acquiring the ability to shapeshift: the one power that stands between him and the presidency. As with most things, it does not go as planned.
11/01	Kill the Messenger	Hiro and Rhys argue over the future.

Where were you when the Bomb went off?

Where are you now?

Alia Chavez

+ Alia's Bookends

April Silver

+ April's Bookends

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

April Bradley stares out a third-floor window, watching gray rain fall on gray streets on an otherwise unremarkably gray day. Even that stereotypical Seattle atmosphere is more interesting than the paperwork beneath her hands, a status report on the latest suspected Evolved she's been monitoring. She and Faith, technically, but in what seems to be the spirit of seniors everywhere, the "us" in their "us-and-them" team quite cheerfully leaves every bit of tedium to the junior half that can possibly be managed.

April doesn't even mind, not yet; she's only been an agent for three months. Not even boring, monotonous, stultifying paperwork can tarnish that shine so quickly.

The door to their shared office blasts suddenly open, rebounding off the wall with a startling thud. Hands braced flat on the desk, April stares wide-eyed at where her partner leans around the doorpost, clutching white-knuckled at the frame. She has only enough time to realize something's wrong before Faith begins to speak, words tripping over one another in frantic haste.

"April — God — you have to — the news! It's — just come on!"

Something is terribly wrong.

April scrambles around her desk, follows Faith in a mad dash down the hall. She can hear the television in the break room before they even get there, newscaster's voice blasting out at max volume. The images on the screen, when she can finally see them, are — incomprehensible. Unfathomable. Unimaginable.

"…breaking news… explosion in New York… Midtown destroyed… casualties unknown…"

How could something like this even happen?

"How much you wanna bet it's not a bomb?" comes from behind them: Joshua.

April shakes her head slowly, without ever peeling her gaze away from the TV screen; she doesn't take the bet. Even her stunned, shellshocked brain mislikes those odds.

One thing's for sure: whatever it actually was that just happened in New York, everything's going to change.

Everything.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

A woman ten years older than the calendar says she should be stands on the corner of an altogether too-familiar Seattle street, hands tucked loosely into her pockets, waiting patiently for the light to turn. Hair cropped very short, dressed in outdoor practical, a plastic shopping bag casually suspended from one wrist, April Silver is just one of many out for lunch or midday errands.

Although her errand is not, in fact, of the shopping variety.

The light changes, and April strides forward at a brisk pace, her attention directed resolutely down the street, watching cars and pedestrians and bikers all around through peripheral awareness. Most of all, though, she watches a particular man in a suit, though never openly — never letting her gaze become too direct or rest upon him too long. He does occasionally look back, and direct attention would stand out like a sore thumb in the natural urban atmosphere of mutual invisibility by common consent.

It wouldn't do to make him suspect he's being tailed.

The man turns a corner, and April lets herself speedwalk a little faster, even though she's not really in any danger of being left behind. At least — not until she gets caught by something else entirely. Words conducted through speakers that normally carry pleasant shop music. A screen in a window. A knot of people slowly coalescing before it.

"…explosion over New York City… damage as yet uncertain… updates as we receive them… "

Shit.

There are no words beyond that one unvoiced piece of invective as April drags herself away from the compelling disaster on the screen, the growing murmur of shock and fear building amongst the onlookers. She strides down the street with revitalized purpose, altogether passing by the turn her subject had taken — he's just not that important anymore.

Fishing a simple, unremarkable phone out of her pocket, April stabs a number by feel alone. The call doesn't even complete its first ring. "Have you seen the news?" A beat. "Please tell me you've heard something from Japan."

Whatever the person on the other end says, it causes April's expression to darken, nearly approaching a scowl.

"We need to find out what's going on. Change plans. I'll be back in the office soon; see who else you can round up for a meeting."

The call is ended, and the phone slipped back into her pocket with a deeply unsatisfying lack of force. She focuses her unsettled emotions — her apprehension, her fear — into emphatic motion instead, boots resounding against the concrete almost as loudly as high heels might.

April Silver has lived the same two years across two separate timelines, and that experience has taught her just one inevitable conclusion: the more things change, the more they fucking stay the same.

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Bao-Wei Cong

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

“« Go home, have him get some rest, make sure that he stays off of his ankle. There is no break. The nurse can supply you with a wrap. »” Bao-Wei Cong— Doctor Cong, to all of his patients— steadily moves through the backup of patients in the waiting room of his clinic. Most of them are locals. One or two have come through from other boroughs. He treats them all the same.

While his bedside manner is blunt, he is known to be fair.

Some people create stories as to why he is as he is— and some of them are true. Many are not.

The truth lies in the Triad, of course. The older patients know exactly what he does for them. Exactly who he knows. Exactly what kind of man he is. The kind to have taken an oath, however measured it is.

He was a doctor, first.

“« Do you hear me? Stay off of that foot. »” His patient is no more than ten years old, tears dried on his cheeks as his mother stands beside the exam table, an arm on his shoulder. Dark hair, dark eyes, not so much English between them. He looks up at Bao-Wei with a frown, but nods back at the broad man in his white coat, glasses clean and eyes alert. He places a hand on the boy’s head, a heavy touch but primarily for a silent reassurance. “« Be good for your mother. Be careful on that bike of yours. »”

His mother gives a small smile, passively expressing a put-upon gratitude as she takes her son by the hand and leads him out.

Bao-Wei feels it first, on the way back to his waiting room. The vibration in the floor. Then, a distant sound of thunder. Screaming outside the building follows, and as he stumbles his way into the front room he finds a stream of bodies piling in the doors in a panic of feet and shouts. He recognizes the instinct of man to find shelter in a time of danger, and in the moments that follow, the dust that rolls past the panes of windows tells him enough.

Something terrible has happened.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

The water laps at his hide with a steady metronome, warm bay water splashing into icy splinters as it comes into contact with his back. Around him, a cold, icy cloud that trails in his wake, turning the chill November Atlantic into an arctic slush as he swims through.

Boston is a spiny image on the water, growing out of the bay in a familiar silhouette.

Why did he agree to this? Why wouldn’t he? The pressure to play God was too much temptation, in the end. They wanted him to kick his life away. They took the last vestiges of what family meant. Humanity was gone the moment he said yes. The moments he looked into cells and did not blink, the moments he watched death without a weight to come with it— a monster before the cold came. Perhaps this is a way to offer something back, however minute. Will it worth the trouble?

He can get his research back.

He can possess himself again.

Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death.

The water is dark when he dives, Bao-Wei’s shape displacing the cold and ice as it plummets earthward. Sand and detritus move underfoot when he lands, pushed out of the way as long forelimbs drag him along the bottom of the sea.

If it is given me to save a life, all thanks.

Somewhere in his memories, there is a decent man buried.

One who took care of his own. Gave shots. Mended wounds.

But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.

But all that’s left now are memories of death, and mistakes.

Above all, I must not play at God.

Bao-Wei alights on the incline of where the rocky beach meets the bay, drawing the gaze of a lone man fishing from a pier as he lumbers from the salty brine towards the mouth of a drainage tunnel. His bulk sheds in pieces as he moves, a man’s shape disappearing into the dark.

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Richard Cardinal

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

It's a roar unlike any sound that's ever been heard in the Big Apple, a sound that crashes into the apartment building like a tidal wave, rattling the windows in their frames as it slowly fades away.

There's no light in the small sixth floor apartment, none save tiny luminous numbers where the alarm clock sits beside the bed. Heavy black-out curtains drape the windows, protecting this nocturnal sanctuary from daylight's intrusion. There was mere moments ago peace and silence in the room, its inhabitant's only care their dreams of the stripper they'd heavily tipped the evening before.

The sound wakes him in an instant, however, and he lunges to one side in an instinctive attempt at self-preservation. Blankets tangle with his legs as he falls out of the bed, a flailing arm sending the alarm clock flying. It hits the flood hard, and tinny music begins to play.

…e see everything that's going wrong, with the world and those who lead it

Just a few moments later, his heart's starting to slow down from his panic and he's untangling himself from the blankets, pushing up to his feet. "Fuck," he mutters, fumbling for his sunglasses on the floor before finding them and sliding them onto his face, "…the hell was that?"

We just feel like we don't have the means, to rise above and beat it

Stepping over to the window, Richard Cardinal pushes the curtain aside with one arm, grimacing as the noon-day light spills over his face and body. At first, he squints through the shades until his eyes have adjusted. And then his eyes wide, pupils sharply dilating in fear as he realizes what he's looking at.

So we keep waiting

A mushroom cloud rising above what was Midtown just minutes ago.

Waiting on the world to change

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

«"GO! GO! GO!"»

The automated defenses are coming, and Richard Cardinal is on his feet; motors screaming in his armor against the cold, eyes narrowed without helmet to protect his head. The old Russian-made weapon in his grasp sweeps up, spitting fury forged in the Cold War across the snow to rattle over the side of one of the metallic monstrosities unleashed upon them.

Robots that, ironically enough, had been adapted from the designs of two people he considered allies.

Gleaming steel jaws and laser-light eyes turn his way, and the automaton charges. Bullets ricochet harmlessly from armour plating, and then it leaps, crashing into the man's chest and sending him back down into the snow, Horizon armor all that keeps him from a collapsed ribcage.

His head snaps back against the snow, and when he brings it back up he sees those jaws coming down. His rifle knocked out of his grip and some feet away, he drives a hand upwards instead, grabbing the feline construct by its 'throat'. Hydraulics whine and ground as he forces it back inch by inch, adrenaline surging in his blood.

A sudden shot rings out, then — one of the Brians sending an armour piercing round through the head of the robot from his sniper rifle, the red light in its eyes dying. He shoves it off him, flashing a quick smile through the chaos to a duplicate that likely never sees it, rifle grabbed up before he charges forward again.

Towards his own lair.

To kill himself.

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Colette, etc.

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

Slouched on the bench seat in the back of the van, one dark-haired girl with her bangs hanging over one eye lays sound asleep. Her forehead rests on the shoulder of a man not too many years her senior. In a way, this is where their story actually starts, even if she's blissfully unaware of it for nearly three years out from this point. "I just don't get it…" His words are a window into the indecision that Trent Daselles is struggling with. Staring down at his hands folded in his lap, he's doing his damnedest not to look over at the girl sleeping on his shoulder — Colette Nichols.

But his partner in the van has less to say about this, brows furrowed and head down, dark hands folded and the faint light that comes in through the tinted windows glinting dully off of the necklace he wears; one pointedly resembling half a DNA helix. "You and Woods were supposed to pick her up and bring her to her sister. I don't— " Trent knows that the Haitian can't — won't — speak back, won't do anything to help alleviate his concerns. In a way, he's the perfect listener. "I don't get why we're just dropping her back off at her apartment."

The van slows to a crawl, then only when it stops does the Haitian look up from the floor of the van. His brows tense, and when he pushes himself to his feet, Trent's eyes follow him as he hunches over and stalks to the front of the vehicle, resting one hand on the passenger's seat to take a look out front and assess exactly what's going on. Cars are stopped as far as they eye can see down 43rd street — rows and rows and rows of stalled vehicles waiting in gridlock traffic just before noon.

"What's going on?" For a moment, Trent considers standing, but the subtle weight of Colette's head on his shoulder gives him pause. Teeth draw at his lower lip, eyes closing and a sigh slipping out in frustrated strain. The Haitian's eyes sweep the scene, looking past the obvious of the gridlocked cars, to the flicker and flash of dozens of police cruisers and ambulances up ahead. Something isn't right.

The moment that gaunt figure whips back into the van, he doesn't pause at Trent, but instead moves right for the hinges of the back door. Thrusting them open and jumping out of the back of the vehicle, turning around to offer a stern and very expressive stare towards Trent, one that implores haste and urgency. He doesn't need the words to convey the look in his eyes of revelation, and more unusually: fear.

It would take Trent the remainder of his years to come to terms with how his blank stare and uncertain hesitation changed everything that day. The way his throat tenses, mouth goes dry, and he waits sixteen seconds too long to do anything. By the time he's pulled one of Colette's limp arms around his shoulders and helps her unconscious body out of the back of the van, it's already too late.

The Haitian takes a hold of his sleeve, dragging Trent and by proxy Colette away from the van, even as the driver only offers them a confused stare in the rear view mirror — in this one instance it would have paid to ask questions. "Hey, what— what the hell's going on?" Trent's voice however is not so paralyzed, but the Haitian offers no explanation, only the understanding of what he sees here, and what he's been warned will eventually happen today. Now, it isn't the time he expected. Here, it isn't where he was told. But, there's enough signs that match up to make the next few moments of absolute chaos just barely predictable.

Watching Trent, the Haitian and Colette disappear in his rear view mirror, it's the brightest light words can describe that eventually draws the driver's attention away. A sudden flash of radiance brighter than the sun, light that takes away the driver's sight in a single excruciating moment. He never sees the wall of heat, ash and flames that comes roaring down 3rd street, never sees the cars being thrown up into the air like toys, never sees the Empire State Building flayed of its exterior and never sees the wall of shattered glass and fallout carried on the blast of a ten kiloton nuclear explosion.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Four tin mugs are set down on each side of a small green formica table. One by one, each cup is filled with boiling hot water, steam rising up around the spout as a tea bag floats up to the top of each brew. The first pair of hands to take a cup are small and thin, brought up to pale lips and the half-blind stare of a young woman with dark hair down past her shoulders. Colette turns her mismatched eyes across the table to the broad-shouldered man sitting across from her, with his narrow cheeks and sunken features. Judah Demsky looks tired, has looked tired for the last two years. Behind him on the wall, a compound hunting bow and quiver of arrows pops out against the cabin wall and the door leading to the snowy expanse of land beyond.

"Thanks," comes the voice from beside Colette, where a blonde woman a few years older than her takes the tin mug and brings it up to her nose, breathing in the aromatic scent. "I think there's some people about twenty miles away," she says in a small voice, wanting to sip the tea but knowing its too hot. Instead, and focuses pale eyes on the hearth burning nearby and the small collection of firewood stocked beside it. Colette offers her a side-long look, then sweeps that over to Judah, who leans down to rest his face in his hands tiredly.

"We can't risk it, Kathleen." Colette offers quietly to the woman at her side as the girl pouring tea goes to sit beside Judah. But then, her brows furrow, and Colette turns to look at the young woman who sat down as she feels a warm hand take one of her far colder ones. Tamara brushes a finger over Colette's knuckles, offering her a mild smile of reassurance.

But she's right. They can't risk it.

{screech}

A bubble of laughter erupts from the couch as a knitted wool blanket rustles and flutters across a woman's shoulders. Wearing the quilted blanket like a cape, Colette Nichols swoops down upon the blonde who had been reclining on the couch. "I'm cold," Colette threatens, letting the blankets fall around them as she straddles her legs around either side of Tamara's waist, one foot touching the floor for balance. The blanket hangs down over her shoulders, concealing her buttoned-down shirt and sweater vest. She reaches up and brushes fingers through Tamara's hair, leans in for a kiss of cold lips against far warmer ones. "So," she huffs out a small breath, cold fingertips just in from the wintry weather outside brush against the blonde's collarbones with prickling chill. "I was going to wait, but I can't anymore."

Colette's other hand slips down into the pocket of her slacks, and as she sits up straight the blankets slide off of her shoulders and pool down around their legs. What she takes out of her pocket isn't wrapped, knows it isn't a surprise. It's the half of Tamara's puzzle ring that Colette slipped off her finger last night. The one Tamara let her take. It's symbolic, more than a surprise. Face flushed with color, mismatched eyes meeting the seer's darker ones, Colette offers the ring back out as she had in years past. "Tamara Brooks," her eyes are glassy, "will you just marry me already?"

{screech}

«The Department of Evolved Affairs today confirmed reports that more than three thousand Evolved residents have now successfully relocated to the Eltingville Blocks.»

Outside the grimy window, a crumbling urban sprawl is dark against a cloudy gray sky. Rain patters against the glass, streaking down in ever forking paths. A piece of crawling ivy has intruded into the house through a gap between window sill and wall, bright green leaves popping out against the peeling, mustard-hued paint. On a rocking chair near the window, Colette quietly holds a cup of water in one hand, her expression distant as she listens to the radio on the coffee table in front of her.

«In light of Eltingville’s success story, President Petrelli is expected to push legislation to authorize the creation of twelve more relocation settlements across the country.»

Tasha lays on the couch beside the rocking chair, blanket draped over her shoulders and sound asleep. The bandage taped to her brow less red than it was yesterday, her injury is healing. Colette sets her water down on the table between the rocking chair and couch, resting one hand down on the rifle leaning up against the sofa’s ratty arm. A distant noise causes her tension, but it’s just the storm. She relaxes, fingers moving away from the wood stock.

«This news comes on the fifth anniversary of the Midtown explosion, with tensions between Evolved and Non-Evolved Americans at an all-time high.»

{screech}

La Mer…

Qu'on voit danser

{screech}

Men and women in clean suits raise their hands and back away from terminals. “Please— please don’t kill me!” One of them begs. Most of them are young, College-age. On the computer screens are readouts of air pressure, energy levels, and one screen showing what looks like some kind of photo negative of the sun with an arcing flare coming off one side.

Beyond the lab at the center of the room is a hundred foot wide cylindrical wall of two foot thick reinforced glass. It provides a 360-degree view of a room within, and one that shows unending horrors. Inside that enclosed glass room are two medical tables, each propped up at a 45-degree angle.

On one bed, Elle Bishop is restrained by rubber-padded mechanical restraints. Two foot long metal rods have been inserted into her arms at her wrist, forearm, and bicep. Each rod is connected to a series of cables spooling up into the ceiling of the chamber. Lightning is arcing from Elle’s screaming body to the bolts in her limbs, which then courses up the cables to a flickering storm of lights in the ceiling.

Beside Elle, Colette Nichols is restrained in a similar fashion. While she lacks the bolts through her limbs, there are plugs sticking into her biceps as though she were some sort of USB hub. These cables go down to the floor. One is plugged into the right side of her neck, crackling with an unusual fluorescent light. Between the two stands a man in a red and white lab uniform, short brown hair. He has his eyes closed and hands out, brows furrowed in intense concentration.

«Power output stable, continuing to maximum output.»

The sound crackles over loud-speakers in the lab.

«Power levels at one hundred percent and holding!»

It’s happening.

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Thomas Cooper

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

It was another typical day at the precinct in Jersey, people were in and out, a drunk guy puking over in the corner…. Even a homeless man stinking up the front area. Thomas Cooper could have sworn he could smell it from all the way back there.

Ugh!

Another big bite is taken from the sugar coated donut in his hand, and lain unceremoniously on top of a stack of papers. That will no doubt leave some grease stains and will result in another talking too. Oops!

While he chews that bite of deliciousness, Cooper goes back to typing away at the keys, the two-finger typist way. He was feeling good about this narrative - even allowing himself hum a little Beyoncé while he taps away - it was a pretty straight forward case, easy solve. DA was going to… well, don’t need to go into that. Let’s just say he was going to be a happy man. Hitting the “.” with a flourish, he scoops up the donut again - leaving bits of sugar behind in its wake.

Ah yeah!

“I think that—-”

He doesn’t get to finish that thought as a loud sharp whistle cuts across the station. It catches everyone’s attention. “Hey! Check this out! Someone just nuked Midtown!” It’s shouted to get above the noise of a busy station.

What?! The whole station seems to go quiet for the longest moment; but, then as the initial shock wears off, cops start to move towards the break room. The chatter wild around the whole joint. Cooper is one of the flock moving to get a look at the TV screen.

He stares when he finally sees it. The destruction and devastation. In shock he glances down at the donut in his hand, the appeal of it suddenly gone. He turns away from the TV, tossing what’s left of it in the trash.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Steam swirls and shifts through the air in the tiny bathroom, brought on by the shower - that had been turned up as hot as the occupant could stand. Now Thomas Cooper stands before an ancient sink, the color of golden rod, and a chipped mirror. Lifting a hand to brush across the surface, he wipes away the condensation on the reflective surface. Once clear enough to see, he leans forward, studying his features in the mirror. He didn’t like what he saw. Scruffy, bags under the eyes. Lips press into a fine line.

Ugh!

Fingers scrub across the stubble of his chin and up along his jaw. He only shaves for work, preferring to let it grow out a little. So Raquelle will have to deal with it… why did Cooper care? Who knows. Yet he was thinking about it. With a sigh he pushes away from the sink — opening the door to the rest of the house. Without his daughter there, he can walk through the house in only a towel and nothing else; just like before he became a single dad in the slums.

Bare feet pad almost soundless through his home. He is on the hunt, he goes right by Al’s cage with a “Hey, buddy.” as he passes. He gets a series of excited guinea pig sound that follows him into the kitchen.

Success! A box of donuts on the counter. Rubbing his hands together first, he then flips back the lid. Not too many left, but… he retrieves one. There was still one of his favorite kind… coated in sugar. There is no hesitation in the bite he takes, either.

Ah yeah!

He reaches for the paper laying next to the box, only to have a bright flash of light fill the room, forcing him to closes his eyes, bringing his hand up. What?! Donut still in hand he hurries to the window, a hand pressing to the cool leaded glass, as he looks to look. Then he sees it, in the sky. “Oh… my god,” he whispers out, about the time the rumble reaches them, vibrating the glass under his palm. It forces him to back up. The house suddenly goes quiet as the electricity flickers off, but he can hear the sounds of panic outside..

For a long moment he starts at the window, brows furrowed with worry. Twice this had happened in his lifetime. Becoming aware of the fact that Ellen is still out there at the school He looks at the donut in his hand, with the bite taken out of it. That single piece suddenly not sitting well in his stomach, anxiety churning. Turning away from the window, Cooper tosses what is left of the donut in the trash, and hurries to get dressed.

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Delia Ryans

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

tic-tic-tic-tic

tappity-tappity-tappity-tappity

As the lunchtime buzzer sounds, students file out of Mr. Sanderson’s calculus class and into the quad. “Oh my god, Leah,” the vapid sounding voice of a tall redhead is loud enough that a few people in the doorway pause to look at her. “Swear to god, I saw Mr. Sanderson checking you out when we were leaving class. What did you do during your detention yesterday?” Delia’s answer is nothing but a smirk from the plucky blonde next to her and both of them break into a fit of giggling.

“Hey Lia! Saw your sister on the cover of a magazine,” Blake, one of the senior jocks and a constant annoyance follows the pair of girls out, making lewd gestures to the redhead. “Tell her if she comes home I’ll let her take a ride!”

Turning, Delia slams into him and shoves her books into his chest causing him to lose balance, “Oh my god, you’re so disgusting! Leave me alone!!” As he falls to the ground, she steps over his torso and continues on to the cement planter in the middle of the quad. A common place for the girls to sit and share their lunches while the guys hover around and show off for their benefit.

tic-tic-tic…

A blinding white flash causes the redhead to squeeze her eyes shut and turn away from the source. When she opens them again, the shadowy forms of birds begin falling like hail from the sky and drop lifelessly to the cement, wings still extended as though in flight.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

On her knees in the front yard, Delia is poking at the ground around one of the many rose bushes that line the wall of Logan's Eltingville home. The trowel in her hand stabs at the cold dirt around the base of the plant, turning the soil and getting it ready for a wintery sleep. Another leaf falls and she turns her head toward the island of Manhattan and stares longingly at its skyline. Her gardening gloves get tossed to the side along with the little spade and she picks up the leaf, twirling it between her fingers.

"Hey mom," her voice cracks on the last word, "it's been five years now and a bit's happened. Lu stopped being a model…" It's a personal rule. Before admitting all of the bad things you've done yourself, you have to tattle on the older sister. "You probably know though, because you're probably yelling at me and Lu all the time from up there. Dad too… maybe. He has a girlfriend, it's complicated."

She rubs her nose with the back of her hand and wipes it against the leg of her jeans. "By the way, you're a grandma and she's beautiful," Delia lifts her watery eyes from the crinkled brown leaf to the pale grey sky over the city. "Her name is Benji and Jasmine, she's great but you probably know that too." A deep sigh is gulped in, the chilly November air not quite frigid enough to drive her inside. "Things down here are hard, mom, I miss you and I'm selfish. I wish you were here so I could hug you, but I'm glad you don't have to be here now."

A blinding white flash causes the redhead to squeeze her eyes shut and turn away from Manhattan. When she opens them again, the shadowy forms of birds begin falling like hail from the sky and drop lifelessly to the brown lawn, wings still extended as though in flight.

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Delilah Trafford

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

It’s just like any other day. Though the election has her social studies class in a twitter, Delilah Trafford has very little interest in any of it. Red hair tied in a braid, the wool blend of her school uniform itches against her legs, the long sleeves rolled up over freckled arms.

Outside the window, students mill about in the courtyard. A classmate argues with another on her other side, and she tunes it out. The tap-tap-tap of pencil on notebook barely keeps her eyes open. Delilah rests her head against a fist, listening as the teacher verbally nudges everyone back to their seats. The unit on the American Civil War continues. She cares only peripherally, attention divided between the window, her rear seat, and the teacher. Droning. Longer and longer, and she laments having stayed up so long the night before.

Resolve doesn’t last. The desk looks too comfortable.

She wakes to a hand shaking her into life again.

“Delilah! Get the hell up?” A little spit sticks to her chin as she leans up, brown eyes bleary against the classroom lights. Mariella Thompson, so typically somber a classmate, seems in a panic. Like she might slap Dee awake when the other teenager leans back to look at her.

“Mari, what? God— where did everyone— what the—” Delilah’s hands brush bangs from her eyes as she takes a look around. The classroom is suddenly vacant. A look outside places not a soul in the court, either. “Where did everyone go?” A look to the clock. She was only out for a few minutes. How…? Mariella’s face bends in a look of despair, bringing Delilah’s attention to bear. The girl’s dark brows stick out stark and upset when she takes the redhead by the wrist, hauling her out of her seat with tears suddenly bursting from her eyes.

Delilah doesn’t wait for an explanation before tugging the other girl in against her shoulder. Hot sobbing breaths and tears break against her collar as Dee’s arms curl around her shoulders.

Delilah doesn’t know what’s happening yet, but… it doesn’t matter.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

They were supposed to meet up before the convoy took off from the safehouses, but there was no time left. The teams had to go in, and Delilah stayed behind, waiting to depart with the others in the convoy.

Her hair is in her hands, slender fingers looping a tie up and around, the red locks snapped up gently in a tail. The air smells of late autumn, and the cars are littered with spits of muddy water from a recent rain.

Delilah seeks her reflection in the van window as she lets her hair fall back, pale hands against dark jacket and eyes that are too tired, sitting above halfmoons of tinted skin. Freckles stick out against ivory, a look mirrored in her son. Both of them. Meeting the older one— the other— the one that has a jaw like hers and a brow like Teodoro’s— lingers in her mind as a rush of packing and Sable crowing from the closet, a vault from one place to the next before they were to hit Cambridge.

A place to be safe, at least for a moment. Until things peeled apart like an overripe fruit.

The safehouse she’s left her family in— it’s far from the city. Her aunt has Walter— the one-year old bundle of love— and he is safe. Delilah knows this, but all of her fibres want to go back to him. The soap smell of his hair, his skin, those big blue eyes. The way he always reaches up, hands searching as he buries his face in the lengths of her hair, giggling with a pleasure unmatched by anything else.

The purity in everything is there. There in his laugh, there in the way he looks out at his world.

She can’t let him lose that.

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Devon Clendaniel

+ Devon's Bookends

Elaine Darrow

+ Elaine's Bookends

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

“Elaine!”

The call comes on deaf ears as the fourteen year old redhead leans over the edge of the Glasgow Bridge. The bridge had seven arches. Elaine knew this because she counted them seven times. It was for good luck, she told herself. She also knew it was an old bridge was replaced by a new one—still keeping the seven arches. There was respect in the bridge building, and Elaine could respect that.

She had stopped to read the plaque buried within a large boulder near the bridge to expand her knowledge. Jamaica Bridge, it was once called. A bridge over the third longest river in Scotland. It was an impressive bridge, a place with history. Elaine was fond of history. Fond enough to remember the dates, carrying them close to her heart because they were important to her. 1772 was when the bridge was built, 1833 was when it was replaced, and again it was altered in 1895.

“Elaine!”

Heaving a sigh, Elaine trudged across the bridge to where the cluster of students was gathered around their chaperone. She met the woman’s eyes for a brief second before the chaperone looked away, quickly. It was then that Elaine knew there was something wrong.

It was then she held November 8th, 2006 close to her heart.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

“Who’s the best little kitty in the world? Inger is, that’s who.”

Elaine’s fingers curl under the cat’s chin, scratching gently as she babytalks the cat. Near her, her bookbag sits on the floor where she abandoned it when she came in the door. Her shoes are strewn across the carpet, the redhead having favored petting the cat instead of putting away her accoutrements.

*WHUMP*!

The sound of something hitting the window startles Elaine so much that she topples over backwards and onto her butt. Inger scrambles under the nearby couch. Cautiously she makes her way over to the window to look out. Outside she catches, for a brief moment, a blur of color. Something was moving out there, and it was not good.

“Inger, we gotta get out of here.”

The first dialogue was mostly to herself as she came to the conclusion that things were no-good-very-bad and that she should get herself out as fast as possible. She shoved her feet into her shoes, letting her feet adjust to the proper position as she walked in them. Her bookbag was snatched up. It would have to do.

“Inger!”

She was certain after she had called for the cat that yelling wasn’t going to do any good and yelling at a cat was foolish business, but that was all in retrospect. She reached under the couch and swept the cat out with one arm. Inger didn’t move, her ears flat on her head as Elaine proceeded to nestle the cat into the bookbag. It would take too long to find the cat carrier. Closing the bookbag and latching it, Inger stuck her head out the side, safely stowed but now meowing softly.

“It’s alright, we’ll be alright.”

She half expected something to hit the window again, but she was out the door and headed to hail a cab before anything else happened. She was in a cab with a mewling cat when the explosion went off.

November 8th, 2011. Another date she’d have to hold close to her heart. Another one too many.

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Elisabeth Harrison

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

"Goddamn it, Squeak, if you don't pull off and let me get coffee, I swear I'm gonna make you do all the paperwork next run." Officer Elisabeth Harrison looks sideways at Colby Martinez. "Besides," she wheedles. "Don't you want something chocolate?"

Her partner laughed. "Fine! I swear to God, you mainline the stuff. But get the low-test! I don't wanna be scraping you off the car ceiling at end of shift. I got dinner plans!"

Elisabeth laughed. "Yah, yah, I know. Ariel's already texted me four times to ask am I sure you're getting off on time."

Colby rolled her eyes and pulled to the side of the road, one ear peeled to the scanner. "You better bring me back one of those mochacchino things," she yells to her partner as the blonde pops out of the car and heads for the coffee shop.

Pulling her cell phone out of her pocket as she walks, Elisabeth glances down at it. A smile quirks her lips, and she raises it to her ear. "Hey, dad. … No, I'm still coming to dinn—"

The world is chaos. She's lying on the sidewalk staring gravel wondering how she got there. Glass shatters, brakes squeal, crunching sounds — all are heard through a ringing in Elisabeth's ears. There's a haze over the roadway as she struggles upright. Instinct and training send her scrabbling to her feet. "MARTINEZ!"

Colby appears from somewhere, her face bloody, and the two women stand in the middle of the sidewalk looking as dazed as everyone else. The radios on their shoulders starts crackling with chaos.

It won't be until hours later that she figures out what happened and where her mother was…

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

«GO! GO! GO!»

Ryans' voice in Liz's ear brings her head whipping around toward the direction the teams are supposed to be going — the bunker. The roar of the tower falling and the snowmobiles making their cloud of fluff to hide the teams also hides from her view the robots that she can hear coming by the sound of their joints and the hum of electricity.

With her Horizon armor freed of the electromagnetic interference field, she is forced to remain still for 5 seconds — which in this instance seem like an eternity — while the system adapts to the new environment. Finally able to move again, she pivots on a heel faces the bunker.

Robots or people? Who best to target? Well, that problem is solved for her when one of the snowmobiles decides to come roaring through the massive snow cloud that the Brians threw up. A split second warning when she instinctively catches that one sound in the miasma is way too close allows her to dive to the right. The armor carries her a lot farther than usual, and as she slides, she comes around onto her back to fire at the man on the snowmobile.

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Eve Kendra Mas

+ Eve's Bookends

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

The wails and screams that echo down the halls seem to circle Eve Mas taunting her. The sterile white walls and floors a stark contrast to the woman’s raven dark hair. She lays on a neat and clean bed writhing as she tries to free herself from the straightjacket screaming from deep within her belly.

“Please I’ll be good! Just let me find the burning! Please!” She pleads yanking against her restraints. Light gray eyes wide as she kicks around until she topples over onto the roll. The wind being knocked out from her the woman lets out a cry as she slowly rolls over onto her back.
A lone tear travels down to land on the floor as her mouth hangs open and a worried expression crosses her face. Her lips move,

It's burning..

They’re burning..

Their skin burns black and.. their skin..

Their skin..

Burn.. burn..

The word burn repeated over and over through hiccups as Eve wails.

On the white wall in front of her a fresh coat of paint lays unfinished, almost covering but not fully a image made with crayons the orange, red and yellow colors belonging to a deep blaze.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

It's barely started and things are already in chaos. The energy from either all their gathered psyches and emotions or all this power with so many powerful Evolved gathered in one place united in a single goal makes the air hum around them. And humming right along in the back of the convoy per Chicken and Gillian’s request is Eve Mas eyes closed as she tilts her head and waits for the explosion of the C4 to allow them entry. One hand sits in her old trench coat’s pocket. The last few bits of her smoke are discarded as she throws it to the ground and stomps her heel on it.

Smoke seeps from her mouth as her eyes widen in amusement when the C4 does its job and Gillian and Lene can be seen managing a forcefield. She sees her friends here. She knows there are friends inside. She knows that her artwork is inside. She knows.. that once her sanity was inside this place. A brief moment of regret washes over the soothsayer but she's not able to stew for much longer because her fellow musician and friend Robyn Quinn sprints over and grabs her arm.

“Lead the way, Eve. We have someone t’ save!”

Eve is snapped out of her thoughts and she looks at Quinn with a bit of surprise. Then she takes a moment to look over her shoulder before centering a feral grin towards Quinn.

“North we go dear Quinnie!”

“CHARGEEEE!”

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Gillian Childs

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

"No, I'm not going to Thanksgiving. I already fucking told mom," Gillian growls into the phone, wishing her family would stop bothering her about her choices. Her younger sister, Jenny, let out a quiet sigh as if she were used to dealing with her upstart big baby of a sister. Used to it, and possibly tired of it.

Jenny's voice came over the line, nice and clear, "You really should go. Victor's even coming and he lives on the other side of the country. You haven't even moved away."

"Well, it's not as if I'm their favorite kid or anything," the twenty-year-old grumbles, leaning back in her desk chair as she spins it around.

"Oh stop that, Gilly. No mom has a favorite kid," says the favorite, causing Gillian to roll her eyes in disgust, but she chose not to bother correcting her. This time.

Opening her mouth to make a rude retort, she suddenly feels… something. A rumble in the room, knocking down books on a shelf, a glass breaking. The electricity flickered and went out.

"I think there was just a fucking earthquake," she says into the phone instead. She's met with silence.

Someone in the building screams. She could hear them well. Her apartment had thin walls. It wasn't the 'I'm angry at my TV' kind of screaming, either. Turning the phone over in her hand, she sees that the call dropped.

"What else is going to fucking go wrong today?" she mutters, tossing the phone onto the bed as she goes over to the window—

And that's when she sees the cloud in the distance.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

"I hope nothing else goes wrong today," Gillian mutters to herself as she peers down the hallway. There's been security. Turrets— there's been so much going on that she's already wondering if they're going to manage to get out. She casts a glance down the hall, catching the eye of her daughter briefly.

She should never have let Jolene come along, some part of her says.

With a shake of her head, she rubs one hand over her wrist— over the black handprint that stood there, almost as if it had started to itch. A nervous gesture. "Come on. We got people who need saving."

She's saying it more to herself than anyone else. And she's got a kid to make sure gets to have a holiday with family this year.

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Hagan O'Sullivan

+ Hagan's Bookends

Huruma

+ Huruma's Bookends

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

The sky is a clouded cobalt and rose painting that pales as it meets an even deeper blue sapphire at the horizon, a calm sea under the oncoming dusk. As the sun falls, it trails a galaxy of stars in its wake, and a waxing moon that peeks out from amongst them. Trees move in a westward breeze, smelling of sweet, pale flowers and rippling gently at blazes of orange fire lit in sconces.

The yellow lamps of the resort buildings contrast against the cool blues of the pools, the bar’s color and light a warm backdrop to where Huruma lies back in the water. People are scarce, the off-season allowing her to relax at least somewhat while she works a job. Worked a job, rather. Resort staff pulled her target from facedown in front of his cabin this afternoon.

A heart attack. He fell in, drowned as he struggled.

No signs of foul play.

Just how she prefers it. Quiet. Sad, for the resort. She’ll leave a nice tip, she imagines, long limbs floating weightlessly in the water. Dark skin is broken only by the white of a two-piece, threaded with gold. Simple and elegant, a precise choice that matches the island’s mood of an easygoing allure. The water stirs around her as Huruma moves to the pool’s edge, legs folding under as she moves to lean against the warm porcelain. Hands move to the edge, and she pulls herself out in a graceful ascent, sitting down with her legs adrift. One hand moves out to fetch a low glass from its place on a towel, the taste of cloying sweetness and the faint burn going over tongue and throat as Huruma polishes off the rest.
She can feel a party at the bar. Friends, some of them, judging by the joy of laughter and the emotions that float towards her on the wind. At least one of them is not having a good time, sullenness ebbing around their mood. Huruma closes her eyes against the night air, feeling its touch at the wide set of her thighs and the skin of her neck, the curve of her back and the muscle of her arms.

A tightness lingers in the back of her mind. Something unfamiliar, unplaced. Huruma cannot be sure why she feels it, like a knot of anxiety that never quite reaches her gut. Anticipation, of a fashion, that tangles with her other thoughts in an odd collaboration. What is that?

Huruma passes it by once more, opting to push it further down, down, and instead searching for a meditative quiet.

For a long while, her world is blissful, easy silence.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

«”GO! GO! GO!”»

The force field around Natazhat has dropped.

Heartbeat drumming in her ears under the Arkham helmet, Huruma moves onward with a blur of motion, the voice over the comms lingering in her head.

Of the shapes that come closer over the short distance, Huruma picks one out; her gaze trains on the robotic cat, recalling their notes on weak points, on faults in its build.

A hand moves to her belt, pulling free a wickedly sharp blade, curved like a silver, tempered talon.

Rattling metal comes at her in a leap of motion, and Huruma stands to receive it with a fist, slamming herself into the construct with as much force as a small car. It shrieks in her ears.

She snarls back in a wordless scream of sound, the armor cranking her fist into the cat’s chassis and knocking it chest-first into the tundra floor.

It turns its head on an unseen axis, seams whirling and carrying its head in an owl’s swivel towards her, limbs thrashing as it attempts to right itself.

Huruma’s frame finds its mark first, landing on the cat with a rattle of her own The head jabs upward in an attempt to drive the needle in its maw into her.

It misses its mark by half an inch. Huruma’s fist pounds into its jaw this time, dislodging the mechanism that holds onto its poison.

The blade in her other hand finds its mark as the cat stands up, its quarry astride its sleek back.

The cut is made at the side of its neck, digging up underneath of tubing before tearing up and outward in a spray of fluid.

The cat falters, bucks, thrashes with the spear of its tail.

Another mark, this time at its side.

The third seam, under its chassis.

The second seam, behind the shoulder.

A strike to the back of its head as she rolls forward from its shoulders, dragging its face into the ground as she descends.

The crack of metal in the grip of the Arkham armor echoes against the plating.

Huruma tosses the skull aside, hands slick with what is left of a marvel of engineering.

Her lungs burn in her chest, adrenaline high, her senses a focus that spots every one of her team out there with her.

Chaos reigns on the field, the bark of bullets, the thunder of wheels, the bright blaze of lightning in the corner of her vision.

A cougar’s metallic shriek echoes in her audials.

Huruma’s mouth bares under the faceplate, all teeth.

“Next.”

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Kain Zarek

+ Kain's Bookends

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

Whiskey tastes sour on cottony gums the day after.

Sunlight spills through open blinds, white sheets are tangled around too many bare legs for one person. He's been awake and staring at the ceiling for a while now, one arm draped over his forehead and blue eyes squared on a water stain. He'll need to call maintenance. The penthouse shouldn't have a leak.

Rolling to one side, Kain looks at the blonde in his bed, her back to him and already regretting her choices last night as much as he is. "Clock's tickin'," Kain grouses, moving to sit up and run a hand through his hair. She stirs, if only enough to let him know she's awake so that he doesn't bother her again. Kain stares for a moment, lips downturned into a frown at the harsh light of day. One bare foot touches the floor, then another. Then there's no movement. Just placid stillness.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Kain looks down to the tangle of clothing on the floor beside the bed. He reaches up and scrubs at his mouth with one hand, then looks back at the woman in his bed. Whatever, is an easy dismissal as he pushes up to stand with a grunt of effort. He feels the weight of age just starting to set in, pressing between joints and settling into his hips. "Stay, if y'wanna. Ah'm not g— "

The horizon explodes with a flash of light, smoke, and fire. Kain's eyes are wide, reflecting the mushroom cloud rising over New York. He exhales a breath, in stunned disbelief, when she shockwave hits his building and blows out every window in a shower of lacerating glass.

Everything else seems so insignificant now.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Toilet moonshine tastes sour at the best of times. Like paint thinner at the worst.

Desaturating fluorescent light flickers overhead, mutedly reflecting off of old concrete and brick. Off-white sheets are tangled around legs still dressed from the night before, boots still on, handgun unholstered and resting on his stomach. He's been awake and staring at the ceiling for a while now, one arm draped over his forehead and blue eyes squared on a water stain. It's getting bigger now, spreading brown with rust from the pipe. There's nothing that can be done about it.

Rolling to one side, Kain looks at the empty cot beside his, the one she used to fill. The one he'd watch as he fell asleep so he could rest securely knowing she's safe. "Clock's tickin'," a voice at the door calls, and Kain sits up and runs a hand through his hair. The woman by the door stirs, if only enough to let him know she sees that he's awake so that she won't be bothering him again. Kain stares for a moment, lips downturned into a frown at the harsh artificial light. One booted foot touches the floor, then another. Then there's no movement. Just placid stillness.

Sitting on the edge of the cot, Kain looks down to the scattered pile of junk on the floor beside the bed. A plastic bag full of cell phones, a few police badges, one walkie-talkie, a few empty glass bottles and a backpack with a hole in it. He reaches up and scrubs at his mouth with one hand, then looks back at the empty cot. Whatever, is an easy dismissal as he pushes up to stand with a grunt of effort. He feels the weight of age just starting to set in, pressing between joints and settling into his hips. "You wanna start inventory, that's fine by me. Ah'm not g— "

The intercom on the wall by the door explodes with a pop of abrupt noise. «This is Ruiz. We have a breach in the disposal room.»

Kain's eyes are wide, reflecting the woman he was talking to just a moment ago. He exhales a breath, in stunned disbelief, when the shockwave of disbelief him and blows out his breath, he looks back at the woman and jerks a hand over his shoulder. "You go get the doc, Ah'll check on our stash."

It could be nothing. Or it could be the end.

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Kaydence Lee Damaris

+ Kaydence's Bookends

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

The chains of the swing creaked overhead as a preschool aged girl with dark blonde hair pumped her legs to soar ever higher. Hands on her back each time she came back around, a man gave her the extra little boost she needed to feel like she was flying. His hair was the same color, and their smiles nearly identical. The little girl squealed with delight. "Mommy! I'm gonna touch the moon!"

From a bench nearby, a woman with hair made blonde by bleach rather than nature waved to her daughter and caught her husband's eye, giving him a little shake of her head. He knew she didn't like it when the little girl would go quite so high, afraid she'll fall off.

He eased the swing to a stop with only a token protest from the little girl. "Hey now," he assured her in a gentle voice. "It's time for ice cream, okay?" The promise soothed the sting of not being able to play in the park any longer. Father and daughter cross the green back to bench and mother, greeted by warm smiles.

At Mother's hip, her phone began to ring.

Then, so did her husband's.

The two caught each other's eyes again, then reached for their cell phones. There were only so many things that could mean, in their line of work. They answered their respective calls in near unison:

"Damaris."

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

If we're not in prison in a year… We meet in Niagara.

Her end of the bargain's fulfilled, but there's no one here to meet her.

"You're not in prison. So you're s'posed to be here," Kaydence Lee whispers, drowned out by the sound of the falls roaring ahead. Her hands are braced on the railing at the overlook, moisture making it slick and cold against her bare palms in the early fall chill.

There's no little girl with her. No husband. It's been five years since that day in the park, when the world was turned on its head by the events in New York City, but that isn't the date on her mind.

There's no one who loves her here now, just an aching in her chest and a profound sense of regret.

It's been a year and a day since the man she allowed herself to love showed up to deliver a warning. She should have never let him walk out the door without him. Should have made him stay with her. Should have made him keep her with him.

There's no shame now as she sobs openly, feeling the loss again so keenly. One year since he was killed. And here she is, keeping a promise.

Footsteps are heard approaching from behind. In her head, she turns around and sees that son of a bitch standing there, with his five o'clock shadow and his shaggy blond hair and that smirk that says Ah got ya. They throw their arms around each other and leave together. Leave everything behind and start over somewhere. A storybook ending where a dirty cop finds her heart, and she and the mobster bury their pasts and escape into the sunset.

Her eyes stare straight ahead at the water rushing down, down into an icy oblivion it's so tempting to take, as he described, head first. If she never turns around, then he'll always be there right behind her, just out of sight.

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Kaylee Thatcher

+ Kaylee's Bookends

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

In the halls of New York University, Kaylee sat looking bored, half listening to her professor drone on.

Today was the day.

She would meet them, the other half of her family. Excitement and terror warred within her stomach. Her father had asked her for this second chance — she was reluctant to give it to him. The stories that Kaylee’s mom wove, painted the picture of a real bastard. A man who knocked her up and then left her to deal with the aftermath; namely Kaylee herself.

Yet, her dad, Ray — Wait — That wasn’t it, Edward Ray, he told her that she had it all wrong. He wanted a chance to explain, to tell her about her siblings. Two of them… or… was it three? She couldn’t remember, she had been in a haze of shock. He actually wanted to meet her and get to know her.

Blue eyes drift to look at the clock, watching the slow torturous progression of time. Even though she acted like she wasn’t interested, she very much wanted to meet this mysterious man. The way the second hand tick- tick -tick’d, until it was noon.

Then suddenly, there was chaos.

A thunderous roar. The whole room shakes with it. The flickering and dying of lights. The press of panicked thoughts on Kaylee’s mental barriers and the vocal screams of those terrified. Suddenly, they were in the sunlight. Kaylee barely remembers the journey outside.

“W-w-what’s that?” Screams a woman nearby, making everyone turn and look toward Midtown. The young telepath can’t help turning as well, her eyes go wide. Hands fly up to cover her mouth in shock.

“Oh no… Daddy?”

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

While the Ferrymen’s Special Activities asked Kaylee to help, mainly because of the usefulness of her ability, she had a secondary purpose. In her mind was a list… a list of people that Richard, her brother, asked her to keep an eye out for within the depths of the Ark. People he said were forced to work for the Institute.

People that needed a second chance. Kaylee knew all about that.

Just beyond her group, getting ready to plunge into the madhouse, she sees Eric Doyle getting ready to move out with his own team. He was someone else who understood second chances. It bound them together, having both found a reason to do good.

There are been mostly silence between them today, both concentrating on the task ahead; but now it was time to take their separate ways. Pushing through the group, Kaylee’s fingers reach out to grip the bigger man’s arm to stall him, “Hey… Eric” She pulls gently on his arm to get him to look at her. “Good luck, down there.”

The telepath almost leaves it there, but she doesn’t, she hugs the man who was the first real friend she had, probably one of her closest.

“Be safe, buddy. I’ll see you on the other side.”

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Luther Bellamy

+ Luther's Bookends

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

“Here you go, thanks. Ride safe.”
“Thanks man. See you tomorrow.”

Luther hands an electronic signature pad back to the bike courier in exchange for a medium sized cardboard box. A quick glance at his watch, and he thins his lips in thought as he shifts a hand to his pocket to extract a Nokia, flipping the top screen open and thumb hovering over the keypad.

His wife is with their two kids in the city, meeting up with his brother who flew in from California. They’re going to take Uncle John on a grand tour. Central Park. Times Square. Broadway. They have tickets for a matinee of The Lion King. Only four seats, though.

He closes the phone with a sigh and a shake of his head. Where he’s going, the cellphone signal won’t pass anyway. Luther slides the device back into his pocket, tucks the delivered box under arm.

Sub-level C, Janitorial Department

Luther turns the corner of the concrete walled hallway where a steel cage door separates the supply closets from the rest of the sublevel departments. As if what’s being held in the cage is product of high value. It’s not, but the company has had problems with theft of supplies in the past. Paper towels and floor waxer. The high value stuff.

“‘Ey Luther! What’s for lunch?” A bushy mustachioed man in a mid-blue jumpsuit waves the guard in.
“Don’t know yet. Was thinking just grabbing a sandwich topside,” answers Luther.
“Yeah? You gonna grab me one?”
Luther laughs as he passes the delivery over. “You want tuna?” he jokes, and sure enough the janitor’s face wrinkles behind his grey-brown mustache.
“Don’t make it tuna.”
“You still owe me for last week’s chicken salad with the fancy pine nuts,” Luther points out, leaning up against the cage wall. He’s not in any hurry to return upstairs. Still, he checks his watch.

11:59 A.M.

A deep and thunderous boom shakes the concrete walls, sending showers of dust and rattling the steel cage in an unnerving clatter of unnatural noise. Luther and the janitor simultaneously startle and let out curses of surprise and alarm. An eerie silence settles in the following tense seconds. The pair look ceilingwards and then to each other, their stomachs sunk, fast-beating hearts in throats.

Luther breaks the silence with a low, dreaded aside.

“We shouldn’t stay here.”

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

“The world is safe.”

The many calls and whoops of an enthused crowd at the announcement that there is a treatment for the Evolved doesn’t sit well at all in Luther’s mind. Closing his eyes, he stands motionlessly and waits for the unease and physical wave of sickness to recede with the tide of applause. The man focuses, blocking out the energy in the air and in the crowd from absorbing into him.

When his eyes reopen to watch the president dip a torch into the memorial altar, resolve climbs back up as the flames grasp and leap upward. He’ll get through this as he has done for the past five years. Not just for himself, but for Robyn, Luke, Joanna, even John. His thoughts interrupt with the ring of a cellphone in Acting Secretary Armand’s pocket breaking the quiet. A murmur rustles through the crowd as the cellphone is handed to the president.

Luther resists the urge to check the wristwatch tucked under his jacket sleeve.

Like many around him, he startles and reflexively ducks his head as the President of the United States abruptly launches into the air. A collective gasp, shouts and curses of surprise and alarm ripples through the crowd as they bear witness to the revelation of the president being Evolved. A low growling rumbles through the gathering in the following tense seconds. Accusations fly too - the President is a fucking liar. Luther and a couple of innocent bystanders, Dan and Mary, look skyward. His stomach sinks, fast-beating heart has leapt into his throat.

A feeling of dread drives his next thought.

He really shouldn’t stay here.

- Hide Luther's Bookends

Lynette Rowan

+ Lynette's Bookends

- Hide Lynette's Bookends

November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

"I'm late, I know," Lynette says as she steps into her office building. Everything in the office was white, inside and out, with glass and silver accents. It gave the space a sort of futuristic look. Lynette stood out in her black suit and red top. Shoes, too. "But I brought coffee," she says as she hangs her jacket on a coat rack near the receptionist's desk. Turning, she sets a coffee cup down on the desk. "You're not mad, are you, Reya?"

Reya, a small woman with a gentle voice, reaches over to take Lynette's face in her hands. It is an uncharacteristically rough gesture. "Mira," she says, turning her toward a small TV on the far side of the desk. Lynette hadn't even noticed it on when she came in. Reya's hand drops from Lynette's face and takes her hand instead.

BREAKING NEWS flashes on the screen over a reporter looking blanched. It takes Lynette a moment to realize what she's looking at. A live feed of Midtown from the air, smoke obscuring most of what was left of the buildings. The feed cuts to a ground view, distant enough to see some intact buildings, with destruction in the distance.

"…coming in from the ground. There is no way to know the extent of the damaged caused by the bomb at this time. Emergency responders have not been able to safely enter…"

"I don't — " Lynette cuts herself off. What was there to say. She grips Reya's hand and the pair of them stared at the screen, hoping that this was all a nightmare. Coffee forgotten. Work day forgotten. Their phones start ringing, family and friends trying to reach out to make contact, but neither woman was ready to answer. Not until the shock passed.

It wouldn't come quickly.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Ahead of her, a number of escapees and their guides taking them to the evac point. Not a high enough number. Behind her, gunfire getting quieter. Her lips tremble as she fights off a sorrow she can't account for and guilt she'll learn to live with. Whoever he was, she had never seen him before in her life, not that she could remember.

But he saved her. Died for her. Was dying for her.

Who was she to deserve that? He might have known her, but he didn't know her. If he did, he'd have known better.

She pulls out her gun, checking for ammo, forcing her mind to think of something else. Even if his face and the blood blooming on his chest were burned into her mind. An after image cast over hallway walls and bullet-pocked doors. Her feet came to a stop. She took in a breath. Two. Three. Slow, deliberate. Her hands had to stop shaking or she wouldn't be much good to anyone in this facility. And she had to be.

She had to save someone in here. Anyone.

Just one? Please.

- Hide Lynette's Bookends

Magnes Varlane
Pete Varlane

+ Magnes's Bookends

- Hide Magnes's Bookends

November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

18 year old Magnes J. Varlane sits in Panucci's Pizza, where he's just gotten a job. He's wearing a blue blazer over a white shirt, with a pair of blue jeans and black Converse. Waiting for his father, he has a number of things to say to the man, but he's saying them to himself first. "Father, I'm moving out, I want to make friends now, I can't be in the house all the time anymore! One day I want to meet my friend Gillian!"

He shakes his head, changing his mind, maybe there's a better way to put it. "Father, I can't live with my parents forever, I have this job now, I'll live here and be on my own, I don't see the point in all the crazy stuff you teach me!"

Groaning, he's frustrated, nervous.

What is he supposed to do?

The door to the pizzaria swings open with the blunt force of someone slamming their hand into the frame. “And if you think I’m mad now, I can tell you right this god damn minute that I’m going to be fucking incandescent with rage when I’m done with this parent-teacher whatever-the-fuck I’m walking into, Erica.”

Pete Varlane is on his phone, agitated, and red-faced. Patrons of the pizzaria look over at Pete, who faux-lunges at them with a sneer before angrily snapping his phone closed while whomever on the other line was shouting at him. He approaches the table Magnes is seated at, looks down at him with an expectant stare, then looks around the pizzaria like it said something awful just then.

“What,” Pete splutters, “the fuck is all this about?”

"I'll be nineteen in a few months. I'm done with all of this insane home school, learning crazy subjects I can't even really use in life for anything! Why do I need to know how to hide my thoughts, who is in my brain?! This isn't X-Men! Why do I need to know about stable time loops?!" Magnes totally breaks script, looking frustrated, slamming his hands down onto the table. "I work here now! I'm moving upstairs! I'm my own person, I'm not doing college!"

Pete doesn't sit down, doesn't do anything other than stare at his son. “Good fucking God, Magnes. Every time you open your mouth it's like… it's like you're practicing on new ways to disappoint me.” Rubbing a hand at his already sweaty right cheek, Pete just shakes his head.

“You want this?” Pete gestures around wildly. “You want to squander your life as a fuck-flipping pizza boy?” His face is already turning beet red.

"I want to live a normal life, and have friends, and learn how to talk to people, and forget all of this useless stuff you keep teaching me!" Magnes shouts, and Mr. Panucci just minds his own business and sweeps. "I want to leave the house whenever I want, I don't need to go to college! I'll meet my friend from the internet, Gillian, she's always encouraging me!"

Pete stares at Magnes, vacantly, and then just brings up a hand to the bridge of his nose. “That literally just confirmed everything I just said.” Eyes wrenched shut and lips tightly curled into a frown, Pete raises a hand to Magnes to stop. “You know what? You know what?”

He doesn't answer that rhetorical question. “This is all your dumb-fuck mother’s fault. The comics, the internet friends” and that last part has angry air-quotes around it. “So fine! She wins!” Pete throws his hands into the air and just turns around.

“Do whatever the fuck it is you want! I can always just make another son!” Pete screams as he walks toward the door. “One who isn't a colossal fuckup!”

"Don't call my mother dumb!" Magnes suddenly stands up, gritting his teeth, staring down at his hands, shaking, as if trying to fight every impulse in his body in order to build up the strength to shout what flies from his mouth next.

He looks up at Pete, then just yells. "You're dumb!!!"

The door to Panucci’s shuts without Pete looking back at his son. Much in the same way one might abandon a half-eaten slice of disappointing pizza.

Carelessly.

After his father leaves, Mr. Panucci sits a large slice of BBQ chicken pizza in front of the young Varlane, and then says, "Hey, screw that guy, he's a no good pop, ain't good for nothin'!"

And then, suddenly, there's a flash, and Magnes turns, eyes closing as it startles him.

Mr. Panucci just removes his chef's hat and exclaims, "Mamma mia!"

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Magnes' old apartment above Panucci's Pizza hasn't been touched in a while. It's very dusty, it lacks furniture, though there are a few nerd posters here and there, ones he didn't bother to bring with him for one reason or another.

He stares down at his shaking hands, wearing a pair of white bowling shoes, some blue jeans, and a white bowling shirt that says Bart on the front.

Walking around, he stares at the floor, disturbed by the creaking wood. The feeling of nostalgia, it's overwhelming, spilling over into a deeply seeded anxiety. "Abby…" he says, right before there's a bright flash outside his windows, causing him to look up.

In that instance, he hears his door broken down behind him, and before he can turn around, everything goes black…

- Hide Magnes's Bookends

Nicole Nichols

+ Nicole's Bookends

- Hide Nicole's Bookends

November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

"Oh, it's beautiful, Danny." One hand fluttered to her chest while the other held a robin's egg-colored box, opened to reveal a diamond tennis bracelet.

"I wanted to give you something for your years of service. You deserve it, Nicole." Daniel Linderman smiled from across the table, then rose from his seat and crossed to hers. "Allow me." Lifting the dazzling bracelet from its velvet pillow he gently lifted her right hand away from her sternum and fastened the jewelry around her wrist. "There."

Nicole held her arm out in front of her, twisting her wrist this way and that, to watch the diamonds sparkle in the late morning sunlight through the window. "Thank you." She was overwhelmed, elated with this gift from this man she so admired.

Linderman shook his head and patted her cheek once, then held his hand there a moment. She leaned into it slightly. "Think nothing of it. It's the least you deserve for what you've agreed to do for me."

The smile on the woman's face faltered and her eyes came away from the bracelet to find his. Slowly, her arm lowered back to rest on the table, fingers curling around the stem of a wine glass. His hand fell away from her in kind. "But what about 'Letty? I signed on for this, she didn't."

"She won't know any different, my dear." His smile was so very reassuring, but the bond Nicole felt with him, while incredibly strong, could not break the bond with her little sister.

"After it's over, she will. I don't know that she'll ever forgive either of us…" There was uncertainty then. Maybe it would never be over. Maybe she would never return to her old life. Never return to his side. Nicole's mouth went dry and she swallowed back a wave of sickness in her gut, washed it down with Côtes du Rhône. Linderman turned away from her. With her resolve renewed, she opened her mouth to protest.

Suddenly, there was a great flash outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Nicole's arm flew up to cover her face. Once she blinked the spots away, she pushed up from her seat and ran to press her hands to the glass, looking out for signs of what had happened.

Midtown. A mushroom cloud.

"No!"

Slowly, Daniel turned back and began to walk toward where his assistant stood at the window, watching her put the pieces together. She caught his muted reflection in the mirror and misunderstood the expression on his face. She thought he was stunned into silence. Instead, he was watching her, waiting for her to react. Waiting for her to realize.

"Our apartment," Nicole murmured numbly, staring out in shocked silence.

Suddenly, she pushed violently away from the window and dashed back to the table to grab her BlackBerry and hit speed dial 7.

S for Sissy.

No signal.

"No! No, no, no!!" Nicole hammered the send button over and over and over again, trying to get a call to go through. Trying to reach the only person in that city she cared about more than the man now, again, coming up on her back. "Please, please, please!"

But Colette Nichols wouldn't pick up her phone. Couldn't pick up her phone.

Nicole turned back to look at her boss, her confidant, face streaked already with tears. Eyeliner and mascara drew dark rivers down her cheeks. A broken, mournful sound escaped her lips as she crumpled into his arms, outstretched and waiting for her. He rested a hand on the back of her head and stroked her dark hair, his chin coming to rest atop her crown.

It felt like hours that he just stood there and held her while she sobbed, but in retrospect, Nicole knew it could only have lasted a few minutes. Ten at the most.

Finally, she lifted her head and looked back up at him, met his gaze of empathetic concern. "I'm so sorry, my dear," he whispered, reaching to start carefully wiping away the make-up smeared on her face with the pads of his thumbs, so gently.

Nicole shut her eyes tightly against the renewed swell of sorrow and absolute despair. Her whole world was gone in an instant.

Colette was Nicole's whole world.

"Take it all," she told him, blue eyes again finding his.

Daniel's smile was sad, but he nodded. "Everything is set for tonight."

Nicole Lyzette Nichols: Born December 24, 1981. Died November 8, 2006.

Charlotte Stephanie Caiti: Born November 8, 2006.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

«"GO! GO! GO!"»

The cold wind that sweeps across the killing field does nothing to numb Nicole's exposed skin. The barrier is down now, and Ryans is ordering them forward. For a moment, she stands frozen as she stares down the cat-like robots that are bearing down on all of them. Nicole throws out her left arm out to one side to try and reach for the other electrokinetic. The firearm at her side is likely only to glance off the metallic shell of the hulking beast; she needs Howard's help to be effective on this battlefield.

His hand finds hers, just as warm, and they go tearing off to one side in the snowy terrain, scrambling away from the first wave of metallic monsters. Thinking they've got a moment of reprieve, Nicole grabs Howard's other hand. "Come on, come on! Load me up!"

The electricity positively sings in the air between them as Howard uses his ability to pour more power into her. In this way, his ability can be of use and not a harm to himself. She's terrified, and she doesn't hide it from her face as their blue eyes meet. But it's too late to turn and run now, even if she wanted to.

Colette is ahead.

Five years ago, she had thought she'd lost her little sister and it had destroyed her. She had run away. There is no running away this time. Nicole will not lose Colette for real this time.

The field of battle is so chaotic and the focus between the two electric manipulators so intense, as Howard tries to ensure he doesn't give her too much, they don't hear the crunching of snow growing louder behind them. Not until the gun goes off and a bullet goes pinging off the stalking robot at their backs.

The concentration broken, Nicole's head snaps up in time to see the 'bot abruptly change course and bear down on its attacker.

Ben.

Fear is instantaneous. This time not fear for her own safety, but fear for the father of the child growing inside of her. The thing she doesn't acknowledge.

She breaks away immediately, Howard attempts to grab her, but instead only manages to catch the back of her coat. Flinging her arms out behind her allows her to shuck the thing and keep moving. Nichols doesn't cut an impressive figure in the snow, but the electrical current is visible within her as she charges forward.

"You will not have him!" Nicole proclaims, all fury and conviction.

Pale and trembling hands are thrown out in front of her, focusing her power and sending the raw power from her outstretched hands and at the metal creature charging Ryans. Howard might later describe the scream that tears from her throat as she attacks as primal in all definitions, given the chance.

The thing collapses in the snow, a twitching heap for the space of several seconds before it goes completely dead just feet from where Ryans was making his stand.

Nicole collapses in the snow, suddenly very cold, incredibly exhausted, but immensely pleased. Howard descends upon her, shouting a stream of colorful curses at her about just how fucking stupid that was while waving Ryans on. He'll take care of Nicole, and he needs to take care of his end of things.

He hesitates, and for a moment Nicole thinks she can see his eyes behind the visor of his helmet, even with the afternoon sun glinting off the surface. A nod of assurance that she's okay is what it finally takes to send him forward again.

Howard hauls Nicole to her feet, sparing her enough power to keep moving after such a terrible expenditure.

"I know," Nicole says before he can admonish her further. "Just a piece of shit, rescuing my family."

- Hide Nicole's Bookends

Odessa Price

+ Odessa's Bookends

- Hide Odessa's Bookends

November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

Primatech Paper Facility: Odessa, Texas

Nimble fingers glided over two tiers of ivory and ebony keys effortlessly. It isn't often that one comes across an ornately painted harpsichord, but it was always one of Doctor Knutson's most treasured possessions. As much as she could have been said to possess anything.

Toccata in d minor was the order of the day. She'd overheard more than a few comments about how it was an appropriately fitting tune for her to play, mostly from the prisoners. Every now and again, she caught an agent voicing the sentiment. (Makes sense, doesn't it? It's like she's some creepy immortal vampire thing anyway.) She'd always responded with a sweet smile. What did she care for their jealousy?

Forward and back she rocked in time with with the beginning of each measure and press of the pedal beneath her feet. Dark blue eyes closed to lose herself in the haunting melody. She's performed this piece enough times to know the keys by touch rather than sight.

There was commotion out in the halls, and Odessa shut her eyes tighter, face screwed up with the concentration required to block out the noise – why so much noise? – so she could continue on uninterrupted. Eventually, she looked up and saw the flurry of activity, agents in the hall outside her own little gilded cage. There was panic, and she watched it unfold with open curiosity, her fingers still deftly plunking out J.S. Bach's composition. What could have them all so riled up?

"Doctor Knutson."

The voice from the intercom caused her to miss a note, but Odessa played on with only a small groan of frustration. She was in no mood to speak with Director Bishop today, and so she pretended she could not hear him over the sound of her playing.

"Odessa."

Her tempo slowed, but she did not halt the notes that flowed from her fingers as effortlessly as water in a stream. "What?"

"Come to Medical Three immediately."

The discordant slam of her fingers on the keys signaled the abrupt end to her recital.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

The Commonwealth Arcology, Reactor Room: Cambridge, Massachusetts

"Looks like you get your wish after all, Jean-Martin." A look is cast over the temporal manipulator's shoulder, and she regards her old colleague with apologetic regret. "Close the blast doors. It's the only way to be sure." She has another way out, if she has any luck left at all. And if not…

Well, she'd been prepared to die here only five minutes ago.

The klaxon bell and the scrape of metal on concrete heralds the sealing of what is so very likely to be Odessa Price's tomb. But with the reactor room cleared, her task is now so much easier. With strings of time wrapped around her fingers now, she makes a tugging motion, pulling those strings toward herself like she would the reins of an unruly horse. Time yields to her.

And then it reminds the Nightingale of its greatest desire:

To move ever forward.

Odessa cries out as she can feel the tug in her bones. Time is fighting back. It was like this the first time she manifested. When her ability chose her and consumed her with this need to control. Time had fought her then as well. It had told her she could not hold back its tide forever. That to do so would cause her great pain.

To ignore the whispers in her very bones would cause her even greater agony.

This? This is different.

The woman's knees buckle, but she manages to keep her footing for now. Amid Halebi is frozen in his terror, that nuclear fire like a still life behind glass. And she's feeling her own time – her very life – slipping away from her, traveling along those coiled threads and leaving her by degrees.

It is pure torture.

"You…" she whispers against the force that threatens to tear her apart.

"Are…" Her voice grows slightly louder.

"Mine!" Odessa's voice cracks in a cacophonous shout of defiance that echoes off the walls of the chamber. With time frozen as it is, there is nothing else to drown out the sound of her voice. "Mine to control!"

Finally, she falls to her knees in front of the reactor, and presses her hands to the glass, crying out against her suffering. She promised Eric she would buy him time. It's the last thing she will ever do for him. Fingers shape into claws and find no real purchase against glass, but eventually she manages to pull herself back to her feet. Her arms come out to either side of her and her shadow resembles some winged creature of myth. Perhaps the harpy Luis had likened her to.

Those cords feel like they want to pull her bones free from their joints. From her flesh. It is so, so much worse than it ever was in the beginning. A dark and sardonic look is cast to the pile of collapsed bone and ash that was once Darren Stevens. "Our abilities never could play nice together, could they, old friend?"

There's another grunt of pain and Odessa counts the seconds. Has this been sufficient? The warning echoes in the elevator shaft. In the silence, she can hear it. She can hold off the reactor, but she cannot hold off the implosion. She would need a good dose of Amp to manage to halt time on the whole facility.

And given the horrific anguish she feels in the very core of her being right now, she's certain it would kill her.

"Goodbye, Darren." A tear slides down her cheek, highlighting for her just how very hot her skin feels. There is no keeping this up. "I am truly sorry."

Her shadow begins to flicker. Time begins to resume. The pain subsides.

Odessa's arms snap out in front of her this time so she can catch herself on the glass that won't be containing Amid's power for long. Three deep breaths are all she allows before she makes a break for the elevator.

- Hide Odessa's Bookends

Peyton Whitney

+ Peyton's Bookends

- Hide Peyton's Bookends

November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

Cirque Lodge Recovery Center in Sundance, Utah

As she steps out of her group session and into the common room, she’s struck with the uneasy feeling that something is wrong. No one is speaking. One woman sobs brokenly. A middle-aged man, an actor Peyton’s seen in a movie or two, murmurs, “No” over and over again, rocking himself like a child as he stares with unblinking eyes at the screen at the front of the room. The few staff members present are silent but make no movements to calm the tides of emotion swelling, overflowing, in the room.

Fear. Sorrow. Worry. Grief. Hatred. But mostly disbelief.

Every pair of eyes stares at the television.

Peyton turns her dark, wondering eyes in that direction, too, only to see her hometown of Manhattan smoldering in the aerial view footage. The words the stunned anchors speak seem far away, distant, like they’re coming from underwater: hundreds of thousands dead and bomb are the only ones that cut through the deafening sound of her own heartbeat.

She knows, somehow, in the deep pit of her stomach, that her parents are gone, while she is safe, here in this posh prison she’s been sentenced to, for a stupid lie. She can feel that she’s alone in this world. That the only people who love her are no longer in it. The phone calls later will confirm it.

She is not yet eighteen years old.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Mount Natazhat Complex

They’re coming. Klaxons, alarms, chaos. Her own voice on repeat adds to the surrealism of the moment. The facility is under attack. The man she’s chosen to stand by, within.
Her friends from a life she’d left, without.

Peyton has fled to the bathroom for a few moments to compose herself. No one questions a woman six months into her pregnancy on her need to go to the restroom. Not even with the possibility of death on the horizon.

She stares at her reflection in the mirror. The telltale signs of crying are there — red rimmed dark eyes, a pinkened nose. She’s never been able to hide it and so she doesn’t try. Ezekiel knows how hard this is for her, after all. Her friends are people who mattered to him, too.

He looks at her like he understands her pain. Can he see her doubt? That she’s begun to question the choice she made?

Her hand goes to the swell of her belly. Peyton Whitney has many regrets in her short life, but this life within her — her son — will not be one of them.

In that moment, she vows to do whatever it takes for him to live.

- Hide Peyton's Bookends

Robyn Quinn

+ Quinn's Bookends

- Hide Quinn's Bookends

November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

"Hurrrrrrk!"

Robyn Quinn hadn't felt this sick in years. She wasn't sure what she'd eaten to get like this - maybe it was the sushi she'd had with Amanda and Royce last night. In fact, if she had to put money on it, that's exactly what she would say it was. This was she got for letting them talk her into Asian food instead of Asian girls, like the one she'd been wanting to get a number from earlier in the day. It wasn't every day super cute girls came into Barnes & Noble of all places and started flirting with the bored looking customer service girl.

Well, what's done is done.

Quinn also she feels like she's done. Done ever eating again, at least. With a groan, she picks herself up off the floor of her Brooklyn apartment's bathroom. She'd been lucky enough to find a hair tie, but it's now pulled out and tossed aside in favour of letting her fuchsia-dyed hair fall freely to her shoulders. To think, she was supposed to be going to a party today with Amanda. She was supposed to be DJing, she'd even bought a whole array of glowsticks, bracelets, and other things for this! They'd been pretty pissed when she'd called to cancel this morning. She'd promised to send Amanda with check they'd given her as a deposit. She hadn't done that. Oops.

Amanda…

Quinn grimaces, making her way back out to the living room, where she scoops up her hot pink Moto Razr. Flipping it open, she pulls up the first name in her contacts - Amanda Covington.

Selecting it and pressing send, Quinn trudges her way over to the window looks out towards the direction of Manhattan, where the party was being held. It rings once, twice, three times. Voicemail. Quinn sighs, hand resting on the neck of her sparkly red acoustic guitar. "Amanda, hey hon," she starts after the beep, turning back from the window and starting off towards the table where her violin sat. "Was just callin' t' see h-"

Suddenly, a flash of light behind her, and her eyes widen.

She turns back to look out the window, and all she can see on the other side is light, fury and smoke. The line goes dead. The lights are next.

As the room fill back up with light again, Quinn stares out into the abyss of her window, speechless.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Munin
Swallowed up all the light
shadows of the islands of Brooklyn
shores I call my home

Everything is happening so fast around her.

For a moment, Robyn Quinn feels like she's completely out of her depth here, black hair falling over one side of her face as she pats down her vest, back against a wall and Smith & Wesson in hand. She'd done a lot with the Ferry over the past year and a half but nothing like this. It was too late in the day to turn it around and change her mind. She was here, and nothing was going to change that. She lets her feet carry her, instinct droned into her by Jensen Raith, Benjamin Ryans, and other members of Special Activities over the last six month.

It's strange…
Why you swallowed up the moon
Cast it all to ash and dust
Washed it all away to start again

She couldn't help but wonder what Elaine would think. Sable would probably give her a "Hell yeah!"; Delilah too for that matter. Royce would probably be yelling at her, screaming "What the hell is wrong with you" as he threatened to break her bass. That brings a smile to her face as something is passed to her - a list of names for those held within the Arcology. A hand reaches up, adjusting the earbud connected to her iPod as it plays Shores of the Empire State into her ear. It makes something she sees on the list that much more impossible, Quinn's breath catching in her throat.

Standing on the shores of the Empire State
beaches of 34th street
Lapping shores of the Empire State
Building a new day from the remains
of all that we have been
for the nothing left behind

Else Kjelstrom. Quinn stares in disbelief, her hand shaking for a moment. There was literally no way. She hands the list off to someone else, she doesn't even see who, and runs over to Eve Mas, taking the other musician by the arm."Lead the way, Eve. We have someone t' save!"

If the last year and a half has taught her anything, it's to expect the impossible.

- Hide Quinn's Bookends

Raquelle Cambria

+ Raquelle's Bookends

- Hide Raquelle's Bookends

November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

5 years long ago
Orange and green blurring with red
The stage it waited
Spotlight on a dreamer's chance
Twas fate that turned heads
Trust in a stranger burned bright
A cycle begun
A hello and a goodbye
A hero called to love
~ (Original Japanese Waka)

Like a tsunami of the panic, fears and uncertainty within humanity the feet hitting the pavement…a thunderous applause to the opening act of a new age of human awareness. A one way street turned into a stumbling block for people fleeing the loud and bright spotlight shining blocks away. Cars being abandoned, vehicular commands of park and reverse abused and relied on. He was younger then…black hair edgey and styled, eyeliner framing baby blue eyes filling quickly with confusion and concern. A finger-less gloved hand gripping the top of the door where he's opened the car door to stand and peer up and over at the approaching chaos.

Its a dive into the backseat to fumbles with the childproof (human proof) tethers keeping his mocha drop american dream of a 5 year old trapped in her car seat. Snick of a pocket knife flipped open to just cut through the damn things. Whispered words of reassurance as she's drawn into his arms. Backpack slung over a shoulder and Kia Sportage abandoned behind him he holds his daughter tightly and prays his long legs do not fail him.

A weak cry from the side of the road, a bloody and blond woman panting and holding a small bundle in her arms as she raises startling green eyes to meet startled blue ones. "…my baby…"

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

5 years old today
Orange and green woven with blonde
Time more cruel than kind
Spotlight on a father's hope
Twas hate that simmered
Trust that truth will one day win
A cycle restarts
A goodbye and a hello
Heroism shines within
~Original Japanese Waka

It was orange and green ribbons woven through the silky blonde locks of a 5 year old missing most of her front teeth. From the side of the road in the arms of a mother she'd never know, to on the shoulders of the man who has been her father ever since. His line of sight blocked occasionally by the tulle of the white skirt she has chosen today. Ballerina skirt, green peasant top and orange cowgirl boots. As one body they spin in one direction, and the in the other direction laughing together. Around them the depressing backdrop of relocation fades in the place of the fantasy world that has been temporarily constructed.

It's almost time to get the oldest Cambria daughter, as sullen and serious as she may be, from school to bring her home so the festivities can begin. A cake is waiting in the fridge and make-shift streamers hang from the ceiling. Soon others will arrive, neighbors bringing food and drink…seeking a bit of cheer on such a depressing anniversary. A shift from his shoulders to his arms in a quick move that almost seems dangerous but daddy has never let her fall. They both look up in time to see the sky light up. Fireworks on her birthday again. He wraps his arms around his daughter and just angles a look up towards the sky, exhaling softly.

A soft whisper from a black haired and eyeliner wearing man holding the small girl in his arms as she cranes her neck back to look up at the sky with eyes wide with wonder. "Oh…my babies."

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Soleil Remi Davignon

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

Long, willowy arms raise into the air in a luxurious stretch as Soleil Davignon awakens from her slumber. Hers is a charmed existence, especially now — last night, she and her cousin Tibby were living it up, celebrating her recent promotion. She did it. She earned herself the position of Prima Ballerina at the Bolshoi in Russia, a spot of honor above all in the ballet community. Her parents had been excited — her father gently supportive in his own way, her mother all but screaming in excitement for her.

She sits up in the bed, which is made with the finest sheets, surrounded by luxury and blatant reminders of her wealth in the London flat that overlooks a picturesque square. It's a beautiful fall day — the sun is out and the air is crisp with the smell of dying leaves. With a soft yawn, the ballerina rises and shrugs on a silken robe before moving over to the coffee pot graciously left for her by the staff. A cup is poured and prepared, and then the woman moves to briefly look out at the sleepy morning view as she sips at the brew.

Then, she returns to her bed, coffee in hand. Settling in, Soleil finds the remote to the large LCD television. After another drawn out sip of her beverage, she finds the power button, the screen blazing to life. A few channels are flipped…and then, she stops, blue eyes glued to the screen.

There on the screen is the horrifying image of Manhattan, destroyed. Images flash, interviews with survivors, visions of people rushing in to help those caught in the chaos…and a map of the destruction.

Her mother's office was right in the middle of the blast. Her mother, who was there since early in the morning, finalizing her preparations for the launch of her spring line in a month and a half. She had been practically living in the office — which is now a crater.

The coffee splashes down over the expensive sheets as the porcelain cup bounces over the bed, to crash onto the ground. An anguished wail reverberates through the flat as Soleil falls back on the bed and sobs, knowing for a fact that her mother is now dead.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Five years.

It's been five years since Remi's life changed forever.

Five years ago, her biggest concern was which designer label she should wear that day, or how long she should practice dancing that day, or what style of makeup she should pair with her designer outfit for the day. Five years ago, she had staff leaving pots of coffee and breakfast for her on a silver tray in the mornings, when she would wake up and just cherish being her. Five years ago, her father became a distant checkbook with whom she could only occasionally have awkward conversations with.

Times have changed since then. Remi's blue eyes look down, examining the handgun she carries now as she and her companions prepare to enter Cambridge. She never thought she'd be here. She never thought that she, a spoiled little rich ballerina, would ever be carrying a gun as she prepares to infiltrate a government facility at the heels of her former roommate who she carries an unrequited flame for, and a former lover whom she is still quite fond of. She never thought she would have a scar on her leg from a stab wound. Hell, she never thought that she would be a telepath, even.

This is all very frightening, but also exciting. Every day brings something she would have never expected five years ago.

She can't wait to see what the future brings.

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Mateo Javier Ruiz

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

Santa Isabel, Argentina

The house hasn’t changed much in five years. But it had been that long since he’d last stepped inside it. The plaster walls and brick front looked exactly the same as he remembered as he ran his hand along the walls.

The smell. That had changed. The air smelled like death. Like shit, like bile, like blood. Like cleaning alcohol and medicine. Like oxygen that’s too strong. He can hear the whizzing of the oxygen machine, sucking the air in, filtering it and running it down plastic tubes that are attached to a woman with stringy dark hair that looks too old and too frail for her fifty-odd years.

Cancer does that.

“«I’m so sorry. I should have visited earlier.»” He’d known she was dying. He’d sent money. But he’d never visited. Never brought himself to her bedside. Until now. Until he’d received a call from her nurse.

She did not have long.

Her dark eyes were open, her skin had a yellowish tone to it, making her look leathery. The nurse had said not to expect her to be able to speak, or even understand him, but he still looked at her as he moved closer, reaching down to take her rough hand in his. Rough from age, rough from work. Blackened from… something else.

“«I’m here now.»” He sat on the edge of the bed.

“«Mateo.»” her voice seemed almost a whisper. Her lips did not move, exactly, but that was not where the voice came from. “«I have— have to tell you— »”

The thoughts whispered through his head, sounding as rough as her breathing. She tried, tried so hard, to get those words through. He knew what she wanted to tell him. He’d known for a while.

“«It doesn’t matter,»” he lied, his other hand coming down on the other side of hers. It did matter. But she didn’t need to tell him.

Her chest rose—- fell.

Rose and fell.

And then did not rise again.

As realization set in, he tried to move her hand, the hand that had never grasped him back. It felt heavy, heavy in his hand. He knew he should call for the nurse. Check for a pulse. But he already knew. That whisper in the back of his head had vanished. Gone.

The lights in the room started to flicker as he felt this emptiness grow.

Made manifest.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

The Commonwealth Arcology

She was worth it.

With the sirens and the flashing lights, the world had actually become quieter. The once sterile hallways smelled like death. With a bloody hand dragging against the wall, with blood draining down his leg, with a bullet buried in his stomach, he moved. Toward the only place he could go. The room that had been his cell. Every step hurt, every movement. He could feel his chest rise and fall.

But he did not know how long that would.

He thought he would never see her again, but there she had been. And he could not let her die. Not again. Even if it killed him.

He hoped she made it out.

He hoped Dess made it out.

Ruiz knew he would not.

“«I’ll be with you soon, mamá,»” he muttered, as he sank to the floor next to his bookshelf. “«And you can read to me again.»”

He could almost see her, behind his eyelids as he closed them. Dark eyes, dark hair staring back at him. Not that dying woman lying in a bed. But the woman who’d raised him all alone.

The woman who’d read to him. Who read to him of a garden.

A garden he’d found.

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Bradley Russo

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

Nov 8 2006, noon

Sitting in his Studio K office, staring at a series of speeches and policies on his monitor, Russo hums absently to himself. The song, a waltz, had been the focus of yesterday’s dance lesson, and two left feet means he needed the practice. They’d danced for hours trying to get it right, and he’d definitely improved during that time. Lessons needed such efforts.

The words on the pages fall out of focus. It’s nearly hazy as Brad leans back to consider each of the plans he’s envisioned. It’s a wonder. Life changes rapidly; at least when it’s inspired to do so.

She inspires him everyday to make change. How that even happened he couldn’t describe if he wanted. His Mom had said she was good for him; someone to keep him accountable and human when his instincts make him constantly leap to shark. His eyebrows lift. He still is a shark, he supposes. But maybe even a shark can lose some of their edge if so motivated.

He reaches for the picture of the two of them on his desk. He’d insisted. Karolina told him to stop being a weirdo and to set a timer on it. But then, it felt strange to have a photo of himself, even when posing with his family.

The wedding march blares from the cellphone on his desk and Brad can’t fight the smirk that finds it’s way to his lips. He brings it to his ear, “You changed my ringtone,” while it’s an accusation, it’s laced with warmth, and, despite his best efforts, the enchantment Russo actually feels. “Just for you, or across the board?”

“How’s Mom?” comes the easy question. “Just don’t go overboard. Don’t tell her this, but I don’t really care what she wears to our wedding. Just choose something she’s happy with. Try to avoid the whole nightclub singer plunging neckline. No one wants to see their Mother in that no matter how much it sui “ it happens so quickly that Brad only sees it out of the corner of his eye. The brilliant flash of light reflects through the window. The call drops as quickly, but it takes a moment to register. “…LINA?!” the incessant buzz of a disconnected phone leaves him in want. He slides away from the desk, feet breaking into a run. What he aims to do, he doesn’t even know, but action seems like the only solution at the moment, even if running towards disaster remains the worst possible choice.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Nov 8 2011, 3pm

The swirl of whiskey in his deep glass draws a faint lift of Brad’s eyebrows as he stares out his office window at Studio K. Everyone is gone. The Studio has emptied out thanks to his and Kincaid’s efforts, and he’s not sure whether Kristen would be ashamed or proud. If any of the dead women in his wake would be.

He takes a long drink of the whiskey, his last comfort and source of all courage, wondering whether he’s repeating old mistakes. Running away from disaster was never his strength. He ran into it at all sides. The irony doesn’t escape him as he feels the loss all over again.

Twisting back to the desk, he reaches for the photo of Karolina and his Mother, setting it face-down. They don’t need to see him like this. Even if he doesn’t face them, he can feel their judgment.

“You know,” he says to no one in the space, “It’s been five years and I’ve learned nothing. Still as stupid as your kid who started a fight club in the basement of his prep school.” His fingers rake through his hair. “I don’t know if we get any smarter though. Aware of how dumb we are, sure,” he shrugs. He can concede that point, and does willingly. “But smarter? Yeah, not convinced.”

His eyebrows draw together and he admires the New York skyline. “I’m taking a risk. A big one. And I think I’ll be seeing you soon.” His lips hitch up on one side. “But truth needs to be told. Democracy has failed. I see it everywhere. And I’ve got a smoking gun of evidence thanks to the show’s informants.” His throat clears, “It’s bound to be the end. And I’d rather stay tethered to this place than run away.” He takes a drink of his whiskey, polishing off the glass.

The flash of light blinds him, causing him to cinch his eyes shut. Memory brings him back. And when he can get some semblance of vision again, he glances at the frame still face-down on his desk. “Always running into disaster,” he mutters before trailing out of the office.

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Benjamin Ryans

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

It was just a quiet little diner, a hole-in-the-wall stop, on the way into Seattle. A TV hangs from the ceiling, news playing on the screen, but now one is paying attention to it. Today the quaint diner is the stuff of nightmares. Blood and viscera splattered everywhere, bodies crumpled where they lay. They hadn’t been fast enough. Benjamin Ryans crouches near the body of a little girl with red curls, the sight had made his stomach twist. Delia had curls that color.

Sighing he straightens and glances behind him where his partner was securing the Company’s soon-to-be newest resident of Level 5. The man was lucky that they has only captured him, Ryans had been ready to put a bullet in his head. “I dunno Ben… I’ve been round you and Mary long enough… You sure she is gonna forgive you again? She seemed kinda serious this time."

Benjamin gives a flat look at the other man, from under his father’s fedora, but then a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, deepening the lines already there. “She always does.” She wanted him to retire from his paper job and spend more time with her and girls, but… could he step away? Let others do this?

The TV suddenly changes catching his attention, the ‘SPECIAL REPORT’ letters on the screen, but he doesn’t have a chance to see anymore. In the quiet of the, the sudden and loud tones of Beyonce’s Single Ladies cuts through the diner. For a moment the agents can only stare at each other. “Ben… I think that is your phone. Bet it’s your Delly-girl.”

“What?” Ryans dips a hand into the inner pocket of his long coat and pulls out his flip phone. “Delia…” He growls out, while his partner laughs in the background. It was a part of her revenge… changing his ring tone. Another glare is sent towards the other man, “Have some respect for the dead.” That only gets another bark of laughter. It sounded so wrong juxtaposed on top of the gruesome scene.

Then Ryans is turning away, phone flipped open, his tone brighter, “Delly h—” He doesn’t get far before his daughter is yelling at him on the other end, “What?!?” He spins around to the TV screen.

“Oh my god…”

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

«”GO! GO! GO!”»

As soon as the force field was down, Benjamin Ryans was shouting to push the team into action. His deep voice loud and commanding over the coms. The scene before them was complete chaos, as sleek metallic cats loped towards them, fully intent on killing them.

He leaps into action and the world seems to become a blur. That is until he hears a shout from Nicole. It halts his progress and has him turning around, only to be faced with a bot stalking Nicole from behind.

Something she hadn’t seen, yet.

He had to move fast. Swinging the rifle, that was slung across his back, around; he takes careful aim. The cracking report of weapon is loud, amplified by the snow.

The round pings off of the robot’s head, which pulls its attention off its target, Nicole. The wicked looking head swings around smoothly on the length of its metallic neck.

Looking his way, the robot makes a shrieking noise, but that sound is only rewarded with another bullet. This time managing to break the syringe-like appendage.

With a bellow of steam, the catbot turns towards him, and sprints forward at full speed. Standing his ground for the moment, Ryan’s has a feral grin behind the black plate of his helmet visor. He was in his element.

“Come and get me, you son of a bitch!”

He wouldn't lose another on this day of all days. Even if, like Mary had planned too, Nicole had pushed him away.

Ryans would protect her.

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Tamara Brooks
Kathleen Brooks
Judah Demsky

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

Tamara sits on the north side of St Andrew's Episcopal Church, her back against the cool bulk of its masonry. The chill emanating from the stone does nothing to salve her headache, to corral the glass-edged splinters that flash through prescient awareness, flickering there and gone again. The small ones hardly matter. The large ones… might as well be constant; they never vary, never change. She's still learning to distill larger trends from the fractal expanse of maybe, but this one's difficult — impossible — to miss.

The only thing the seer could do, she has done. Two letters, the same five words each, spelled out with painstaking care in a childish scrawl. Sent to the only people who might heed.

People who are waiting now.

Picking herself up, Tamara squints against actinic glare that has yet to reach her eyes, that will never actually reach her eyes. Keeping one hand braced against the wall, she walks around the corner of the church, emerging into view of the two standing on its front stairs in mutual bemused-yet-hopeful concern.

One is a teenager only lately graduated from high school, dressed half a step down from the assured adult she'd like to be. The other is practically old enough to be her father, a man who carries himself with quiet alertness that befits his professional suit; inevitably, he sees Tamara first, recognizes her immediately.

"Don't look," Tamara murmurs as she stumbles across the stairs before either can react, flinging her arms around them both, burying her face against the man's chest. "Don't look."

They don't, of course, because she's come from the other direction. Provided a critical distraction.

None of the three are looking as fire lights up the southern horizon, as their world changes forever.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Outside, metaphorical water gathers, a wave looming ever higher, soon to come crashing down.

Inside, a sybil pretends to see nothing, to grieve nothing, to carry on as though it were just another inconsequential day within her gilded cage-that-isn't. She draws lines on paper and pretends they matter, pretends they have anything at all to do with the little birds flitting through cultivated trees, pretends they do not reflect the nexus of disaster swift approaching in her sight. She pretends to affability, to good-natured cheer, to a complete lack of overriding concerns and greater agendas.

She pretends as though it were not the day this world dies, sacrificed on the altar of potential, ceding way to something new.

Inside, the sybil mourns in silence, her awareness brushing through the web of possibility, lingering ever so briefly on those threads likely to go dark all too soon. They are many, beginning with the man who sits behind her all unknowing, obedient to his standing directions. Their losses are regrettable… but not more regrettable than the consequences of not acting, cold and bitter comfort though that knowledge may be.

Inside, the sybil monitors, measures, calculates. Tracks the people moving around her, the pieces coming into place, the figurative alignments of stars and objectives and inexorable fate now locked in by the aggregation of all choices leading to this moment. Time narrows, stretches thin, a last few drops coalescing oh-so-slowly, gathering the critical mass needed for their fall.

Fire in a distant sky, incandescence raining down over a city already ravaged once before. Footsteps on the path behind her, the unremarkably mundane sound of gravel crunching underfoot. Both herald the beginning of this end.

Someday, sentiment felt more than verbalized, plea more than silent promise, hope more than prophecy. Someday I could walk away.

But that someday is not today.

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????

+ ????'s Bookends

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

A rolling hill of flowers slopes down from the mountainside. Here the sunlight is warm, but the cool mountain air still chills bare skin. Among the flowers, small darkly feathered birds hop and flit, rooting around in the morning dew. The sun, just now cresting the horizon casts long shadows.

Their shadow is long too, longer than most. Breathing in deeply, they feel a pang of hunger settling in. A heavy knot in the pit of their stomach. Closing gold eyes, they concentrate on the feeling of hunger, on the feeling of nourishment. The warmth of the sun inspires, the light of the sun breathes life into all things. They change. The sun nourishes the body, fills up the feeling of hunger and replaces it with a light and a heat. The flowers know this.

Lips part, eyes open, and they raise their hands to the sky with fingers outstretched. Birds chirp, the wind blows, thick white clouds drift around the horizon and cast deep shadows wherever they move. The world is beautiful and full of possibilities. Life is endless and bountiful.

"Excuse me uh— " silence is broken. They turn, regarding the bearded man and his heavy clothes, his backpack and walking stick carved from an ash branch. "Are you ok? You— did something happen? Do you need me to… call somebody?" His eyes are averted, they can feel his shame at seeing their bare form.

They say nothing. Approach softly. He is entranced. They close their eyes, feel for him, but feel nothing. A breath is exhaled, and they lift a hand up to touch his cheek. Their head shakes, slowly. Smile, easy.

He will be different tomorrow.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

The sun hasn't risen yet. Interior lights are dim, enough to show their reflection in the glass. Tan skin and eyes of luminous gold, hair as dark as ink. They look out over a city of concrete and neon, feeling the pulse of the city beat in their veins. There is a girl, alone, uncertain of herself and what she will do with her life. She contemplates death.

They close their eyes, one bare hand on the glass. It is cold, rigid, unmoving. She is special, she is treasured. She should contemplate life. Their mind wanders, finds one nearby to those woods. Their eyes open, and they are He.

He looks at his hands, a flashlight. Poncho is slick with rain, glasses fogged. He feels her nearby, on the edge of the woods. He follows, turning off his flashlight and dropping it in the mossy ground underfoot.

She is close.

He steps over a twisting root, off the hard-packed path and down a slope. The roots part for him, the ground rises up to meet his feet. He hears her muffled sobs, but He is silent and shadow and the forest is his embrace. He reaches her, reaches out to her and touches a hand to her cheek. She gasps, feels fire in her veins. She ignites, a pillar of fire where once flesh and bone stood. She is alive in the flames. Feels more alive than she ever has. He is consumed, the fire swallows his flesh, cooks his mind, boils his eyes. She will never forgive herself.

Their eyes open. Reflection in the glass, neon and fog beyond. Gold eyes close.

The world is sick.

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Veronica Sawyer

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

Location: San Francisco

Change everything you are

And everything you were

Your number has been called

“Evolved or just your typical terrorist attack?”

The question comes from her partner, Jack. They’re opposites in almost every way.

He’s Evolved. She’s not. He’s a veteran. She’s still the rookie of the office. He’s a gentle giant: tall, strawberry blond and freckled, broad-shouldered, has a bit of a paunch and likes to start his day with hot cocoa and a half a dozen doughnuts. He seems like an easy going frat boy — until you piss him off.

She runs five miles before even going to work. Small. Dark. Trim. Intense. An overachiever.

Fights and battles have begun

Revenge will surely come

Your hard times are ahead

Despite all of their differences, she likes her partner. Most of the time. He doesn’t have an ability that can kill her instantly, so he has that going for him.

“What makes you say Evolved?” Veronica asks. “You hear something?” If there’s anything to know, the Company probably does.

“Nah. Just a hunch. There’s people in Level 5 who can do that sort of damage,” Jack says. “Before you joined, we bagged and tagged a terra that could cause an 9.0 earthquake, the lab rats say.” He nods to the coffee she’s pouring at the coffee pot, and he shoves the rest of the doughnut in his mouth. “Put a lid on that. We got a location for Grimes,” he says around the mouthful.

She wonders why he does what he does — being Evolved as he is. She’s never asked. In a “One of Us, One of Them” sort of world, sometimes it’s better not to.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Best,

You've got to be the best

You've got to change the world

And use this chance to be heard

Your time is now

It's almost time.

It feels like everything from the time Veronica was seventeen years old has led up to this moment. Her father dying. Her recruitment into the Company. The fall of the Company at the hands of the Institute. Working for the Institute, with the intent to betray it.

There are many names that have helped her forge this path. They flit through her mind as she runs through the mundane tasks that make it appear she’s a loyal “company girl.” Make that Institute girl. The part she’s been playing since she was 21 years old.

Don't let yourself down

Don't let yourself go

Your last chance has arrived

Moore. Paulson. Goodman. Harper. Each name, a brick in the road — for good or ill. The partners: Jack. Kat. Curt. Odessa. Brian. Each a provider of something she needed to get where she is today. Wisdom. Humility. Support. Love.

“Hey, Giovanni, can you check the security camera in A3? It was on the fritz yesterday,” she asks one of the techs. “And put me down for Green Bay on the pool.” She passes the man a $20 bill she’ll never see again, of course.

Best,

You've got to be the best

You've got to change the world

And use this chance to be heard

She is not alone. There are allies out there, counting on her.

There are victims in here, in the Ark, counting on her. The names are a mantra in her head: Tamara. Else. Julie. Liette. Billy. Jacob. Mateo.

That she, Veronica Sawyer, is personally responsible for a few of the Ark inmates being here at all — these are the heaviest weights upon her. The chains she’s forged for herself that will follow her into the afterlife, if there is one.

Right now, the possibility of finding out is very close.

She sees Tamara drawing birds and lets her instincts move her in that direction.

Your time is now.

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James Woods

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

Fluorescent lights flicker in the break room on Level-3. Concrete walls in a ten by fifteen room provide surprisingly good acoustics for the small, tube television propped up on the counterspace where a microwave should be. Seated at a formica table, burger in one hand and soda in the other, Agent James Woods watches the television with rapt excitement as he noisily chews. "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives." The narrator announces, and Woods brings his mouth down to the straw, missing it and poking himself in the nose before his grip flexes the cup too hard and he spills coke down the front of his suit. He rankles, snorting, and sets the soda down angrily.

"This is a hungry horse," echoes from the TV as Woods sets down his burger. "Lucas." Snarling, Woods gets up and looks briefly at the television, then gets up to retrieve a wad of napkins from the counter. "The death plunge ride was the best. 120 feet straight down — awesome." Woods leans back, looking at the screen, one brow raised incredulously. "I'm glad you enjoyed it. I almost had a heart attack, though, but as long as it was good for you." Grimacing, he begins dabbing his suit off and settles back down at the table, picking up his burger, taking an enormous bite.

"I saw my life flash before my eyes on that one."

Woods lets out a snorted laugh at that line. Then, mouth full of food he says aloud, "Oh, Sami. You sure did!" He leans in and takes another bite, chewing loudly, getting crumbs everywhere.

"That must have been scarier than the ride." Woods bobs his head up and down in a nod at the voice from the television. But then, before he can hear Sami's response then the lights gutter, flicker, and go out entirely as a rumble shakes the complex. It takes a moment, but when the lights come back on they're emergency red and a distant klaxon blares loudly. The television stays dark, and Woods throws down his burger, angrily to the wrapper below.

"Fuck."

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Fluorescent lights flicker in the small storage space that is easy to hide in when you're not particularly tall. Concrete walls in a five by five room provide surprisingly good acoustics for the small, battery powered radio up on the metal shelf beside cleaning supplies and a box of nails. Seated on an upturned plastic bucket, sandwich in one hand a tin mug of coffee in the other, Agent James Woods listens to a voice on the radio as he noisily chews. «Spotted sixteen of them by 5th Avenue. Haven't seen the tank today, it might still be in Queens.» The smooth voice on the radio proclaims, and Woods brings his mouth down to the brim of his coffee mug, missing it and clinking the rim against his teeth, causing the mug to jostle and black coffee to spill down the front of his jumpsuit. He rankles, snorting, and sets the coffee down angrily on the metal shelf.

«Wire PMP 4, we're seeing clear skies from 11th down. Safe to move.» The voice echoes from the radio as Woods sets down his sandwich beside the coffee, carefully. «Roger. Moving» Snarling, Woods gets up and looks briefly at the sandwich, then gets up to retrieve a wad of napkins from the second shelf. «We've got two more going into the incinerator.» Woods leans back, looking at the radio, one brow raised incredulously. «Make sure disposal cleans the floors this time. We need the marked bags moved to the disposal room.» Grimacing, he begins dabbing his jumpsuit off and settles back down on the bucket, picking up his sandwich, taking an enormous bite.

«Fox PMP 6» A different voice calls out. «Spotted a horse on Broadway. Going to bring it down.»

Woods lets out a snorted laugh at that line. Then, mouth full of food he says aloud, "Oh about bloody time, getting sick of dog." He leans in and takes another bite, chewing loudly, getting crumbs everywhere.

«Fox PMP 2, we've got a power surge at the rail line. Investigate?» Woods quirks a brow at the voice from the radio. But then, before he can hear clarification the lights gutter, flicker, and go out entirely as a rumble shakes the complex. It takes a moment, but when the lights come back on they're emergency red and a distant klaxon blares loudly. The radio stays silent for a moment, and Woods throws down his sandwich, angrily to the wrapper on the shelf. But then, a different voice crackles over the radio.

«This is Ruiz. We have a breach in the disposal room.»

"Fuck."

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Ygraine FitzRoy

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November 8, 2006
noon (NYC time)

In part, it’s a minor act of rebellion against the garish, towering advertising and the road-lining assembly of many-storeyed monuments to ego. But Ygraine’s chosen soundtrack is also simply a reflection of her taste in music and a desire to connect with home while zipping through the alien familiarity of New York.

Modesty, propriety can lead to notoriety
You could end up as the only one

Naturally, she’s on two wheels rather than four - but today, she’s in head-to-toe black road armour, astride a powerful motorbike that grants her the ability to accelerate into gaps and dart through traffic with less effort than would be required atop a pedal-cycle.

Heading North on Broadway, she has Midtown at her back and her notes on a particularly juicy set of diplomatic correspondence to speed her return to her apartment. Quite how she might convey the correct notes of disdain when translating the Senegalese delegation’s French has proved to be an enjoyably knotty challenge, bouncing around in the back of her mind all morning.

Her faint smile broadens, as a gap appears and she swings the bike out, opening the throttle to dart ahead. The swift thrill of a chance seized, the joy of sunlight casting her shadow onto the road in front, the responsive eagerness of the engine beneath her….

Gentleness, sobriety are rare in this society
At night a candle's brighter than the sun

The flash hits first, though it’s doubly muted by coming from behind and by the tinting of her visor. Even so, she can’t help but screw shut her eyes, the bike starting to tilt forward in response to her instinctive flick of the brakes.

Then the blast-wave arrives, and seizes upon the lifting of her back wheel that had already begun: instantly, she becomes airborne.

Takes more than combat gear to make a man
Takes more than a license for a gun

The shock-front shatters the store’s giant display window even as Ygraine hits it, tumbling through the false slow-motion of a crash gone so horribly wrong. With so much experience of bad landings at speed, she is dimly aware that this is far beyond anything that came before. The image of her bike cart-wheeling amidst the dust and flying glass will be one of her clearest memories for many years to follow.

She hits the far wall back-first, the reinforced ridging down the spine of her leathers blessedly designed to protect against just this sort of impact. The expensive mood-enhancing facade masking the structural wall crumples, fractionally reducing her speed before her body slams into immovable solidity. An instant later, her helmet does likewise, a spider-web of cracks appearing as it tries to dissipate the blow.

Confront your enemies, avoid them when you can
A gentleman will walk but never run

The twisted wreck of her bike grinds to a halt amidst a drift of clothing, mannequins, rails, and glass. Her MP3 player, protected by her body and her kit, plays tinnily on, earpiece adrift within her broken helmet. Her ears, however, are capable of registering almost nothing save for a hollowly pounding pressure.

She feels gravity take hold - its soft, inexorable attraction hauling on her limbs and flopping head, slowly peeling her out of the depression in the wall. Bleary eyes see the wreckage on the floor sweeping up to fill her vision… then her helmet bounces one last time, and the darkness floods in to drown all thought.

November 8, 2011
3 pm (NYC time)

Dont talk of worlds that never were
The end is all that’s ever true

Buds securely in her ears, the insistently driving pulse of this music for her alone… though any observer could see (and hear) that Ygraine was limbering up; one foot pulled up behind her, then the other, while her still-new leathers creak quietly in protest.

There’s nothin’ you can ever say
Nothin’ you can ever do

Her visor’s up, her gaze intent. Graeme and Remi close by are presences of whom she is very much aware… but precisely because of her trust in them, she feels able to reach deeper within herself than she would normally risk. Past the fractured and oft-repaired but still largely intact defences that are there to keep not only other people but her own thoughts out of the rubble-strewn and haunted recesses of her mind.

Every night the dream’s the same

Now, as she and Quinn discussed, she wants to hold nothing back. To call upon the very things that blight her dreams and warp her world, to feed upon them.

To let her nightmares and the blackest of memories be her fuel.

Every night I burn

Lips curling into a half-feral smile, her eyes close. A tilt of the head to the right, then the left, then her lids lift and she fixes a shining gaze upon the breached hull of the Ark ahead.

Waiting for the world to end

A few fierce words escape upon an exhalation of breath, now that she can start her task of making sure that the song is true for only some of this within the underworld ahead.

“Time to give everything and more.”

- Hide Ygraine's Bookends

Between the raid on the Ark at Cambridge and the attack on the Institute facility in Alaska, the Ferrymen's forces are stretched thin, leaving their stronghold — Pollepel Island — vulnerable to attack. When an old ally turns against them and another arrives on the island's shores with a terrible vision of the future, the organization and all its members must chose what's most important.
Date	Scene	Description
10/05	Why Is It So Dark?	Bannerman's Castle receives a surprise visitor, and a warning.
	A Castle Protects	A field trip into Eve's vision doesn't go exactly as planned. Some people are thrown off balance by it.
10/06	Eight Hours	Time ticks away under the Ferrymen's feet and a trusted few decide what to do with the children under their care.
	This Is Fine	Nothing at all weird tints a very professional conversation between Council and Special Activities.
10/09	Amtullah	Eileen discloses one of the Ferrymen's best kept secrets to Brian.
10/17	A Tiger Without Teeth	Griffin strikes a bargain with Colonel Heller.

page revision: 9, last edited: 06 Feb 2018 02:45

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Chapter One: "A Window in Time"

Chapter Two: "Two By Two"

Chapter Three: "Five Years Gone"

Chapter Three: "Besieged"