Participants:
| Scene Title | The Plague |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Emily stops by Cat's Cradle asking about a man Eve has nicknamed 'The Plague'. |
| Date | May 5, 2019 |
"You know, Eve, your bartender was really fucking worried about you," Emily drawls from her seat on the barstool, leaning on folded arms across the bar. She hooks the top of her foot around one of the stool's legs, looking down the bar for the bartender in particular. "The least you could have done was tell him you were fine. Or, like, your friends." Clearly the sassy, emotional barkeep knew she was fine, but… "Have you talked to Teo?" she asks as she looks back. "He thought you were dead still until I told him the other day."
Eve Mas most certainly did not ask for a judgmental teenager to walk into her bar and start running their mouth, but that's what she was getting today.
"It made his whole day when he learned. He tried to fucking hug me." And had, but that's less important to her narrative. "Why the hell did you hide for such a long time?"
"You are so lucky I've already farted," an hour or so ago before Emily had arrived and so Eve doesn't feel the need to disperse herself. The times had not become fewer but she was clocking it, better at feeling it. A jolt of said pain shoots up her back along with a crimson chain of lightning that snakes up her hand and circling around her neck.
Across the bar the woman stands, leaning with skates propped up behind her. Blood red eyes assess the young woman and she squints, is this bitch- slowly Eve pushes off the bar and skates backwards and around the bar all the while peering at Emily, her hair. The bar owner places a hand on the bar as she nears Emily, towering over her as she looks down at the blonde.
"Sometimes Paparazzi, you need to put your family's safety first. Sometimes even over their feelings. Be the family they need, maybe not what they want. Parents, aunts, crazy grandmas. Protective siblings, it's all the same." Eve's rasp is cold and she tilts her head, a strand of her midnight mane falling into her face. "Did you come to bitch at me on my friends and family's behalf? I thought you were more into snapping photos and videos for your blog." The pale woman is convinced that she's operating one, maybe in league with that Siren publication.
Her black, slinky and sleeveless dress shimmers with rhinestones embedded around the shoulders, lips painted a dark purple. Eve's trusting herself to dress less… like a homeless person.
Farting? Emily's expression twists as she figures what it must mean. "Is that really how you want to refer to that?" she asks with low skepticism and a raised eyebrow. Sure, Eve had a certain nonchalance she approached practically everything with, but… "Surely there's something more flattering."
She doesn't cower when Eve goes through the trouble of maneuvering around the physical barrier between them, her posture lifting instead. Months ago, Eve would have intimidated her right out of the room if not out of her skin, but she's worked on gathering her nerve in the time since. Even if that lightning coming off her was incredibly off-putting. Emily doesn't so much as blink in sympathy at the idea of holding back information and yourself from your family, deepseated, embittered feelings about that preventing her from doing anything but meeting Eve's gaze with a deadpan expression of her own.
It breaks when she brings up photos. Emily looks away, a mutter half-formed on her breath. Jesus, you snap one video and you're branded a paparazzi for life. "Really, Eve? A blog?" Even that lacks punch, though. When she looks back, her gaze is weighed down with other thoughts, shoulders shifting so she stops leaning on the bar.
"I mean, the bitching wasn't a part of the plan, but if I can get in a good punch on their behalf, why the fuck not. You've got people who care about you, and they'd've benefited from knowing you were alive. Maybe could have even helped you with your whole…" There's no desultory wave of her hand, but instead a concerned knit of her brow. "…experience." Because who knew what else to call whatever Eve must have gone through. Exploding on a semi-regular basis wasn't a thing there was specially-derived vocabulary for. Maybe farting really was the best way to describe it. It was slightly less terrifying than describing it as exploding, after all.
She lets out a slow breath, trying to shift focus. "But no, that's not why I'm here. There's…" Emily hesitates briefly, gaze flickering. "Eve, you know a lot of people," she suddenly says, slow and cautious. Reluctant, but earnest. Emily glances away and then back, her gaze speaking what she cannot yet bring into words.
She needs Eve's help. She might not be proud of it, but she's not too proud to not realize the seer might be a good person to ask.
After all, Eve's been involved in some crazy shit in her time.
"And by the public knowing I'm alive, I risk their safety." Sucking her teeth Eve shakes her head with a smile, the woman is rarely trying to be intimidating. Waving her hand she looks over Emily again, "Oh giovane, who hurt you?" Clearly someone. "Family?" That's the old scam fortune telling way, state the obvious. Hope for a home run.
Pale arms lift as the woman skates backwards and falls into a chair across from Emily, a positively too wide, creepy grin on her face. Eve doesn't need to go back and forth with Emily on her choices, she rarely consults anyone before or after least of all the young woman before her. Still, Emily speaks from pain. Guarded. Eve knows those things, in fact those very obstacles are things she has the most experience in breaking down. "What are you doing with Teo anyway, isn't he still married to Le French."
But there is a request, a reason for the mouthy blonde's visit and Eve's own gaze flares with a flash of light. "And what have of those people I know?"
Sassy had disappeared not too long ago, stocking things in the back. The crowd was light. Two old regulars sitting in a booth, a man in a brown hat and his female companion with almond shaped eyes. The friends don't pay much mind to Eve or Emily clearly engrossed in conversation.
"Well, glad you changed your mind and rejoined the living," Emily replies, utterly non-plussed about the apparent danger of Eve's persistence. Her friends and family knowing she was safe(?) was important, and the public didn't need to know. Right? Right. She glances off to the barflies, wondering if they count as the public. It conveniently lets her avoid answering the question of who hurt her. "By the way," she says as she looks back. "If someone makes a meme about the whole…" And now Emily does wiggle her fingers, in a vague, jittery wave meant to imitate all that electricity, "it wasn't me. I don't like polka."
As for Teo, she gives a shake of her head, no, this wasn't about her. "Teo and I live in the same building," Emily explains dismissively. It's not a lie. "And—" She blinks. She was about to say the relationship between him and his husband wasn't going well, but that's way the hell not her business to be sharing. She recovers with a flat, "Maybe you should just talk with him to ask him about his love life."
Her hands come to settle in her lap, and she takes a breath to even her nerves. It helps — when she refocuses her icy gaze against Eve's crimson, one brow still semi-permanently lifted, she asks without hesitation, "Have you ever come across anybody named Adam Monroe?"
"If I can survive the horsey one, I can survive anything. Trust me." If she could survive being blown to pieces. "Also being blown to pieces, it makes you quite hungry. I don't advise trying it." Mimicking Emily's wave and wiggle of her hands with an amused expression on her face as the blonde continues on to elaborate about how she and Teo are neighbors. It was true Eve hadn't seen the man since seeing her own version of Teo that was her lover, "His brother, my Ghost. Should have told them. I shouldn't have trusted mio caro brutale with just telling them." They all liked to torture each other. Ghost especially.
When it comes to Teo's love life and asking for herself she snorts, "Oh we'll talk… we've been in cahoots for a very long time now." The two always did talk (except for when she was faking her own death for his protection!!! Learned from one Gabriel Gray DON'T @ HER.)
Then the reason that Emily is here is laid out in front of her in the space between the two women and Eve's eyes flare brightly as she grips the back of the chair with an easy grip, "You're not that good at this gathering of information. If you're gonna be coming in here with your sassy tail up to sixty and be a big meanie about it you gotta be ready to slam my face into the wall, make me tell you all I know! But you'll NEVER GET ANYTHING FROM ME PAPARAZZI," her shout all but ignored by the older couple, they must be use to the random screams and noises and going ons of Cat's Cradle.
"Unless," a twisted smile is plastered on her face as she hums, the proverbial light bulb flickering on. Ding. "You tell me a secret." The former seer leans in with raised eyebrows and a too wide grin on her face. "Don't try to lie either, it's so obvious don't you think? When someone is really baring their soul? Unless you're dear dear Jack," Celine Dion is hummed, she loves the Titanic. Holding up a finger, Eve rises from her seat and idles on her skates.
"If you're serious and are willing to pay the price then follow me Pappa-Papparazzi." Eve now humming along to Mother Monster's rhymes as she sails towards the back of the bar and grabs the railing of the stairs that lead not down to the rumored Oracle Room.
But upstairs.
Emily's expression falters for a moment at the mention of a brother of Teo's. The evil twin?? She has to figure, seeing as the other one was in Sicily, and it's unlikely she meant him? Also, that Fre—Italian sounded very evil-twin-worthy. Her brow starts to furrow ever so slowly as Eve keeps talking, wondering about this Ghost. At least, until the woman is practically glowing, and shouting. Then she leans back, her nerve finally broken, and she leans back a tad further when Eve leans in.
Okay, so she was still terrified of Eve. Sue her.
But then she makes her ask, and Emily's look flattens again. Son of a bitch. Why did she have to ask something like that? "What the f…" she whispers under her breath as Eve hums and starts swirling away on her skates.
There's a few things that come to mind immediately as throwaway 'secrets' she could tell Eve. But taking the low-hanging fruit is also dicey. Will the quality of the information she gets from Eve be directly correlated with the secret that's donated to the Great Fairy Fountain of Eve? Or like the Spring of Myst?
Watching the skating seer sail away, Emily can only frown. What if Eve asked for multiple secrets. Each detail a new one? Her jaw sets.
She turns to look at the door out to the street, and for a good minute seriously considers seeing herself out.
But her footsteps take her up after Eve, even if it several minutes after she'd gone that way.
When Emily enters the apartment upstairs all she sees at first is plants, green, blue, orange, pink. They are still going strong thanks to Sassy's diligent work. "Sassy might have thought I was dead but deep down he knew, we're soul sisters. It's why he kept this place looking so nice." The last word drawn out in a hiss as Eve becomes noticeable upon the assortment of hanging plants and large pots sitting on the couch where at the end her drone Spike sits.
"Don't mind Spike he's harmless, down boy."
But Eve is happy Emily has come upstairs. "Okay then you've made it! Have a seat!" There are barstools at the kitchen in the island, an armchair opposite of Eve. The woman's body buzzing with electricity before fizzling out. "Two things. Your secret and not an easy one come onnnn play fair." The tease also a hiss.
"And the why of your search for The Plague, Adam."
Emily takes a moment, eyes wandering, scrutinizing, not taking comfort even in the colorful plantlife, though her gaze pauses on them. Only after it's pointed out does she even notice the dog-like drone. Oh. She jolts at noting it, then quickly looks to Eve before she notices anything else that'll distract her.
She does not sit, not yet. The closest she gets is lingering progressively closer to the armchair.
As for what she shares, the thin teenager folds her arms uncomfortably and picks the easier of the two things to explain. Something that may even pass for her secret, given all of it might be. "I know he's old— immortal, for all anyone knows. He's like five hundred years old, at least." 'Medieval-era' is a long time period to try and place someone in. She shakes her head. "He founded the Company, fucked with Nazis, and then the Vanguard, and now with some fucking megacorporation or something." Emily's fingers lift off the fold of her arm in a sort of shrug. Whatever.
"He and people around him do unspeakably fucked up shit apparently under the guise of 'saving the world', but I'm pretty sure he's just fucked in the head and doing whatever the fuck he wants at this point. I mean, after hundreds of years, you have to stay entertained somehow, don't you?" Her voice is hard, the flare in her sarcasm harsh.
"… He hurt someone I care about, Eve." Emily finally admits. "And he did it for a reason." Her expression has quickly sombered. "None of the gameshow trivia facts about his past associations help me with understanding the why behind it, or better yet, what can be done to protect them against a one-man Illuminati."
Pointedly she adds, "I'm not looking to find him," Her shoulders lift in a helpless, frustrated shrug. "I just…" Emily finally slumps into a sit, her hands coming to clasp off her knees. "I don't know what to do."
Not a secret but Eve's attention is grabbed. "Mmm, my Paparazzi. You seem to know quite a bit about The Plague." Eve's hand darts out to a nearby ashtray to which she plucks and lights a spliff, the smoke wafting around her fingers and curling around her hair. Gently her knee bobs as she looks Emily up and down, closer.
"I think to make presumptions on his exact motivations puts you at a disadvantage he's old… but much more complicated than any of us give him credit for, I should know I've been chasing him for almost a decade." A wrinkle of her nose and the former seer mutters to herself before her attention is steered back to the young blonde.
"He's never enjoyed the spotlight, always willing for others to be the face for his methods. Groups within groups, the circles of secrecy. Kazimir, The Dark One didn't even suspect, not truly." Of that Eve can only guess but the proof is in the world around them now. "The Company didn't even remember him. Locked him down in Level 5 and threw away the key wheeeee. He was going to rot there, or just sit." A snort and smoke follows from her nostrils as the woman takes another drag and holding it in.
Her exhale is long and loud and she coughs after, "That is until me and my friends released him when we raided Level 5 ten years ago. What a tragic mistake." Eve's had a long time to live with that guilt, the memories of that night fresh on her mind often. "It was the start of so much," A beat, "Even that isn't true with all that's come to light in recent days."
"How was your loved one harmed? Specifics help a brainpan like mine, details details, the smallest ones might be the only unsoggy piece in sight."
Hearing that Eve's been chasing after Adam draws Emily's attention up to her again, brow lifting in surprise. For anything she expected to hear out of the seer, it definitely hadn't been that. She listens a little more carefully, eyes sharpening. Whatever Level 5 is is lost on her, save for what she infers. Some place like a prison, clearly. Her gaze flickers as she waits through Eve's cough, turning away to look at the plants.
It's a good thing, too, because it gives her a moment to recollect her expression when she hears it's, indirectly, Eve's fault what happened to Devon.
She's silent a long moment considering the request for more details, and when her head turns back ever so slightly in Eve's direction, Emily's gaze never quite follows. It settles unfixed on a memory, and she allows herself a breath of laughter. "They brought him back to life, first, so they could." Another pause, in which she swallows hard. "He'd died — they said he was nothing but a charred husk. But somehow they … fixed him."
Emily doesn't know how else to phrase that.
"He survived being put back together. He survived whatever it is they threw at him, and they didn't expect that. It was a Chinese doctor — Bao-Wei Cong." The words are slow, uncertain in their pronunciation but sure in their content. "Adam had them repeat whatever procedure they'd put him through a second time, I think. The telepath wasn't able to help uncover more than that, if they said it around him, because they had this woman keep wiping his memory. Joy, they called her." Emily blinks heavily at remembering her, brow furrowing. "She was a mosaic, I think. Unless — I mean, I don't know. Maybe she was just a powerful telepath or something and could erase memories, too. I don't really—" know how any of that works.
Hastily, she presses on. "Either way, she's old like Adam. And the full amount of whatever they did to Devon, what they put him through, I don't know. They gave him something to bring him back. They were taking marrow — trying to see if 'anything was left behind', and—"
It's as far as she can go.
There's so much for Eve to grasp and that's saying something, mostly due to all the points that Emily hits. Eve jumps in her seat at the mention of Bao-Wei. "FALCOR!!" She rises leaping to her feet and puffing wildly on her joint. "But he was a friend! He's a dragon, oh no he must have gotten lost." At the Ark, fuck. "We are going to have a very stern discussion don't you worry Papa," stomping her foot Eve cannot believe! "Hmmm lets stay on task, it's a mantra. If you repeat it helps keep your brain in line." Giving out wisdom yes she is.
Focus. "Dead.. charred.. brought back… taking.." Focus. Focus. Eve's brow furrows and she stops, the joint ashes itself the gray matter trickling slowly to the wooden floors as the former seer gets lost in thought. "Mmm sounds like Hydra." Clapping her free hand on her exposed thigh with a ripple and crack of crimson lightning in the shape of her hand the pale woman looks over to the window.
"Back in the not so sunny Nazi days, when he was using their minds to understand himself. There were various projects run by various science fairies." Now the way that Eve says the word Science Fairy is often like how a rich woman of the upper society would go street urchins. Pure disgust on her face, "One of which was named Project Hydra." The project uttered in a terrible German accent. "Bits of himself, implanted in others. Bits of others, implanted in others. Cerebral matter." Fingers spread wide in the sky with a soft exhale. "Exchange. In the early tests, he wanted to make someone feel what the other was experiencing… like nerve gas." That wasn't a particular fun thing for Eve but thankfully it was a dream, all a dream.
A quickie puff with a shake of her head, "Your poor Devon, why him? Whose his family? Hmmm you said a telepath and J-" Eve stops again and slowly looks over at Emily and her expression flickers. Focus. Focus. Focus. "J-Joy. Joy." The former seer looks shocked, "She works against him?" The woman is floored, it feels like an ace in her pocket. In the world's pocket. "That woman, a mosaic. She's been with him for as long as he's walked the earth as an immortal I believe. I know very little of her, tiny mentions. Ohhh Joy. What are you doing?" But she knows what she suspects, it doesn't do to run wild with her theories. They always bite her in the ass.
"She's in danger. Mosaics can be killed, anything can. You just have to find the way." And there's no telling how far gone Adam is. Eve's expression is intense, wild as she nears Emily. "Where was he held?" Her mind was racing, Joy.. a female immortal walking by his side. The red kimono. Her beheading and being brought back to life, Joy? Joy.
When Eve comes to her feet, Emily blinks. Falcor? When she realizes, when it becomes clear to her Eve thinks of the ice-monster doctor as a friend, the teenager comes to her feet as well, the armchair stuttering back on the floor from how rapidly, how forcefully she rises.
Eve's information stays Emily from lashing out, storming out, or both. Because it seems she has some. Still, the young woman's fist curls by her side, nails biting into palm as she wrestles between reconciling with learning what Eve knows and what Eve thinks about those people she knows. Her brow ticks up at hearing the name of the project, furrows down again when she explains what it was.
Emily blinks slowly, her feet shifting as she stows the urge to run from this information. She forces herself to remain rooted, both in body and mind, to not shy away from it. Because maybe it would be useful. Maybe this would be the answer to her question. Eve's stuttering about Joy merits a shake of the younger woman's head. "Against him? I don't know — she wiped Devon's memory repeatedly. I honestly don't know if what was left to recover was there on purpose or by mistake. But she did … try to—"
When the prone-to-sparking former seer steps toward her, Emily slides a step back, the armchair bumped and scraping the floor in her attempted retreat. "I—" she stammers, not sure how to answer Eve's question. If she wants to. Her own expression is pained as she looks down and away. "It wasn't clear. A lab somewhere. No windows," she admits at first before her head shakes slowly, reluctantly adding, "But when he escaped, it was off of a submarine. It had to have been near New York, because otherwise…" Emily manages to look up toward Eve, bangs hanging across her face and hooding her gaze. She either figures the woman can infer the end of the sentence herself, or she suspects Eve might launch into another mania and is trying to be on guard for it.
"Had is the right word, Devon's escape leaves a trail. A pity, someone like Young Cassandra could unravel all the secrets in a submarine? And he calls me dramatic." A snort and Eve is puffing again on her joint. "He would have left, he's always on the move anyway but he was close. He'll come closer still, might even come after Devon if he's been gone. You make sure you watch him, your man."
This has been a lot, Eve keeps smoking but she moves away from Emily going to stare out the window, "Institute Science Fairies, captured by the Hounds, they are your best bet on more information on the Hydra." The older woman opens the window allowing the smoke to swirl outside and she ashes out to the back alley below the sounds of the Safe Zone rush in.
"Ah! Can you tell me something? What happened to the body known as Sibyl Black? You were with her last I saw," and ran from, "Bird was in there but that doesn't seem to be the case now." Eve's head tilts to the side.
Emily regards Eve warily even after she moves away, arms folding tightly before her as she listens. When she poses the question back, the younger woman furrows her brow. "She…"
Working her jaw for a moment, Emily lifts her head as she finishes her answer by saying, "I don't know. Her body disappeared, or something. Not sure if someone took it, or…" It's a careful thing, cutting off that hope that maybe the girl known as Sibyl Black had somehow persisted on underneath and maybe woke up. She shakes her head instead. "Eileen described her as a psychic well, said whoever the real Sibyl was died during the war. I—" Emily pauses, shifting her look back to Eve. "I don't know."
And that was less relevant to the current, more important topic at hand. "I want to do anything I can to keep Devon safe. But I'm not sure on— interviewing any Institute scientists, or anything like that." Her tone is careful, the thought being considered even as she implies it's out of the question. "Not me, anyway." But the mere mention of Wolfhound has her mind turning, a single idea turning into a flicker of hope toward exploring that path. A small light.
If she could figure out how to frame the question.
"Eve," Emily says suddenly, her posture straightening. Her words heavy with something, maybe the onset of unease and regret. "What I told you — it wasn't my secret to tell. Can you please keep this to yourself?"
If Eve hears anything after what is said beyond Sibyl Black's body disappearing she doesn't show it, in fact her red eyed gaze goes glassy and she blinks, "Blocks…" Flashes of that vision in Yamagato of the young girl destroying a city of blocks. "City blocks…" Shaking her head viciously, "That's all the time I have today Emily," Emily?
The former seer stalks over to the blonde and takes her arm, pulling her towards the front door of her apartment. "Ask the Hounds to interview the Science Fairies, they have connections." Eve's pitch is feverish but her grip is tight and her eyes not there.
As the two women get to the threshold of the apartment Eve politely, firmly, erratically, lets the younger woman loose and slams the front door in her face. On the other side, Eve's eyes widen as she presses her back against the wood with another shake of her head, "Blocks… city blocks…"
Emily barely has her feet under her before the door is slamming shut. She gets halfway through a pinwheel of her arm before she's steadied, glaring at the door behind her.
All things considered, it went better than she'd ever expected a conversation with Eve Mas to go. She knows more than she did before, which serves both as a boon and a precarious step closer to explicit danger. Yeah, asking for help from Wolfhound would be … a bitch, maybe. But she won't know until she tries that, either. If she regrets that, too, will be a question needing addressed only then.
She had her current regrets to face first.
Hesitantly, she lifts a hand to knock, gaze unfixed as she listens hard. "Eve? You all right?"
Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec
Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec
Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec
"Not to worry Emily!" There goes the use of her actual name again. Eve's hand goes to her chest and she goes for the counter where her cellphone lies. Clicking it open as she rushes over to the open window that she slams shut. A crack spider up in the corner. The pale woman doesn't notice as she places a text in the Boom Chat:
DRAGON! SIBYL! MY VISION!
Excitate vos e somno, liberi mei
Cunae sunt non
Next she looks through her contact list, scrolling through the alphabet while she mutters to herself all the while dark strands of hair matted to her lips as her hangs open and she settles on a name and clicks call. Arm flailing about her as she goes to pacing, nearing a book of sketches that lays open on the coffee table. With a wild gaze the woman flips through the paper.
Settling on a page the woman sit back and looks down with wide crimson eyes, heart beating wildly in her chest. She had to be wrong about this hunch, her vision… the city… the world. Eve shuts her eyes as the call goes to voicemail, "It's Eve," head bowed as she picks up a color pencil and begins to scratch hard into the surface of the paper. "We need to talk. Now." Ending the call and tossing the device to the side on the couch as she rips the page from the book and stares down at it the whole time shaking her head. Her body begins to glow with that iridescent red glow that she's become use to and her veins lighten.
"Fuck."
Hours Later…
The Well
Ardente veritate
Urite mala mundi
The sound of stone being moved can be heard in the shifting winds, the hunched over figure of Eve is busy at work wrestling a heavy rock up from the ground, bending from the knees as hair flies wildly around the place, crimson lightning cracks and pops around her as she sits it on the lip of the Well with a loud grunt.
Reaching into her bra to rip out the page that she brought from home the wind blows the folds open to reveal a sketch of a young girl sitting and playing with what appears to be building blocks resembling a city, except the city is being destroyed. There are alterations on the page all done in the shame shade of yellow, it was the closest she had to gold on hand.
Sibyl Black
The girl's eyes were frantically colored in that shade of yellow. As well as a warning, underlined three times in jagged handwriting.
Valete liberi
Diebus fatalibus
Watch. Out.