#or hacking radio waves which i mean that's still some sort of off-on thing

[1o1percentmilk]

i actually think hatori is more of an electrical/hardware engineer than an informatics/information technology/software engineering person

[hypnoticwinter]

Down the Rabbit Hole part 20

May 10, 1984.

I have been down in the Pit for about two weeks now and I feel as though I am at my wit’s end. Not only have some of these passages collapsed in on themselves but it seems as though this map, which the people at the Natural Resources office assured me was the most up-to-date map of the area they had, is horribly wrong. I keep returning to the same landmarks I have seen a dozen times now, taking passages that the map says ought to lead to the areas I am trying to reach, but I end up right back at the same spot again.

There are none of the call boxes down here; I am very far off the trail. I have the radio phone that they gave me at the office but I have not tried to use it yet. Even if I did call for help, I doubt that any of the rangers would be able to find their way to me. I have heard stories that even the people who live and work down here get lost more often than not. They don’t like to tell these stories but after having worked with them for so long, you overhear things.

I am fine on food for now, and if worse comes to worst I can always cook up small hunks of the walls and floors. I know it is frowned upon but I would rather not starve when there is a wealth of food all around me.

If I don’t return with at least a sample I will be in deep water. I am already on thin ice as it is, so to speak; when I returned from my last expedition the administrator told me that whatever I had done to the copepods had stirred them up something fierce, and that they had already taken three rangers that week. I pretended ignorance but inwardly I was terrified; if he had found out what I knew…

Sometimes I think I may be being followed, but I have seen no evidence of it. It is just a feeling. I do my best to laugh it off.

After all, who would be crazy enough to follow me down here?

 May 12, 1984.

Made it to the Village but the bridge is out. Spectacular view, a vast churning ocean of acid and various fluids surging out of the orifices above and pounding down the long gullet-like drop below. The Village is taunting me from the other side.

The metal of the bridge looks befouled somehow. I’m not sure, I have not seen anything like this before. Not rust or corrosion but like the inch-thick metal has been crumpled or wrinkled like the wrapper of a candy bar. The majority of the bridge is simply missing, having probably fallen down into the abyss below. I spent an hour cursing my luck. I will have to turn back.

 May 13, 1984.

Took a triocanth today. Like Rainier said, the meat of its abdomen was savoury, not unlike lobster, but with a faint and offputting aftertaste that became gradually fouler the more I ate. I had to discard the majority of it. I did not need to eat it, I still have some food left, but I wanted to see how bad it would be when I ran out.

Later in the day I began the ascent back up. I am not entirely empty-handed; I managed to retrieve some of the smaller ‘pearls’ from Oyster’s Shame. Of course they are not pearls at all, more like gallstones, but they are valuable. If you can preserve them they make a perfectly fireproof and perfectly flexible material, and I have heard that ground into a paste they can be used as components in electronics, although I haven’t the faintest idea how exactly that works. I doubt the pearls will be enough, though. If only I could have gotten to the village! I am still cursing my bad luck from the day before. I spent all evening trying to find some way to get across but there were none. It all depended on the bridge and I had not even thought that it might have been destroyed.

At least the rangers will be glad to know of it; from what I hear they venture down here only rarely.

Still feel as though I am being followed.

 May 16, 1984.

I am being followed. I’ve seen the man following me, I caught him in the shadow of an ancient, halfway-drained gizzard when I happened to turn around. He was huge, twice as big as I am, and when I called out and shone my light on him he burst apart into a thousand worms or snakes or leeches and they all fled.

I would have thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me or that my mind was beginning to go but when I made my way back to the spot where the man had stood I found a leech there caught under a fold of flesh that had fallen over on top of it when it had tried to flee. It was nearly the size of my arm, but deflated and wrinkled, with a mouth full of flanged teeth. I hacked it into five pieces but some reflex still allowed it to bite me, albeit shallowly, when I picked it up.

I thought I had found the way back up but when I checked the map the passage I was in was not there at all. After about five hundred feet of treacherous twists and turns the stents ran out and the passage compressed down to nothing and I had to make my way back. I made a bright fire tonight and did not sleep much.

 May 17, 1984.

I woke at three A.M. to vomit. Pounding headache. Do not feel well. Have rations gone bad?

 May 17, 1984.

Not the rations. The bite is swollen and infected. I tried to climb further today but was too weak to. My arm feels like it will fall off. Something in the saliva. Why did I pick it up?

 May 17, 1984.

Saw it again today. It is massive. Came to the edge of my camp and stared at me while I pointed at it with my knife and shouted imprecations. I was delirious.

It is somewhat like a starfish, in that it forms itself into a five-pointed shape, but it goes upright on two of the ‘legs’ while two others hang by its side and the other stands straight up towards the ceiling. It seems to be composed of thousands of leeches but why they band together in this manner I do not know. It did nothing to me and eventually vanished, but I passed out from the strain soon afterwards and when I came to a few hours later I was not sure if I had really seen it.

Still feel awful, but not as bad as yesterday. Think I may pull through. I will still have to find some way out of here, but I got here somehow, therefore there must be a way out. I wasn’t able to make it to the village but maybe Rainier and Duke LaVerne will understand.

I think this will be my last time coming down here. One way or another.

 I look up at Elena. “That’s the last one?” I ask her, and she nods.

“That’s all they found at Tim Beaufort’s campsite down there in the Gut. There might have been more but they weren’t able to find it. Or him.”

“So that’s where the story of the Leechman comes from, then?”

“Initially,” she yawns. I close out my wrist screen like she taught me to do and then lean back, glare around the interior of Oyster’s Shame like I’m expecting the Leechman to be standing there in the corner like Mike Myers staring at Laurie Strode or something. “There’ve been other sightings through the years but nothing really concrete. Not that Beaufort’s story is very concrete either, but it was spooky. I’ve always thought it was just the Pit’s version of Bigfoot, just something you scare rookies with.”

I glance over at her. Back inside the station someone bangs into something and curses. Fumi is messing with the stove again but the mood isn’t nearly as jovial as it was before.

The Sergeant’s been trying to get on the radio with Makado for the past couple of hours but there’s some kind of interference. Elena thinks it’s from the nerve clusters surrounding this place; evidently it’s packed full and sometimes when the Pit…thinks too hard? Or something similar, some sort of equivalent, it blanks out every connection from here to the Village.

Whatever the Village is. I asked Elena but she started a couple of times and then just shook her head. “You’d have to see it to believe it,” she told me, and no matter how much I pestered her she wouldn’t budge, just giving me a secretive little smile and telling me to buzz off and then tickling me when I’d persist.

“Why’re we all dead, Elena?” I ask, after enough silence has passed. The field heating pouch is working on my MRE so I don’t have anything to do at present besides chew on a fairly grainy shelf-stable cracker and watch her eat her goulash. She looks up at me alarmed and gives me a concerned Tim Allen-esque grunt and I can’t help it, I burst out laughing. Everyone looks round at us and I let it fade fast, try not to blush, but then I’m blushing and I feel awful. “I mean,” I say in a low whisper, once everyone’s returned to their meals, “you know how earlier you said that we were all dead? After I showed everybody the video I took? What did you mean?”

“Oh,” Elena waves, taking another bite. “Yeah, that’s just like, part of the myth. Supposedly if the Leechman catches sight of you or gets your scent or however the hell it works, that’s it, it’s going to hunt you down no matter what. No way of stopping it, no nothing. Like Jason from Friday the 13th.”

“Spooky.”

“So yeah,” Elena smiles, wiggling her fingers at me, warbling her voice. “You’re next, Roan!”

“I take it you don’t think that was a Leechman on the video, then.”

“The Leechman. There’s only one, supposedly.”

“The Leechman, then.”

“I don’t know what it was,” she says, stabbing at her pouch of food. I’ve just taken mine out of the bag and nearly burned my fingers it was so hot. “It might have been the Leechman, sure. But I think if there was something like that down here, there’d have been footage of it before today.”

“There’s not?”

“There is one grainy photograph, that’s it.”

I think about that for a while, roll it around in my head like a particularly distasteful morsel of food that I know I have to eat.

Well, Roan, break it down. What if it’s true? What if there really is a giant monster made out of leeches stomping around out there and it’s going to come for you and that’s that, nothing to be done about it?

I almost, almost shove it out of my mind and forget about it, don’t even bother to entertain the notion, but I catch myself, force myself to feel that heady quake of fear that I feel rising up my throat like a hot flash when I realize that I don’t want to die, that for all of my bluster and bravado, for all of my playacting by taking up chain-smoking and coming down to Gumption on a damn-fool errand, I don’t want to die.

It’s a new feeling and not one I enjoy. It makes me feel weak. When I felt like I was hollow I think I also felt stronger.

“There something wrong with your MRE?” Elena asks, and I frown, look over at her.

“What?”

“You were just giving it a very strange face,” she says, gesturing with her fork.

“Oh,” I roll my eyes. “It’s nothing.”

“You sure?” she asks. “You’re acting –“

I reach over and squeeze her knee gently. “Don’t you worry about me, alright?”

“I’ve been doing nothing but,” she says, and I smile at her and start to say something else, when the Sergeant comes walking out of the station behind us and gestures at me.

“Merriweather,” he says, in a surprisingly calm tone of voice, “I’ve got Miss Veret on the line finally, she wants to speak with you.”

“With me?” I blurt, while Elena studiously avoids my gaze. I haven’t really prodded at it but I don’t want to push my luck with her concession about not rocking the boat until the mission’s over. She’s still quietly furious at both Peter and Makado; I’ve caught her staring at Peter several times, something close to hate in her eyes. Well, maybe that’s being melodramatic. She blames him, though, I’m certain of it, and I – well, I don’t blame her.

The Sergeant ushers me in to the back room – I can’t stop myself from glancing over at the lumpy mass in the corner, trail of blood still leading to it, now hidden beneath an emergency blanket – and holds out a wired phone receiver to me. Immediately a blast of static assaults my ears and I jerk the handset back, but then I can hear Makado’s voice and the static quiets.

“Makado?” I ask. I see the Sergeant’s eyes narrow fractionally as he registers that I’ve called her by her first name but I turn away from him, lean up against the wall.

“Hey, Roan,” she says. She’s put on a brisk, clipped tone but her voice is full of concern. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. There’s a lot going on down here, though.”

“Trust me, I know,” she groans. “We hadn’t heard from the Listening Station in a while but that’s normal, the electrical disturbances in the area can sometimes cut off communications, so nobody here had thought anything of it. I’m going to have to fill out a lot of forms in triplicate tonight. But you’re fine?”

“Yeah, yeah, nothing happened to me, I’m okay.”

“Okay, good. I, uh.”

I frown, glance down at the handset. It isn’t like her to prevaricate. “I wanted to call you first because the situation is evolving up here just as much as it is down there and…the mission might become more dangerous than I’d initially anticipated.”

“What are you saying?”

“I can get you out of there,” she tells me, and it’s like I’ve been hit by a bullet, like I’ve been electrified. I look up at the Sergeant without even meaning to and his face is as unreadable as a bare concrete wall. “But you’d have to leave now,” Makado tells me, ploughing through my moment of stunned confusion. “If you wait much longer I don’t know if I’ll be able to get you out.”

I open my mouth and close it again. I let the seconds roll on so long that Makado says my name again, voice hesitant, as though she’s afraid we’ve lost connection. “I’m still here,” I breathe. I close my eyes. “If I say yes, could you get anybody else out?” I ask her. “One of the other rangers, I mean.”

“No,” Makado says. “I need all of them down there. You can hand off the camera to someone else, I know it’s your camera but I’ll buy you a new one like I said.”

“Definitely not?”

“Huh? Oh, as far as someone else coming out? Yeah, I can’t. Don’t worry, I’ll be here tracking you on the map and I’ll be able to talk you through the way out.”

I smile faintly. “That’s really kind of you, Makado, but I’m staying.”

There’s a moment of frozen silence before I hear Makado cough. “You’re staying?” she asks, and I nod.

“I’m not a quitter. I appreciate it, I really do, but I’m going to see this through.”

I hear her sigh over the line, a whispery gust barely distinguishable from the interference surrounding it. “Well,” she says, “I guess I underestimated you.”

“I’m used to it.”

She starts to say something, then stops, and I smile a little to myself and cut her off. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m okay down here.”

“You’re…doing better?”

“Yeah. I, ah…took a little field trip the other day. Felt a little better afterwards.”

The Sergeant gives me a dubious look but I ignore him.

“All the more reason to get out while you can,” she says, “but I guess you’re determined. Well, I – I admire your character. Jesus Christ,” she laughs, “listen to me, I’m losing it in my old age. Good for you. Don’t die down there, alright?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Yes,” she says softly, “I imagine you will. Can you put Mr. Van Der Leeuwen back on the phone, please?”

“Who?” I blurt, before my eyes flick over to the Sergeant and I realize. I smile at him and I am only a little shocked when he smiles back. “Oh,” I say, “right.”

“See you.”

“You as well,” I tell her, and then I pass it back to the Sergeant and wander back out of the station, feeling like there are wings spreading behind me and trailing dust on all the surfaces as they squeeze through, feeling, infinitesimally and unplaceably, as though the Roan of even just three days ago would have jumped at the offer not quite before it cleared Makado’s lips.

Elena’s finished her meal by now and has mine sitting idly on her lap, saving it for me probably, and when she hears my footsteps behind her she leans around and cranes her neck up at me and then nearly does a double-take. I smile at her and ask what the matter is and she just says that I look happy, and when she says that it’s all I can do to stop myself from leaning down and taking her head in my hands and kissing her long and hard and slow right there.

“I am happy,” I tell her, plopping myself down next to her on the stairs and squeezing her tightly for a moment, just a moment – even if what Slate said the other day was true and we weren’t being as inconspicuous as I’d hoped, I still don’t want to make a production out of it. Not in public, anyway.

Oh, poor Slate. He’d begun to grow on me, he really had. It’s a weird feeling, knowing that he’s gone now, that the guy who was flirting with me three days ago and grinning at me just earlier while we all swapped stories just…disappeared, without even a body left behind to show for it. Now he’s nothing but memories and a bloodstained helmet.

Now Elena asks me why I’m happy and I tell her briefly what Makado had told me, and Elena’s face brightens immeasurably. “Oh, thank god,” she groans. “You’re getting out of here? You’re going to be safe?”

“I – what – no,” I tell her, spluttering a little, “I told her no, I said I wanted to stay down here. I asked her if I could get someone to come out with me and she said no, so I told her I was going to stay. You’re not smiling,” I observe, stupidly. She’s staring at me, mouth slightly open.

“Tell me you’re joking.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“Roan,” she says, starting to get up before she remembers the tray of food on her lap. She settles for just twisting around and pointing back at the station. “Go back in there while she’s still on the phone and tell her you’ve changed your mind!” she hisses at me.

“What?” I blurt, and then realize everyone’s looked round and lower my voice “Are you crazy?” I ask her.

“Are you?”

“Elena, I – I thought you’d be happy!”

“You thought I would be happy? Happy that you’re choosing to stay here, in danger, just so you can spend a little more time with me? The thing that’d make me happiest, Roan,” she says, reaching up to stroke my cheek, “is if I knew for a fact you were up there waiting for me, not hanging around down here where you’re liable to get eaten or dissolved or spiked or skewered or what the hell ever else. If I knew I would be coming back to you and that you’d be safe and sound.”

I have, I realize, at some point during that little speech, bitten my lip hard enough to leave a mark. She looks at me with mixed mournfulness and resignation and finally I manage to unstick my jaw long enough to offer a plaintive and unsatisfactory “oh,” and Elena laughs.

“This is pointless,” she murmurs. Her eyes are flicking over my face and for a moment I want so badly that it’s painful to know what she sees when she looks at me. “You’ve already made up your mind, haven’t you?”

I nod, slowly. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t think –“

“You stop that,” she says, prodding me in the ribs with a sly smile. I yelp and cover my mouth reflexively, glaring daggers at her, but her smile latches on to me and then I’m grinning back at her like a damn fool. “Stop being sorry for shit like that,” she tells me, a little more seriously.

“But you’re going to worry about me,” I point out. “About if I’ll die down here.”

“Anything that’s going to want to kill you has got to go through me first,” she says, and I feel as though a massive warm hand has taken my heart in its palm and squeezed. I open my mouth to tell her – well, I don’t know what I wanted to tell her.

The door behind us bangs open and I jump. “Everybody into the meeting room!” The Sergeant calls, and then me and Elena share a glance and file in along with everyone else.

“Hi guys,” Makado says, voice crackly on speakerphone, once the Sergeant’s confirmed that everyone’s inside. What passes next is about an hour of the dullest game of verbal chicken I’ve ever had the misfortune to be witness to. Makado is trying desperately to convince the team to keep on going, down to the barrows to get the crystal and then back up, and something about the subtle and quiet note of underlying nerves in her voice makes me realize something – she really doesn’t have any power over us.

I mean, think about it – what would she do if we all decided that we had had enough, that we weren’t going to go through with it, that we were just going to make our way back up to the surface and hit the canteen? She’d be furious, of course, she’d be beyond pissed at the team, but it isn’t like they were doing anything illegal. This is a company now, they’d get fired and life would move on. Maybe they wouldn’t even get fired; someone like Elena, for instance, someone with cave diving and rescue skills, would probably be impossible to promptly replace, if at all – maybe the Pit pays well, better than a place like the Coast Guard would, but you’d also have to find the people who can cave dive and don’t mind operating inside of a living nightmare like the Pit. Cuts an already slim pool in half, or more.

I think I understand now why Makado’s seemed always to behave so chummily with the people nominally under her command, something I’d noticed up on the surface; the few times she’d come to visit us in the barracks she was welcomed like one of the rangers, like a favorite boss who doesn’t rock the boat very much. It’s because as soon as the team is down here, doing something important, every decision from above becomes a negotiation instead of just an order to be obeyed.

And it also makes more sense to me why the Sergeant is such a hardass – if he’s the bad cop to Makado’s good cop, the people on the team are more likely to listen to her, just cause she’s more sympathetic – and then, double-duty, while they’re down here and under his command directly, they’re more likely to do what he says without any argument because they don’t want him pissed off at them.

Right now, though, it looks as though the Sergeant isn’t entirely holding up his end of the deal. He’s stood there like a statue for the last half an hour, only disappearing for a little bit towards the beginning to grab himself a cup of coffee, not uttering a word, his granite-like expression not slipping, not even a little. He ought to be cracking down on the dissent that’s being thrown her way but he’s not, he’s just letting Ellis and Fumi and Crookshank practically demand to know what is so goddam important about this fucking crystal that it was worth Slate dying for, and it’s got Makado in a bind because she very, very clearly does not want to tell us. She talks around it, never flat-out saying that she won’t but avoiding it. This goes on for a while until Crookshank, fuming, slams his hand on the table, making me jump. Elena, who’s been holding my hand in both of hers in her lap, glances over at me and squeezes my hand lightly, and when our eyes meet she gives me a faint smile.

“Makado,” Crookshank says, in a surprisingly level tone of voice, “if you can’t tell us what’s important about this crystal, we’re not going to get it for you.”

It would be Crookshank that put voice to it that baldly, but as I look around the table I see slow nods. “Yeah,” Fumi says, and although many of us glance over at the Sergeant, he remains silent.

Makado sighs and in it I can hear a note of defeat, trickling down plainly through however many hundreds of feet and flesh and rock.

“Alright,” she says softly.

The crystal is important, she says, because in the 2007 disaster the thing that they used to make the Pit stop from waking up entirely was an array of three carved crystals that had been found back in the 70s at the original Indian ritual grounds, and it had been determined through rigorous and secretive testing that striking the carved crystals produced vibrations of a certain wavelength impossible to replicate by any other means that exerted some sort of influence or control over the Pit. Striking them in a certain way could make it wake up, striking them in another way could make it convulse, and so on. These crystals had been incorporated into some sort of machine that was supposed to, if there ever was a disaster as serious as the one in 2007, spin the crystals up and strike a certain tone that would have been loud enough to pound downwards into whatever the Pit used for a brain and get it to go into a coma, or to kill it – they weren’t entirely sure.

The plan had worked, though not without a few hiccups, Makado says, but the biggest hiccup of all was that the crystals had shattered when that tone was struck, and since then this is the first time they’ve had one within their grasp. If they can get the crystal, get it up to the lab and carve it out the way the natives of the area must have, thousands if not tens of thousands of years ago, they might have another ace in the hole in case the Pit starts to wake up again.

I wonder, briefly, what might happen if a person were inside the Pit when that tone resounded through the creature, a tone so powerful it was able to knock out something like the Pit. I wonder about the cause of that mysterious psychic illness Peter and Makado had alluded to, I wondered about the nosebleeds Makado had told me about, when she was telling the story about the amalgam.

Perhaps -

“Because,” Makado says, “I’m not going to sugarcoat this – it is going to wake up. We’ve been hearing rumblings, down there in the depths, in the Gut and elsewhere, muscle contractions, palpitations, activity in areas that have lain dormant since 2007. I’ve been speaking to Science and their opinion is that the Pit is building up a tolerance to the sedative we use, and without that, all the other measures, the deliberate starvation, nerve clipping, muscle relaxants – they won’t be enough to stop something like 2007, or something worse, from happening again.”

I hear her blow out a big breath.

“I don’t know what it’ll be like if it wakes up again. You all know that the Pit’s too big to be ambulatory, but it’s got appendages it can move and feed with, and its size makes it a threat to a very big chunk of Texas if it were to be able to move them with coordination. Thanks to us, if it wakes up again, it’ll be hungry. You decide if it’s worth it.”

The line clicks off and we sit there in silence for a moment. The Sergeant levers himself off the wall and plonks his empty mug down on the table. “Think about it,” he says to all of us. “We’ll sleep here tonight and then tomorrow we’ll make a decision.”

So we sleep there tonight and tomorrow we make a decision. Despite the dead body in the Station nothing comes poking around to bother us, or at least if anything does it took one look at Joker and scampered off. Elena and I stayed up for a little but again we found that there was nothing to say; I contented myself with stroking my hands along the naked expanse of her body, not in a sexual way, just because I liked the way her skin felt beneath my fingertips. She held very still, a ghost of a smile fluttering over her lips. I found her hips and squeezed them, traced circles around her nipples, ran my hand down the toned flat expanse of her belly, the dark patch of stubble below beckoning me, but I controlled myself. I stared at it for a moment, then flicked my eyes up to her face, to her unruly mop of blonde hair.

Elena shifts her hands along my backside, squeezing at me, and I made a little noise deep in my throat. “You’re like a cat,” she told me. It’s the first thing either of us said  in about a half an hour. Her other hand was tucked up beneath me and tangled in my hair. I leant in and kissed her.

“Do you dye your hair?” I asked her, and she laughed.

“That’s such a random question.”

“I was curious.”

“I do,” she said.

“Why?”

“Cause I don’t like brown,” she said primly. I arched an eyebrow at her.

“I have brown hair,” I pointed out, and she smiled, looks up at it.

“Yes, you do. But it looks good on you.”

“I think you’d look good with brown hair.”

“We should go to sleep,” she told me. I pull her closer against me, knocking against one of the tent’s metal support struts with my elbow.

“Shit,” I grunt, and she laughed.

We said a few more things but nothing important. I kissed her on the neck and she giggled, and then we fell asleep, arms and legs tangled together like knots. I was afraid I’d dream but instead there was nothing, not even a sensation that I had dreamed and forgotten it as soon as I’d woken, just closing my eyes and then opening them when Elena had sat up, the alarm on her watch beeping at us. I looked at the shifting muscles in her back, at the long thin scar along one of her shoulder blades, and then I reached out for her and pulled her back down into me and nuzzled my face all along the soft, smooth places of her body and she kept laughing and saying that we had to get up, that it was going to be a long day, but I told her that if that was the case we ought to make the most of our morning, and she considered that and then turned with a feral grin and fell on me and all was well for a while.

Then, when we were through, we got dressed and clambered out of the tent and found that a consensus had been reached without us, although it was one we’d agreed with – that if Slate’s (presumed) death, and the (presumed) deaths of the other four people who worked at the Deep Listening Station, and the (definite) death of the one we’d found were to mean anything, were to be worth it – I felt something like a shudder at that phrase, at the notion of a death like that being ‘worth it’ – we would have to continue. If it was as important as Makado said, we would have to continue. And when the Sergeant told us this, that we’d been outvoted, he nodded to me and said that if I wanted to take Makado’s offer up anyway, she’d informed him that she’d be able to guide me up out of the darkness, and that nobody here would think anything less of me for taking the easy way out.

And then I looked at Elena and she’d looked at me, and I thought I saw something imploring in her eyes, so I looked away from her, but I couldn’t say anything to him, not just yet. I knew that we were going to make it to the barrows today and some freakish mortal fear had taken ahold of me and its teeth were so deep and cold and serrated that I didn’t trust myself to speak. I thought of the stories Peter and Makado had told me, I thought of poor Eileen, dragged off by a copepod, and for a moment I wanted so badly to say yes, okay, tap me out, I’m done, you guys have fun down here, but it passed quickly and replaced itself with something hard and cast-iron and heavy sinking into the pit of my stomach. It took me a moment to recognize it as determination, and then I was smiling at the Sergeant, I imagine rather beatifically.

“No,” I said. “Absolutely not.”

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Positive. Why dip out when it’s just getting exciting?”

And with that, after a little more puttering around and making sure everyone was collected and on the ball with what was to be done today, we took the second-largest vent out of Oyster’s Shame, leaving its spongy and beautiful luminescence behind, leaving the dead body behind, leaving, I certainly hoped, the Leechman behind, and began the long, slow, treacherous climb downwards to the copepod barrows.

Continue with Part 21

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[woozibby]

Control | Jihoon | Part 1

a.n. originally posted on my shared blog, but moving everything here to my main blog. 

// unedited 

1 | Next 

The static of the radio echoed throughout the room as the blinking computer lights filled your eyesight. Typing away at your computer, the exaggerated sigh left Mingyu’s lips.

“Are you even smart enough to do this?” You scoffed.

You? Smart enough to hack into the opposing mafia’s database to secretly download their mission plan for the next two months. Of fucking course, you were smart enough. You were Jeon Wonwoo’s younger sibling for god sake.

It had been a thing since you were younger that, whatever Wonwoo did, you followed. So you learnt a lot of stuff whilst growing up, but once you found out more about computers and their systems you did everything you could, to learn everything you could.

“Shut Up Mingeww and let me focus” you sniggered, you knew the use of that nickname would just piss him off more.

“I swear to god if you weren’t Wonwoo’s younger siblings I would have decked you by now” Mingyu stresses, crossing his arms over his chest and tapping his foot against the floor. Rolling your eyes, you let the comment pass over your head as you knew Mingyu never would do that, especially not to someone on his own side as well.

“I have to find a backdoor in their systems, make sure if they do even notice that someone’s hacked in that it jumps to at least a 1000 different IP address very ten minutes or so, so it can’t be tracked back to us” You explained, you threw a look over your shoulder at Mingyu and raised an eyebrow. “And let me guess, you want me to try and put some sort of spyware into their system too”

Mingyu blinked for a moment, he almost looked confused- before snapping out of it and nodding his head.

“If you can do it without getting caught then sure” You let out a sigh, before linking your fingers and cracking them in front of you.

“It ain’t going to be easy, but trust me, I’m the one for the job” Mingyu clicked his tongue as he ruffled your hair.

“You really are Wonwoo’s sibling aren’t you?”

“Without a doubt my dude, without a doubt”

“Minghao will probably be by later to check up, Wonwoo is still out with DK checking things out” you hummed, waving your hand up.

That was his queue to leave. To leave you to do what you do best. Hack the shit out of the rival mafia’s database. Mingyu rolled his eyes at you but leaves quietly anyways. Shutting the door behind him, he lets out a small sigh.

“You better get this right kid”

You had spent your whole life in the mafia, yours and Wonwoo’s father was the leader of the South Side Mafia, but when an argument between your father and his right-hand man caused your father to get shot and killed, the mafia got split into two. The side that supported your father and the side that supported his right-hand man.

Wonwoo quickly took over your father’s position, growing up quickly considering he was still only 18 at the time, whereas you were 16 at the time. Wonwoo, for the most part, tried to hide you well from people outside the Mafia. It was safer for you to stay secrete than to be in harm’s way.

You understood that, if anything, staying secrete helped you with your job of hacker/computer expert.

The other side, on the other hand, got taken over by Choi Seungcheol, the too cocky for his own good son of your father’s right-hand man. Seungcheol was handsome, he knew that too well. He had an ego the size of a double-decker bus. Even though it had been three years since the initial split of the Mafia, the war- if you could even call it that- was still ongoing.

After a few hours, you managed to bypass their firewall and not long after that, you bypassed all their sensors. You raised an eyebrow to yourself as you clicked through some of the files. You bite your lip as you continued, the whole process seems too easy.

You loved an easy job, but this? This was too easy and too easy was risky.

You continued on, cautiously of course. Clicking through files and going through walls of security, you start to locate the file of their plans for the next few months.

The door opens behind you, which doesn’t surprise you and Minghao appears beside you with two large cups of coffee.

“Thought you need this” He chuckles, placing a coffee next to you and moving to the small couch of coffee table that was in the room. Humming, you send him a smile and quickly pick up the large cup and sip at it.

“Thanks, Hao” After you place it back down and go back to work. Letting out a sigh, you turn your head to Minghao and send him a look. “Hao, I think there’s something off about this”

He raises an eyebrow and pulls up a chair to sit next to you.

“What do you mean?”

“This was so easy to hack into, this was more than easy, it was easy and quick and for hacking that isn’t always a good thing,” Minghao chuckles slightly, sending you a look.

“You have a way with words don’t you” With a blank you stare at him.

“This really isn’t the time Hao” Chuckling again, he motions you to continue. “Most big organisations, have their things to the most part un-hackable, but your favourite person here isn’t just anyone, so normally things like this can take at the least a day or two to hack into, because of their firewalls and their systems, but do you know how long this took to hack into?” You asked, pointing at him. He raised an eyebrow.

“Half a day?”

“No! Three hours!” You hold up three fingers to exaggerate.

“Maybe you’re just too good at hacking” You laughed, flicking some hair over your shoulder.

“I may be good, but I’m not that good” Minghao keeps silent and I soon continue to talk. “Anyways, this is way too quick to be able to hack in a big organisation like this, especially a mafia”

“Yeah, I understand what you’re saying”

“I think something’s up, I can upgrade the amount of IP address it switches to so it never gets back to us, but I still think something’s fishy about this” Minghao nods, agreeing.

“Upgrade the amount of IP addresses, if you can get what you came for and get out of it, make sure there’s no way to trace back to us” You nod at what Minghao was staying and quickly get on it.

“I’ll get it done before you can say My I”

“Okay then, M-” You cut Minghao off with a laugh and lean back in your chair.

“Done!” Minghao looks at you with a shocked expression and you send him another blank look. “What? You think I couldn’t really do it?” Chuckling, he shakes his head.

“You amaze me every time”

“Well you amaze me too” Turning back to your computer, you finishing doing your final things and kept the machine next to your computer that changed the IP address on. Once you had successfully shut everything off, you turned back to Minghao and smiled at him. “Now where’s my brother?”

Seungcheol raised the cigarette to his lips and took a long drag. He sat with his feet up on his desk and a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes. To most, this would seem unprofessional, but to the rest of the mafia, this was just your typical Tuesday lunchtime.

Seungcheol was professional when needs are, but on days like today, when he had no meetings some time to himself in the office, well he was going to do it his way.

Jihoon sat across from him, a blood stain on his collar and his gun holstered on his hip. He had unbuttoned his waistcoat once he had gotten back to Seungcheol’s office and leant his head back to look at the ceiling.

Seungcheol leant forward, offering Jihoon a drag from his cigarette with Jihoon declined. Seungcheol scoffed slightly as he chuckled.

“You can kill people, but smoking is what you say no to” Jihoon raises his head to look at him.

“Because you’re letting the stick kill you and you know I only go for the people who deserve it" Seungcheol takes a long drag again and releases it slowly.

”But my younger assassin friend, who can you tell who deserves it or not?“ This time Jihoon scoffs, sending a judging look to Seungcheol.

”Like you’re one to talk, you know I get most of my jobs from you right?“ Seungcheol waves him off as he takes another drag.

”Let’s not think about that right now and let’s just contemplate the meaning of life or something“ Jihoon raised an eyebrow.

”What drugs are in your cigarette?“ He asked, making Seungcheol laugh.

”Nothing is in there, I promise“ He hands out the cigarette ”you can even try it yourself to see" Jihoon just rolled his eyes and denied.

“Yeah, no thanks"

”Your loss“ Seungcheol mutters, leaning back in his chair.

The door swings open and Soonyoung pops his head through the gap in the door. His usual large smile covered his face and his brown hair fell to just above his eyes. Seungcheol moved his feet from off of his desk and turned to Soonyoung’s direction.

”What do you want?“ Soonyoung’s smile for bigger as he laughed.  

"I hate to break the party, but you’ll never guess what our software just picked up” Seungcheol gasped, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.

“You haven’t"  

”Oh, but Boss, we have“ Soonyoung smirked.

”We caught the fly in the trap“ Seungcheol’s smile dropped and he hissed throwing a hand up in Soonyoung’s direction.

”Come on Hosh, what have I told you about using those codes“ Soonyoung sighed, looking away.

”Not to use them“

”And what do you keep doing?“ Seungcheol asks, pushing his lips into a straight line. Soonyoung just sighs as he replies.

”Using them“ Jihoon covers his mouth as he coughs, looking between the two.

”You were on about Hosh?“ Soonyoung’s eyes widen and he nods his head dramatically.

”Ah yes!! Our systems picked up something earlier and I think you’ll want to see what“ Seungcheol picked himself up out of his chair and raises his hands to the roof.

”Then let’s get going shall we?“ He turned his head to Jihoon. ”Ji, you come with"

Jihoon doesn’t bother to argue and just stands up. Running a hand through his dyed red hair, he waits for Seungcheol’s orders.

“Boys, this might be our day!” Seungcheol cries happily, slapping Jihoon on the back and they follow Soonyoung out of the room.

“Isn’t every day our day though?” Soonyoung asks confused and Seungcheol just sighs.

“That it is Hosh, that it is”

They quickly made their way to their tech room, where Soonyoung was normally centred. Soonyoung was their tech guy, their number one hacker. He could spot a bug from a mile away and decode it and send it back in less than ten minutes. Jumping into his chair and crossing his legs, Soonyoung turns himself to his computers. He started to click on some files before a large black document with a bunch of long different codes in red appears on the screen.

“What’s this?” Jihoon asks, leaning against the back of Soonyoung’s chair.

“Well this you see my assassin best friend is a map"

”A map?“ Jihoon asks, unconvinced. Soonyoung hums.

”Well you see, a few days ago I created and set up this trap, which I call the fly trap by the way,  and basically what it does is it makes it seem easier to hack into our systems when in actual fact it’s all false!“ Soonyoung explained, ”from what I heard about their hacker, they should have noticed this straight away, but for some reason they didn’t, maybe they weren’t as smart as I thought they were“ Soonyoung pouted.

”Just get on with it Soonyoung“ Seungcheol panned and Soonyoung nodded his head.

”On it boss, anyways I basically set up a fake system to trick them and I set up all fake documents for them to take and tada!“ Soonyoung cries, clicking on a few buttons and the screen changes into a large map. ”We are in the process of knowing where they are“ Seungcheol clicks his finger and pats Soonyoung on the shoulder.

”God Soonyoung you’re amazing“ Soonyoung smiles, proud of himself.

”They set up so many IP addresses to bounce around, but so it might take a while to directly locate their main source of tech“

”Damn Hosh, you’ve really outdone yourself“ Jihoon compliments.

”It’s all in a day’s work of Hoshi Prince“ Seungcheol and Jihoon just stare at him.

”You know no one calls you that but you right?“ Seungcheol asks, to which Soonyoung nods his head.

”That’s what makes it even more awesome“ Seungcheol shook his head, before turning to Jihoon.

”If anything comes of this-…” Soonyoung cuts him off with a whine.

“This will work!” Seungcheol sighs, rolling his eyes before continuing to talk.

“Soonyoung here will call you with the address, I expect you to take care of this” Jihoon stays silent, just watching Seungcheol as he thinks.

“I’ll get back to you on it,” Jihoon says, waving him off and turning to walk away. After a few steps, Seungcheol calls after him.

“You know if you don’t do this I’ll just get someone else to” Jihoon sent a look over his shoulder.

“And I said I’d get back to you on it, so see you later”

“So you know what you’re doing?” Wonwoo asks, you simply reply by nodding your head and sipping an ice tea.

“I know what I’m doing brother, don’t worry about it” Wonwoo looked blankly at you. You noticed his fist tightened slightly.

“You know I worry about you and you can’t stop me from worrying” You sighed quietly, placing the ice tea down on his desk. You moved slightly so you were sitting on the edge of your seat and placed a hand on his.

“Won, I’m 19 now, I’m not a child you can trust me"

”I know I can trust you, but I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you“ You smiled as you gently squeezed his hand.

”I’m strong, I can fight off anything“ you giggle, releasing his hand and bringing up your fists in a fighting stance. ”They’re going to wish they never tried to go against me“ Wonwoo laughed, shaking his head before running a hand through his hair.

”You really are our father’s daughter“ Wonwoo chuckles, sending you a smile which you return.

”And you are our mother’s son“ Wonwoo sighs, standing up from his chair and motioning to the door.

”You should get back now and start working“ you nodded your head and stood up too.

”Okay Won“ Pulling your big brother into a hug, you both stand there for a moment before pulling away. ”I’ll get right on it“ He patted your head and smiled down at you.

”I’ll come to see you later okay,“ He says. ”I’ll have Mingyu drive you home“ You roll your eyes and huff slightly.

”Mingyu seriously? Why him?“ Suddenly the door opens and Mingyu enters the room.

”Hey! It’s not like I want to drive you back either, so shut up pip-squeak“ You make a face, sending him a look.

”It’s not like I’m short, you’re just freakishly too tall" Mingyu let’s out a whine, rolling his eyes and looking to Wonwoo.

“Why are you asking me to do this?” Wonwoo laughs, as he watches you both.  

“Because you’re my best friend and their my younger sibling, who else would I want to look after them?” Mingyu rolled his eyes again, before muttering a reply.

“I’m only doing this because you said I’m your best friend” Mingyu grabbed onto your wrist before dragging you out of the room. “See you later Won"

”Bye guys“ he laughs, waving you off and going back to sit in his seat.

”Ow! Ow! Ow!“ You repeat, tugging at your wrist. ”Oh wait,“ you ask, getting Mingyu to sigh and stop, also making him let go of your wrist. ”Can we go to McDonald’s on the way back?“

”Oh my god,“ Mingyu says, it was evident in his tone he wasn’t the slightest bit impressed. Happy that your wrist had freedom again, you skip next to him with a large smile on your face.

”Well can we? Can we? Can we?“

”Maybe if you shut up“

You silently giggle to yourself and link your fingers together behind your back. You and Mingyu silently walk until you reach the main elevator and he clicks the call to buttons. For the next few moments, silence continues until the pleasant ding of the elevator arriving is heard.

The doors part and your mouth drops slightly at the sight.

A young looking man, with seemingly dyed red hair and he, had a pair of large sunglasses that covered his eyes. He had on a white button-down shirt, and black trousers with a black waistcoat to match.

You blinked as he nodded his head to Mingyu and looked at you for a single moment before walking past and heading down the hallway. Your mouth dropped more as you gaze followed him. Mingyu just rolled his eyes and grabbed onto your wrist again.

”Oh come on“ You opened and closed your mouth a few times before turning to Mingyu. He leant over and clicked the ground floor.

”Who was he?!“ You felt your cheeks blush. Mingyu shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest.

”I don’t know, probably just someone to see Wonwoo, why?“

”Because, he was the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen“ you gasp, looking at Mingyu with wide eyes. He scoffs, motioning to himself.

”Sorry, but you must be blind as I’m the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen“ You clicked your tongue and sent him a look.

”Oh hunny, I think you’re going blind“ you patted him on the shoulder. ”I think you need to go get your eyes checked“ He forcefully moved his shoulder and your hand fell.

”No, I think you’re the one who needs their eyes checked“

Wonwoo raised his head at the sound of a powerful knock at his office door. Clearing his throat, he spoke.

“Come in”  The redhead pops his head through the gap in the door and cracked a smile. Closing the door behind him, he sat in the seat across from Wonwoo. “Ah, Jihoon, what are you here for?”  

Jihoon didn’t say anything for a moment, he just silently undid his waistcoat and leant his head back and let out a deep sigh. Wonwoo raised an eyebrow, but knowing his friend, he didn’t think too much of it.

“So, what’s going on now?” Picking his head back up, Jihoon stared at Wonwoo letting out another sigh.

“Soonyoung’s a lot smarter than he seems” Jihoon chuckles, “He’s designed this new tech that fakes a software to make it seems like its easier to hack and with that, he can get passes the IP scrambler” Wonwoo gulped as Jihoon continued. “And you know what that means? He can get original IP addresses and could you take a wild guess at who their first target is?”

“(Y/N)” Jihoon clicks his fingers and points at Wonwoo.

“Bingo” Wonwoo sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I’m lucky they haven’t even noticed that I know you”

“Wait,” Wonwoo says, looking up at Jihoon. “Do they know it’s them, or who they are?” Jihoon shakes his head.

“Not yet, they don’t know it’s them yet and I doubt any of them remember you have a sibling” Wonwoo becomes silent, he had a thousand thoughts rushing through his head at a mile a minute.

“Why are you telling me this?” Jihoon didn’t reply instantly, he just fiddled with his fingers until he found the words.

“Because when Soonyoung finds out their location Seungcheol wants me to do whats in my job description” Jihoon explains. Wonwoo’s hands turn to fists on his desk table.

“Would you, would you do it?” Wonwoo asks, sending a look to his friend.

“You know if I don’t do it, Seungcheol will just send someone else” Jihoon responds, his voice showing all of his emotions.

“You know that doesn’t answer my question” Jihoon stays silent again, a frown covering his face which matched Wonwoo’s. “Jihoon…”

“If there’s a way to get out of it then sure, I would get out of it, but you know how thorough Seungcheol makes everything and how he checks everything, it wouldn’t be easy to get past him” Wonwoo’s face changes from a frown to a smirk.

“But it’s not impossible” Jihoon’s mouth opens slightly in shock, he blinks for a moment.

“Wonwoo, what are you planning in your head?”

“A full fi-...” Wonwoo got cut off by the sudden bang of the door slamming open and Mingyu panting as he stands there. Both suddenly both standing, they turn to him. “Mingyu, what’s going on?”

“(Y-Y/N),” He gasps for breath, “They’re hacking their computer” Wonwoo’s eyes go to Jihoon and he shrugs in response.

“That’s probably Soonyoung, once he has their address he’s meant to call me with the details” Mingyu scoffs, now with his breath back.

“See this is the problem with you and being on both sides, you’ll do whatever you’re told” Jihoon scoffs too, rolling his eyes before spitting an answer.

“I’m here to warn your fucking asses about them so shut your face” Mingyu scoffed again, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. Wonwoo hissed.

“This isn’t the time for you two to be arguing right now, we’re going to them and we are finding a way to get away with fooling Seungcheol any way we can” Wonwoo explains, picking up his gun from the drawer and putting it into the holster on his back. “And if either of you tries to argue I’m shooting you myself”

You typed at lightning speed as you did whatever you could to keep whoever was trying to hack you from hacking you. You chewed on your lip as you concentrated and didn’t try to move an inch in case you lost focus.

“Whoever you are you fucking piece of shit-…” You mumbled to yourself until you got cut off.

“Watch your language” You hadn’t noticed the door open and Wonwoo, Mingyu and Jihoon appear.

“Well if this piece of shit didn’t try and hack my computer I wouldn’t have to call them a piece of shit now would I?!” You spat. It was easy to tell you were annoyed- more than annoyed, extremely pissed off. Jihoon chuckled and you raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar chuckle. Only moving your eyes you saw the head of red hair and gasped. “Mingyu, you fucking asshole, why did you bring the hot guy, do you want me to lose focus?!”

Jihoon covered his mouth to try and cover up his laughter as Mingyu rolled his eyes and sent a glare to the back of your head.

“I’m sorry that I make you lose focus” Jihoon laughs, this time making you roll your eyes.

“Not the time hot guy” Jihoon tried not to laugh again and Wonwoo just sighed, facepalming.

“This really isn’t the time for this” Wonwoo says.

“Hate to break it to you big brother, but I pretty much just said the same thing,” you shrugged. “Just different phrasing”

“Anyways,” Wonwoo starts, “Can you stop Soonyoung from hacking you?” You ran your tongue over your teeth in annoyance as you spoke.

“So this bastard is called Soonyoung then huh” A smirk covered your face and you started typing quicker than the pace you were typing before. “You want a fucking show Soonyoung, I’ll give you one”

“Don’t do anything too stupid now” Wonwoo says, making you laugh.

“When have I ever done anything stupid?” Wonwoo raised an eyebrow and sent you a look.

“Do you really want me to answer that question?” You took in a deep breath but responded.

“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t”

The room went silent- well as silent as it could go with how fast you were typing away and you giggled to yourself as you repeatedly hit a few buttons. Mingyu sent a look to the back of your head and looked to Jihoon and Wonwoo, with both of them shrugging in responses, he spoke.

“What are you giggling at?”

“He wanted a show, so I sent him a bunch of jumpscare clips to try and slow him down” Mingyu gave you a stank glare, judging you completely.

“Couldn’t you think of something better than jumpscares?”

“Mingyu,” You started, your tone evident for him to be wary of what he said next. “Shut the fuck up before I spread your internet history online”

“Better do what they say” Jihoon laughs and Mingyu only sends him a glare.

After another few minutes of silence, you hit your keyboard, but still, continue to type.

“No! No! No!” You yell as large black box appears on your screen. You gasp, moving away from your computer. “H-He hacked in, h-how did he?” You stuttered, before trying to do whatever you could to get your computer working again. “I have no control”  

You turn to the three boys and see they mirror the same expression you’re wearing. Wonwoo’s eyebrows furrowed together and he let out a sigh. Quickly turning to Jihoon, Wonwoo grabbed his arm.

“How long will it be until he calls you?” You didn’t understand what Wonwoo was going on about and just like how he had grabbed Jihoon’s arm, you grabbed his.

“What are you on about?” Wonwoo turned to you and moved his arm so you’d release it.

“Not now (Y/N)” He then turned back to Jihoon. “Well?”

“I don’t know, it could be anytime now” Your eye flicked between the two as your brain raced to try and put together the puzzle of what could be going on.

“We need to do something now” Wonwoo responds

“It’s not going to be easy, you have to know that”

“What’s going on?!” You yell sending your brother the worst look you could muster. “I swear to god if you don’t tell me right fucking now” Wonwoo went pale as he turned to you, you raised both of your eyes and let out a sigh. “Just tell me please”

“Soonyoung, who’s apart of the other side made a new software and that was to catch us- you- in a trap to be able to locate you and to try and overtake us” Wonwoo explained and it left like all the air left your lungs. “They’re planning on killing whoever is behind the screen”

“W-What?”

With that, Jihoon’s phone rang, the loud music blared through the deafening silence. Jihoon took the phone from his pocket and stared at it for a moment before nodding to Wonwoo.

Incoming call; Hoshi Answer Decline

”Who is that? Why is this happening?“ You rushed, but before you could say any more, Mingyu rushed to your side and covered your mouth with his hand. Your cried became muffled against Mingyu’s hand and Wonwoo placed his hands on your shoulders to try and calm you down.

”You need to stay silent, you need to trust me" You went silent, no matter what happened, no matter what your brother said or did you always trusted him. He turned to Jihoon and nodded. Jihoon picked up the phone and placed it next to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Woozi! Dude! I think this has been the most fun time hacking I’ve had in a while!” Jihoon sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Hosh, just get to the point already”

“Oh yeah yeah sure okay, anyways I hacked in and got the address for you, make sure to get it done by the end of the day, you know what Cheol’s like,” Soonyoung said.

“Sure, just send it here”

“Will do, talk to you later” Soonyoung cheered before clicking off the call. Making sure the call had ended, it wasn’t a second later until Jihoon’s phone beeped again and the text from Soonyoung appeared.

“By the end of the day” Jihoon looked at Wonwoo "that doesn’t give us much time“ Running a hand through his hair, Wonwoo starts to mutter to himself.

”We have to find a way,“ Wonwoo says, before repeating it. ”We have to find a way“

With Mingyu’s hand still covering your mouth, you blinked rapidly as you felt your eyes begin to well up. You hated seeing your brother so frantic, especially over you. Especially now over what might be the lead up to your death. Feeling the tears run down your cheeks and onto his hand. Mingyu turns you around and sends you a look.

”Nothing is going to happen to you, don’t worry so much pip-squeak“ Mingyu chuckles to try and brighten your mood, but you just nod.

You already knew who Jihoon was, who he is. It didn’t take long for it to click into your brain after he got the phone call, you knew he was the one they were planning on sending to kill you, but he was here, he had been all this time so sure he wasn’t going to… right?

Everything was going to work out like Mingyu had said. Everything was going to be fine. Wonwoo clicked his fingers and looked at Jihoon with a smile.

”I think I figured it out, I think I know a way this could work“ Jihoon blinks and motions for him to continue. ”Seungcheol will never realise a thing“

Jihoon waited for the elevator to ding once it reached the top floor and let out a silent breath of air as it did. Looking up to the camera in the corner of the elevator he winked, knowing Soonyoung would probably be watching.

Exiting the elevator, he swiftly makes his way to Seungcheol’s office, knowing twice before entering.

Seungcheol was sat like he usually was, his feet up on his desk and a cigarette in between his fingers.”Ah! Jihoon! My assassin friend!“ Jihoon chuckled, raising an eyebrow as he sat down in the chair across from him.

”What are you on now?“ Seungcheol smiled, taking a long drag before puffing out the smoke quickly.”Its new in from out west, it’s beautiful stuff“ Seungcheol laughed, before holding his hand out for Jihoon to take. ”Want some?“

”No thank you“ Jihoon declines, making Seungcheol roll his eyes.

”Always the same old Jihoon“ Another drag. Another puff of smoke released. Sitting up and moving his position, he stares at Jihoon for a moment. ”I notice you’ve dyed your hair again“ Jihoon nods, running his free hand through his hair.

”You know my routine,“ He says simply.

Dying his hair after every kill.

”So that means you’ve done it?“ Seungcheol asks and Jihoon responds by throwing a file onto his desk. Seungcheol chuckled, picking up the folder and flicking through it.

”That what you mean?“

”You’re simply amazing, Ji, this is why you’re the best in the business,“ Seungcheol said, picking up one of the photos and holding up as he examined it. ”Your work is honestly perfect“

”Well, I do what I know best“ Jihoon laughs. ”And this is what I know best“

”It certainly is“

Jihoon silently unbuttoned his waistcoat and leant his head back as he let out a sigh. He sat like that for some time, just thinking. It wasn’t too much time before Seungcheol coughed, making Jihoon lift his head.

”Jihoon, you can go now, I have a new business meeting to attend about the new drugs from out west“ Seungcheol explained, he sent a smirk Jihoon’s way.  ”If you want any, all you gotta do is ask“Jihoon rolled his eyes, which Seungcheol accepted. He declined anyways.

”Seriously no thanks, I don’t care how good the stuff is, you know I don’t do any of it“ Seungcheol hummed, nodding his head.

”I know, I was just testing you“ Jihoon raised an eyebrow.

”Testing me? For what?“ Seungcheol shrugged, getting up from out of his seat.

”Oh Nothing, just nothing“ Getting up, Jihoon stayed silent. He seemed like he should just go by what Seungcheol was saying and take this as his queue to leave.

”Okay then, I guess I best be going…“ Jihoon starts, ”Call me if you need or want anything, you know that dude“ Seungcheol smiles

.”Same back“

Once he shut the door behind him, he walked quickly, without seeming to look suspicious to the elevators and waited for it to arrive. Entering it and clicking the ground floor, Jihoon let out a sigh.

The ground floor soon arrived and Jihoon exited the elevator and left the building, this time running to his dark car that was parked in the car park outside. Getting in and turning on the engine, he let out another sigh and clicked on the fourth-speed dial number on his car phone system.

”Jihoon?“ Your voice called out from through the speaker.

”Pack your things, I’ll be there soon"

[yergink]

Bravery and a Bowline Ch. 2

Heavier on the fluff this time around! Also a bit longer than last chapter at 4.6k words.

First Chapter

Next Chapter

Crossposted to Ao3

Summary: Walter learns a bit about the other people on the island. Meanwhile, the kids decide to amuse themselves the best way kids know how.

They’re out gathering charcoal one day and Walter has a particular thought on his mind. 

By now, his stay on this island the others call “the Constant” has reached a whopping ten days, and in that time, he’s been doing his best to be of help around camp.

For instance, he’d been helping Webber tend to the farms. Walter didn’t mind the dirt and muck staining his clothes, and he’d gone on a field trip to a farm for school once, during which he’d been paying a lot of attention, so he was sure he could help. They’d packed seeds into the ground with manure and mud, and to Walter’s surprise, the crops grew alarmingly quickly. Webber seemed to enjoy the company as well, chatting away about the things he liked as they worked. Walter’s found out they both have a similar penchant for bugs. 

He’d been helping Wendy as well, and her biggest chore was tending to the rabbit traps spread amidst the plains. She showed him how to weave them and how to set them above the rabbits’ dens. That was where his help had ended, though. Walter tried to help her collect the traps at the end of the day, but he’d ended up feeling so bad for the rabbits that he’d ended up letting one go and Wendy said she’d handle it after that. 

Still, Walter wants to be as helpful as he can, which is why he’d volunteered to help Willow gather fuel without realizing what exactly that would entail until. And then, he was standing in front of a forest ablaze, eyes wide as he watched Willow clap excitedly until the burn died down. When he’d piped up about fire safety, she’d just waved him off and reassured that this was a “controlled burn.” Walter didn’t think that was true, but he bit back his objections.

Now, amidst the scorched trees, he watches Willow heft her axe over her shoulder and asks, “You said there were other people on the island, right?” She pauses, adjusting her angle. 

“Hm? Oh, yeah. There are. What about it?”

She swings the blade at the trunk of a freshly charred tree, and it crumbles under the force. Walter gets about, kneeling to gather the fallen pieces of charcoal and packing them away in his backpack. Woby, well-fed and in her large form, lies on her back in the sunlight just outside the forest.

Walter fidgets, rubbing his soot-stained fingers together. “Can I meet them?”

Willow snorts. She’s leaned down now, helping gather the pieces as well, and she stuffs the last charred branch away and straightens up. “When they decide to show up to our base, then sure. I’m not supposed to let any of the kids wander around.” She approaches the next tree, and before she can even regain the grip on her axe, Walter zips around it, clasping his hands together and putting on his best pout. His mom always told him he could convince the moon to fall with that face.

He’s not certain it’s going to be enough, but it does give Willow pause. “Stop using little kid powers on me, it isn’t gonna work.”

Walter pouts further, blinking a few times to make it really dramatic. His eyes water a little bit.

Willow makes a show of not looking at him, but after she cracks down the tree and sees him still waiting expectantly, her resolve seems to falter. She sighs. “Listen, I can’t really take a break to give you a whole tour of everyone’s camps, but I can tell you about the rest of them at least.”

“That works!” Walter chirps.

Her axe fells another tree. “So, I’ve mentioned Wilson before, right? He’s like, a scientist or whatever, which is just a codeword for ‘huge nerd’ if you ask me.”

Walter personally finds science rather enjoyable, so he just gives a small hum at that. “What kind of science?”

She makes a vague hand gesture. “He’s never really specific about it, to be honest. But he’s sort of a doctor. Or, he used to be, I think. Before we got here. And he used to be really stuck-up about it, too, thinking he was all smarter than the rest of us.”

“But not anymore?”

“I mean…” she trails off. “I think it was mostly just him being defensive. When it comes down to it, he’s really sweet, even if he is an idiot sometimes.” She turns, moving towards the next blackened trunk, but not before Walter catches the half-smile on her face, a look that seems uncharacteristically soft for Willow. She clears her throat. “Anyway. Ms. Wickerbottom also stays at the eastern camp with the kids. She can be a bit strict, but she’s pretty nice. She’s kind of like everyone’s grandma. You’ll probably get along with her pretty well, spouting off facts the way you do.”

They keep gathering, circling the edge of the forest line. In between felling trees, Willow’s counting off people on her fingers. “There’s Winona. She’s real spunky, and smart to boot. And there’s Mr. Wolfgang who comes off really intimidating, but he’s a sweetheart under all that muscle. He gives the best piggyback rides. And there’s Wigfrid--she can be a bit intense, but she isn't too bad. And--”

“Hey, Willow?” Walter interrupts. He feels like he’s back home trying to memorize plant names, and he wishes he had a notepad. “Maybe I’ll remember them better if I actually meet them.”

She laughs. “Sure.”

The sky grays out a bit by the time they finish hacking down trees and collecting the charcoal. The sight of incoming rain makes Willow anxious, and she gestures for them to begin the trek back to camp. The two of them walk side by side, Woby shuffling along quietly behind them. Walter shifts his hands up the backpack straps while they walk, getting a better hold on the heavy load. Despite intending to shelve the topic of the other people on the island, he can’t quite stop thinking about it.

Cautiously, he asks, “So, how many people are here in total?”  

Willow hums in thought. “I think with you we’re up to a whole seventeen.”

Seventeen people. It’s a bit difficult for Walter to comprehend. Not the number itself, mind you, but that so many people would have been lost here and had yet to find a way home. It’s worrying, although Walter doesn’t want to linger on it for too long. If he’s honest, the biggest concern he has is that this is going to make him get sick of camping.

...He just hopes his mom isn’t worrying too much.

-

After they return to camp and unpack the charcoal into the boxes by the fire, he notices Willow keep glancing fretfully at the clouded sky, and she juts her thumb towards the tent, saying that she’s going to take a nap before nightfall.

Walter nods, of course, fully intending to stay in camp as well, although as afternoon sets in and the promise of rain is still unfulfilled, he finds himself growing bored. He sits by the smoldering ashes of the firepit, tossing a stick across the length of camp for a now-small Woby to fetch, although it looks like even she is getting tired of doing so.

She drops the stick at his feet and whines, headbutting his arm when Walter reaches to throw it again. He lets the stick fall and scratches behind her ears. “You’re bored too, aren’t you,” he mumbles, and Woby barks in agreement. She darts away from him abruptly, pointing her nose towards the gate and running back and forth between it and where Walter is sitting.

He perks up a bit. “You wanna go on a walk?”

She barks. Walter stands, glancing back towards the tent, listening to Willow’s snores gently emanating from it, and then to the sky, weighing the risks. Then, he carefully unlatches the gate and slips out without looking back.

Together, he and Woby meander through the plains a bit. The air here doesn’t smell like the air back home; it’s got a sense of danger on it, not to mention the heavy smell of monster blood that Walter hasn’t entirely grown accustomed to. Still, there is still the thrill of taking it all in. Nature is nature, and Walter has learned to appreciate that. He even has a badge for it.

The tall straw-like grass begins to give way into forest, and he’s wandered back into the midst of the deciduous trees, where he first met Wendy. As autumn has gone on, more and more of the trees have gone bare, and with the clouded sky the forest has a much eerier atmosphere than usual. Woby sniffs out mushrooms for him to pick, particularly the spongy green ones that tend to sprout in the evening.

He’s just crouched down behind a few bushes to dig up another one when he pauses, the sound of voices brushing by on the wind.

There are several. One of them is high, an echoey sort of trill that he recognizes as Wendy immediately. There’s also that haunting wispy sort of noise that Wendy’s sister Abigail always makes. She doesn’t speak with words the way Wendy does, and Wendy’s the only one who can understand her, but she’s a good translator. Walter thinks he and Abigail have become pretty good friends, even if he was a bit creeped out by her at first.

Then, he hears a third voice, one that’s unfamiliar. Woby starts growling, a low, threatening rumble that doesn’t sound right coming from her small body. Walter shushes her, going still to try and hear what was going on.

The unfamiliar voice is talking. It’s a deep, smooth cadence, and it makes Walter think of that old ragtime tune that had played on the radio that brought him here.

“--struck with a bout of insomnia and was coming by for some assistance,” the voice says.

“Out of nowhere?” Wendy asks.

“I believe it has to do with that ridiculous robot screeching up a storm every night just over the river.”

Walter pushes aside the lower branches of the bush to get a better view. He sees Wendy, standing by a nearby pond with an older looking man in a sharp suit. Immediately, he’s a bit suspicious. The man is tall, and he all but towers over Wendy, leaning slightly down towards her as they talk. Walter feels Woby, still rumbling with a quiet growl beside him as he looks on.

He watches Wendy shake her head. “I’m afraid Ms. Wickerbottom is currently absent from camp. Both she and Mr. Higgsbury embarked to the underground nearly a fortnight ago. Only Ms. Willow is there right now.”

The man scoffs. “They left you in the care of the firestarter? I wouldn’t trust that woman to look after a goldfish, much less a child.”

“To be fair, uncle, it would be extremely difficult to burn a goldfish.”

Walter looks to Woby, who cocks her head in what seems like an equal amount of confusion. “Uncle” ?

The two conversing fall into a lull of silence. The man clears his throat.

“...And you’re sure you won’t reconsider staying at my camp?” he asks. There’s a hesitation behind his words, an uncertainty that marrs his otherwise smooth, charismatic tone, roughening it around the edges.

“I do not feel comfortable leaving the camp at this time,” Wendy says after a moment’s thought. “And, in fairness, I believe Ms. Willow to be a good caretaker. You needn’t worry.”

The man coughs. “Right.” He glances backwards. “I’ll be on my way, then.”

A peal of thunder rumbles across the sky, and Wendy murmurs, “May you stay well,” as the man leaves. She watches him leave with that odd sort of stillness of hers, like a statue in the forest. A few leaves fall, sticking in her hair, though she does not move until the man has entirely vanished from view. It’s only then that Walter makes a move.

“Wendy!” he calls, shaking himself out of the bushes. “Who was that?”

Wendy pauses, glancing to Abigail, then back at him. “You were eavesdropping,” she frowns.

“Kinda,” Walter admits. “So who was that?”

With some trepidation, she says, “That was our”--she indicates to herself and Abigail with a nod--”Uncle Maxwell. He camps by the rock fields.”

Woby barks, and Walter looks down to see that she’s glaring in the direction the man left, her hackles raised and tail angled in alert. He frowns. “Woby stop, that’s not nice.”

Usually, a command like that would be enough to calm her, but she growls again, low and threatening, pawing at the ground like she’s about to run off after him.

“Woby, what’s wrong with you?” Walter exclaims, swooping to pick her up before she has a chance to take off. The dog squirms in his arms, and he struggles to keep his hold on her, her back paws digging into his stomach as he tries to get her to still.

“She probably senses Their presence in him” Wendy suggests, her head tilted sideways as she watches him grapple.

He rests a hand on Woby’s head, scratching in the space between the bumps of her horns as her growls begin to taper off. “What do you mean?”

One of her hands reaches for the flower clipped in her hair--a nervous habit. “I forgot that you don’t know.” Upon seeing her sister hesitate, Abigail floats closer, whispering in that airy, incomprehensible tone. It seems to help, because even as Wendy looks away, she keeps talking.

“My uncle was the one who brought many of us here,” she explains. “And even while he has lost his crown of shadows, there are many who have continued to forego forgiveness.”

“Oh,” Walter says. He doesn’t know how to respond.

“Not all of us were condemned by his hand,” she says hurriedly. “You, for example. But my uncle has a hard time finding good favor with others. His time as king has tainted him with a terrible arrogance.”

“He did seem kind of rude. Uh, no offense.”

“None taken.”

They keep walking. It’s awkward. Walter breaks the silence. “So, do you talk to him a lot?”

Wendy hums. “As often as I must. Despite everything, he is still family. And he has been earnestly attempting to better himself, which I believe we all appreciate.”

Abigail makes a sound like steam rising off a lake, and Wendy nods in agreement. “Abigail makes a good point. We know that he cares about us.”

It’s an offhand comment, but it sends a pang of jealousy through him. Wistfully and without thinking, Walter says, “It seems kind of nice. To have family with you.” It’s a more emotionally revealing statement than he wanted to make, and he’s a bit alarmed with himself for having said something like that. Wendy seems to take it in stride though, making a sort of sympathetic sound.

“It is difficult,” she says, “to be forced to face a cruel world without a caring presence beside you.” Walter gets the feeling she isn’t talking about Maxwell anymore. Abigail murmurs sadly, hovering over Wendy’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” he agrees. Quickly glancing around to verify that they’re alone, he puts a hand over his mouth and steps closer to her. “Don’t tell anyone, but… I think I’m getting a bit homesick.”

Solemnly, Wendy nods. “I shan’t speak a word of it to anyone.”

-

According to the strange thermometer set up in the camp, winter is approaching, and Walter is sure starting to feel it. The forest has started going bare, the coating of leaves along the ground growing denser by the day. There’s a chill pervading the air, one that sends him shivering on early morning fishing trips and late-night firefly hunting. He, along with the other members of the camp, huddle closer to the fire at night.

Wendy’s been making hats from the silk and fur they have, decorating them with different patterns and toppers. She’s steady with a needle, and Walter watches her thread the fabrics together in awe as they sit together.

“Who’s that one for?” he points at the completed hat she has sitting atop the spool of silk beside her.

“It’s for Webber.” She lifts it into the air, showing off the ear flaps. “So his extra legs don’t get cold.”

“It’s pretty.” The hat has been colored orange and red with boiled eggshells and berry juice. It’s an impressive feat of craftsmanship, and he wonders if Wendy will teach him how to sew like that, too.

She turns it over. “Thank you. But I think I made it a bit too big.”

“Let me try,” Walter says, reaching for it. The hat is soft, and he takes a moment to admire the texture before going to put it on. Before he gets a chance, however, Wendy interrupts.

“That’s backwards.”

Walter stops, looking at the hat. “It is?” He turns it over. The other side looks exactly the same. “It’s kind of hard to tell,” he admits.

Wendy shrugs. An idea suddenly dawns on him.

“You know,” he starts, and Wendy must hear the mischief in his tone because she immediately frowns at him. “It would be kinda funny if he wore it backwards.”

Unconvinced, Wendy asks, “Would it?”

“Yeah! My older cousins once convinced me that you can wear a skirt like a shirt, and they thought it was pretty funny, so I guess it must be funny to wear clothes wrong.”

“Maybe.” She still sounds dubious.

Walter stands up, gesturing for Webber to join them. “Here, give it to him,” he whispers to Wendy, shoving the hat back into her hands as Webber approaches.

“What is it?” the boy asks, glancing back and forth from Walter to Wendy. His smaller eyes don’t quite synchronize with the movements of his larger ones, and Walter finds himself momentarily distracted by this. Luckily, Wendy takes charge, standing as well. She holds the hat out to him.

“Here. Try this on,” she says.

“Oh, you finished our hat!” Webber exclaims. He grins as he takes it, taking a moment just as Walter did to marvel at the softness, before placing it over his head. Wendy’s initial assessment that the hat was too big was immediately obvious, and coupled with having put it on the wrong way, the hat leaves Webber with just a bit of his furry head showing. The front lip falls all the way down past where his nose would be, and his mouth is just barely visible underneath, open in alarm.

“It covers our eyes!” Webber says loudly, as if to make up for his lack of sight.

Walter giggles, trying vainly to stifle it with a hand, and Wendy shushes him. “It’s the intended design, Webber. And you have to wear it because I made it for you.”

They both know Webber will be too polite to object to that. His mouth abruptly shuts, hiding his fangs, and Walter thinks he sees the boy swallow, as if steeling his nerves. His stance straightens, like he’s fully committing to spending the entire winter blinded. “We will wear it then!” he declares, turning and almost immediately running headfirst into the camp’s outer stone wall. With a startled cry, he backs up, and Walter just barely manages to grab hold of his shoulder before he trips and falls backwards.

“Thank you,” Webber says as he regains his balance. “This hat is scary!”

Wendy laughs. It escapes her like a puff of smoke, a small, flightless thing that could be mistaken as nothing more than a breath come too fast. But Walter can tell what it is, and he looks to her in surprise for a moment before a grin spreads across his face.

He thinks Webber can tell what it is too, because Walter sees him lift the hem of the hat, and even though he’s not very good at discerning spider expressions, to him, Webber looks incredibly pleased.

“That was amusing,” Wendy says after they’ve gotten the hat off Webber and tucked away in Wendy’s bag for further tailoring. “I will admit that despite your naivety, you have good ideas, Walter.”

It’s a bit of a backhanded compliment, but Walter doesn’t take it personally. “Thanks. You’re a lot better at holding it together when it comes to pranks, though.”

She nods. “That is true. Does that mean you would be opposed to orchestrating a second one?”

He grins. “Not at all.”

-

They get Webber to help with their next one. Willow’s used to him spending nights by the spider dens along the forest, so it’s not suspicious if he doesn’t show up by nightfall.

Woby whines, shaking her shaggy head as Webber gets close, and Walter does his best to hold onto her collar and keep her from bucking him away and scampering off. “It’s okay girl, he’s nice, trust me,” Walter soothes, petting her big floppy ears as Webber struggles to mount her.

He gets it eventually, holding on tight to the fur on the back of Woby’s neck, and Walter takes her head between his hands and speaks very sternly. “Be nice to Webber, and listen to him, okay? We’re doing a prank on Willow, and you’ve gotta be good for it.” Woby woofs, which doesn’t really sound like agreement, but she seems to quickly give in, licking his face affectionately when Walter pouts at her. He grins. “There’s a good girl.”

He rejoins Wendy by the outer camp wall, where she’d been watching.

“It is impressive how well you have tamed such a great beast,” she says.

He shrugs. “Woby’s not much of a beast. She’s scared of butterflies.”

“I see.”

Nightfall finds both of them back in camp with Willow, watching as she rummages through the fridge for something to put together into a half-decent meal. Wendy looks over to him and gives him a nudge, indicating that they should start.

“I have a story!” Walter announces loudly, planting himself cross-legged by the fire. That does enough to gather attention. Willow likes to pretend she isn’t all that interested in his stories, but oftentimes she’s the one sitting most on edge, her chin resting on her hands as she listens with wide eyes and held breath for him to finish.

Now is no exception. She lingers at the crockpot for a moment while Wendy joins him by the fire, although sky quickly abandons the meatballs she’d been preparing in favor of listening to the story. Walter clears his throat, glancing out beyond the walls. There’s a small gleam of light out there, a torch, where Webber and Woby are waiting for their cue.

“So there’s this monster out in the woods,” he begins, putting his hands up. He’d practiced for this one, no messing up or scrambling his words. It has to be good. He takes a breath to steady himself.

“They say it’s huge, almost three meters tall, with long shaggy fur that drags behind it, getting all dirty with mud and leaves, and long scary claws. The people who see it say it looks like a piece of the forest itself.” He thinks that was pretty good, but Willow doesn’t look impressed yet. He goes off script, amping it up. “A-And it’s super venomous too, with acid breath and big sharp teeth!” He claws his hands in front of his face, imitating fangs. “It goes around hunting people who wander too far into the woods. Sometimes, people’ll see lights shining through the trees without knowing that they’re just the monster’s shiny eyes.”

The fire pops, sparks flying as if to emphasize his words. Willow seems pretty enraptured now, head tilted slightly as her eyes flick between the flames and Walter’s gestures.

“What else?” Wendy prompts, just as they’d planned.

For the briefest moment, the script slips from his mind, and Walter stumbles. “Huh? Oh, yeah, so--” he clears his throat again. “It uh…”

“They say…” Wendy whispers.

“Right! They say it roams out there, stalking unsuspecting campers...” he turns and finds that speck of light with his eyes again, raising his voice for the final line. “...Waiting for a chance to strike!”

With a resonant howl, Woby leaps over the southern wall of the camp. Webber, with his hands wrapped around her neck, holds on for dear life. She doesn’t quite nail the landing, scrambling to slow down on the dirt and slamming sideways into the alchemy engine, nearly knocking it over.

Walter giddily looks to see Willow's expression, but quickly finds himself pushed backwards, scraping his knees in the dirt, with Wendy toppled over and looking equally confused beside him. He winces, assessing the rough scratches of grit on his skin. Once he’s confirmed he’s not bleeding, he glances forward.

There is a towering dark shape before him, backlit by the glow of the fire, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s Willow, her spear readied and sharp in her grasp. She’d shoved them behind her almost immediately, widening her stance and placing herself firmly between them and Woby.

Walter uprights himself, reaching out hesitantly for her sleeve. “Willow--”

Her head snaps down to him, and he flinches backwards. There’s nothing but ferocity and aggression in her eyes, although it slowly fades as she takes note of Woby skittering away from her spearpoint nervously, and Webber sliding clumsily off her back, landing with an ‘oof’.

After another few moments of taking in the scene, her stance drops. “Okay,” she says finally, sinking her spearpoint into the dirt and turning to glower at each of the children in turn. “I don’t know what you all were thinking, but that was really dumb. Like, actually really dumb.”

“It was my idea,” Wendy pipes up, brushing dirt off her skirt as she stands up. “I asked Walter--”

“No, you just said you wanted to do a prank,” he argues. It doesn’t feel fair for her to try and take blame. He faces Willow, hands folded behind his back. “It was my idea.”

“...We just thought it would be fun, Ms. Willow,” Webber says sheepishly, wringing his hands as he edges forward.

“Yeah? Well I could’ve stabbed you. Bet that would’ve been real fun,” she snaps.

Webber’s eyes start welling. Seeing this, Water steps forward. “I asked him to do it. It’s my fault.”

Her sharp gaze turns to him and Walter stiffens, looking down and feeling very much in trouble. Still, he can’t let his friends take the heat for him. He’s got honor, after all.

“I know you don’t know yet, but things bursting into our camp and attacking us isn’t really something we can joke about,” Willow lectures, her tone like an edge of broken glass. “Putting one of you in the position of some monster? That’s really, really dumb.”

Walter keeps examining his shoes, his hands tightening around each other behind his back. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

Something in Willow seems to soften at that. She sighs, patting him on the shoulder. “Just. Don’t pull that sh-- stuff again.” She grimaces. “I have a headache. See you in the morning.” With that, she disappears into the tent.

Webber still looks on the verge of tears, and Walter murmurs an apology to him as well. Through it all, Wendy still looks nothing more than apathetic. She glances to the tent, then nods, as if to herself.

“To be fair,” she says. “Conceptually, it was very amusing.”

Walter sniffs, brightening at that. “Yeah?”

The tiniest of smiles graces her lips. “Yeah.”

[darksunrising]

Sola Gratia (10/?)

Masterlist

Rating / Warnings : Graphic descriptions of violence, Viewer discretion is advised (short paragraph)

Fandom : Bram Stoker’s Dracula, BBC’s Dracula, various Dracula and vampire lore.

Part 10/? (2730 words)

Author’s notes : Beware ! A Dracula-less chapter (-ish) ! I promise, he’ll be back soon, he really wants to go to that Renaissance fair... (Also yay, part 10 !)

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Mary Van Helsing.

I asked Leah if she hadn't made a mistake. She almost took offense. I sat back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. What ? How ? Van Helsing ? I mean, that could just be a freaky, freaky coincidence. I laughed nervously to myself.

“Hah, you gotta admit that's funny the Van Helsing kid wants to study the Balkanic middle ages”, Leah laughed. Ditto.

Seeing as I didn't reply, she asked if I felt alright. I took a deep breath.

“Leah, there's something I need to tell you.”

“Yeah, of course, what's- Oh, fuck.”

She turned back to her laptop, and started frantically typing, cursing under her breath as she did.

“Someone got my position. Jeez, whoever those guys are, they really don't want anyone finding out they exist !”

“What do you mean ?”

“I mean there's a very good chance we will have an unpleasant visit pretty soon.”

She sounded nervous, which was a strange color on her. She activated an emergency shutdown, and closed her computer, taking a moment sitting still, eyes staring into the void. She then stood up decidedly.

“We don't know who it was, could be nothing”, I tried to reassure her.

“Yeah well, not to boast or anything, but if they got through my defenses, I really don't wanna know. Listen, let's just crash at my place, there's a chance they pinged on the VPN and actually here.”

She was so determined, I didn't even think to contradict her. She left her laptop there, only taking her bike helmet. I grabbed my bag, and followed her out of my office. Even though she was tiny, I had trouble keeping up with her fast paces. As we sped through the corridors, I caught a glimpse of dirty hazelnut hair, and grabbed Leah's arm to take a hard right into another hallway. Felt like running into Helder right now wouldn't be the best turn of events. Plus, I was supposed to give a class he was attending, so, that.

“Thinking back exit ?”

“What else ?”

We kept half-jogging to the end of the corridor, turning a few curious heads on the way, pushed on a service door, and slipped outside. The sun blinded me a second, as we made our way to the parking lot. Leah dug her keys out of her pockets, and unlocked the pad on her motorcycle, cursing a few more times every time she ripped around the keyhole. She turned to give me her helmet, and stopped halfway, wincing. Ah.

“Eris Cetero and Leah Fox. I'm going to need you to come with us.”

A very sharply dressed woman was standing a few paces away, icy stare and tightly pulled dark hair. She looked composed, unyielding, and was flanked on both sides by two men built like wardrobes, poorly dissimulating a handgun under their suit jackets. Not the kind of person to try to run away from, then.

“Listen, we didn't mean any harm. We could all just forget it.”

Sometimes, her bluntness had some perks. She had moved over in front of me, her hand grasping mine.

“You are not in trouble. At least not with us”, the woman continued. “We thought we would wait more, but you forced our hand.”

“We have no idea what you're talking about”, Leah kept going, still on the defensive.

I said nothing, trying to keep a straight face.

“My name is Mary Van Helsing. I work in the Murray Institute for the Neutralization of Abnormalities. We have a lot to discuss, especially with you, Miss Cetero.”

Ah shit. Let's think about this rationally. There was no way I could escape that situation. I also didn't want Leah to get in trouble, and I started to see she was about to keep on going if I didn't do anything. I took a deep breath, which had her stop.

“Alright. We have crossed a line digging into things we shouldn't have. You are entitled to some explanations, and if you feel like this can't be done in a parking lot, so be it. Lead the way”, I declared, trying to be as calm and composed as I could.

I was met by a look of disbelief on Leah's face, and an emotionless nod from Mary, who turned on her heels without a word. Can't believe my incredible charm hadn't worked on her yet. Leah's hand softened, and I took a hold of it as we walked to the intimidating sedan waiting for us.

~ ~ ~

The ride took a bit longer than I thought. From the moment Leah started going deeper in her search, and the moment they arrived, it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes, and yet, it took well over half an hour to get to our destination. Maybe they were already close, and we just got unlucky. Seemed about right.

We remained silent the whole car ride. You couldn't have hacked through the tension using a damn chainsaw, at this point. Leah and I held hands, so tight I saw her knuckles going white. She was shaking a little, and I hated myself for putting her through this. If only I weren't a nosy fucking idiot.

We arrived to a decrepit-looking building, most likely turn of the 19th century architecture. Above the entrance, the stone looked like it had been engraved, a while ago, but the script was almost completely worn out. Inside, the emptiness gave an echo to every step, the ground overrun with cables coming from other parts of the house. We kept on going straight forward, went down a slope, and arrived to a huge freight elevator. It made a shrieking noise as it went down for a while, so deep we might as well have gone straight down to hell. If you believe in that sort of thing.

The elevator shook as it stopped, opening on a surprisingly high-tech complex.

“Ladies, welcome to M.I.N.A.”, Mary told us as we stepped off.

The first room was a large hall, open on two more stories, visible through balconies, on which were plastered neon lights. In neatly aligned cubicles, employees worked on god knows what, piles of paper cluttering all desks, the intermittent sound of phones and the indistinct chatter of radio making the noise almost unbearable. Mary kept on walking, some people greeting her as she passed them, and giving Leah and I the strangest looks. Ooh, boy. That was about to be fun.

She opened large fire-breaking doors, and we went on a corridor, making a few turns. As I had learned by now, I memorized the turns. Right, left at the weird plant, another left at the water fountain. She opened a door for us, leaving us to enter before her. That looked awfully like an interrogation room, with one table at the center, and two uncomfortable chairs. The double sided-mirror occupying one of the walls was also a dead giveaway.

One of the guards stopped Leah as she went after me. As she protested, they told us they would explain the situation separately. If they actually knew anything, that might be the smarter option. I reassured her, smiling, and went into the interrogation room. One of the guards came with me, and closed the door, only to stand in a corner, silent. I dragged out a chair to sit, waiting for anything to happen.

“Not really talkative around here, huh ?”, I asked, knowing I wouldn't get an answer.

Moments later, Mary came back into the room, holding a few files, one distinctly bearing my name. It does something to your ego, to have your name on a secret society's secret case file, in their secret underground bunker. The woman sat on the other side of the table, leaning forward on her elbows.

“Miss Cetero, do you really have no idea why you're here ?”, she asked.

Of course I know why I'm here. You know I know. You saw me try to fly into the wind with my partner in crime as soon as we knew you found us. I just had to put my best performance on. Tremble, Hollywood.

“Well, we did hack into some pretty secure servers to get information that we weren't supposed to get”, I told her, and shrugged. “That seems pretty clear to me.”

“There's that, but I want to talk about something else.”

Her face was completely unfeeling, yet her voice was soft, a bit too maternal for my tastes. I had a little smile, encouraging her to talk. There was no risk if I wasn't talking.

“Do you believe at all in the, quote-unquote, supernatural ?”

If she kept talking to me like I was a particularly simple child, I'd show her something supernatural pretty damn soon. I worked to keep down the wave of righteous anger crashing against the insides of my chest.

“Do you mean... ghosts ?”, I ventured.

“Among others. I'm talking more specifically about vampires.”

Her eyes were gleaming behind the rectangles of her glasses. I didn't react, other than a little laugh. Alright, keep it up, play dumb.

“Vampires ? Come on, is this a joke ? Did Leah put you up to this ?”, I giggled.

Not that dumb, fuck's sake. Nobody was this stupid. I actually wanted to kill myself. I was so in character my voice went up an octave all on its own. Repressing a shiver, I kept on smiling like a brainless fish.

“I'm afraid I'm dead serious. As... Phantasmagorical as it may seem, such creatures exist, and we believe you, and your friend, may be in grave danger.”

Well, that seemed to actually work pretty well. Not really trying to think of the reasons why I had so little trouble passing as brain-dead, I had a nervous laughter, and kept going.

“Do I have to look around for a man in a black cape next time I leave my building, Mrs. Van Helsing ?���

“Doctor Van Helsing, actually. And rather, you should look around for the man you know as professor Vlad Balaur.”

Ah, direct, I see.

“I'm not sure I get your meaning.”

“We have good reasons to think Vlad Balaur is a vampire, trying to pass himself up as Vlad Dracula Tepes, a character you of all people know well.”

I didn't say anything, but my heart sank to my stomach.

“In what I will tell you, I want you to assume everything I say is true”, she started, leaning back. “In 1896, a team made up from Jonathan Harker, Quincey Morris, Mina Murray-Harker, and Abraham Van Helsing, put an end to the reign of terror of the vampire known as Dracula. It seemed he was no other than Vlad Tepes, the Impaler, who supposedly had, quote-unquote, “died” during the 15th century. At his return to London, he decided to create this institution, to be certain that should such a horrific event happen again, people would have the knowledge and resources to deal with it.”

She took a pause, gauging my reaction. I tried to keep my innocent façade, but has strictly no idea wether she could tell I was faking. The feeling of dread creeping its way into my mind didn't help either.

“Bram Stoker was an accomplice to the whole ordeal, and published his book, which was explicitly branded as fiction. You know the rest, concerning the sometimes questionable turn of the theme into popular culture. However, vampires, among other numerous creatures, are still a threat on humanity today. And a lot of them take inspiration from ancient figures, like Count Dracula. This would not be the first time one of them fashioned himself the Dark Prince Returned.”

“I'm sorry”, I interrupted, “But how can you expect me to believe any of that ? Do you even have any proof ?”

I tried to keep my panic out of my tone. I didn't want to believe it, but what if she was right ? She couldn't be, right ? He knew so much about everything, and... I tried to calm myself down. Just need to get through this, I'll talk this out with the man himself. All would be well.

“Even if you were right, even if professor Balaur was a vampire”, I began as she only kept staring at me. “He never tried to hurt me, or had any reprehensible behavior toward me or Leah. Why would I need to be worried ?”

She looked at me for what seemed like hours, and finally pulled a file from her pile, and slid it towards me. She then sat back, and lit a cigarette. She offered one, and I declined politely, asking what was in the file.

“All around the city, for the last month, we had a count of twenty-four murders”, she declared. “Look at the pictures, and you tell me what kind of person could have done this.”

Shaking a bit, I opened the file, and instantly had to put a hand over my mouth. You can watch hours and hours of horror movies, and never get used to anything like that. Everything was red. Seeping into the fabrics, clothing, mattresses, drapes. Splattered on the walls, dripping from the ceilings. Body parts, bent in impossible angles, flesh frayed, shredded in long clawing marks, leaving the internal organs and their contents spilling out of the deformed corpses. Throats. Open. So torn apart it just looked like a bundle of rubber tubes. On one of the victim's descriptive notes, I glimpsed the word “pregnant”. I closed my eyes, looking away. There were hundreds. Mary offered again, and I took the cigarette. I closed the case file, taking a long drag.

“What happened in Romania, Miss Cetero ?”, she asked, a bit more softly.

I raised my head to meet her gaze. “I... Nothing happened. I- I visited some museums, hiked a little, why do you ask ?”

My eyes welled up with tears, and keeping on a neutral smile was a physical effort at this point. I kept seeing flashes of teeth, the horse, inside out, bled dry.

“We believe he might come from there, which is why he would identify with Dracula. He could have taken a liking to you there, and followed you here.”

“I think I would remember an encounter with something that does... that does this on a daily basis”, I snapped, fighting through tears. That couldn't be right. It couldn't.

“Your memory could have been wiped. It's not uncommon, once again.”

I started to feel dizzy. Maybe it was the cigarette. I didn't smoke very often, so that was probably that, right ? I must have remained silent a while, because Mary leaned forward, putting back the file on the pile.

“Listen, I will make this as clear as possible”, she snapped. “If we are to stop this creature, we need your full support. For some reason, he trusts you more than most. You cannot tell him about your knowledge of this place.”

She slid a card across the table.

“If you are ever in danger, or need any information, call us. We will call you if necessary.”

She put out her cigarette on a portable ashtray, and I did the same, mechanically.

“What did you tell Leah ?”, I asked.

“Nothing more than she needs to know, which does not include anything about Vlad Balaur. We think the less people know, the safer it is.”

I nodded, and slipped the card into my pocket. Nothing about this felt safe, or right, or anything but confusing, and nauseating. They escorted me out, and I still felt engulfed in cotton, everything muted, even when Leah nearly jumped into my arms as I got out. I barely realized I walked, or the time spent in the car, until they dropped me off at home.

I dragged myself to my apartment, and went straight to bed, half expecting to see him there, on the balcony. Instead, I found a note. I opened the window, and took the folded sheet of paper. The same he used back in Romania, and the same fine, elegant handwriting. It was weighed down with a polished rock, which I noticed, upon further inspection, contained a multitude of little fossils.

I have heard historians like old things, here is one.

For another, I will be back soon.

All my love,

Vlad.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Taglist : @carydorse​ @angelicdestieldemon​ @bloodhon3yx​ @thewondernanazombie​ @battocar​ @moony691​ @mjlock​ @thebeautyofdisorder​ @festering-queen​ @paracosmfantasy​ @my-fanfic-library

[dyscrasia-eucrasia]

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Part 24

Demie gripped the door handle with one hand and the door frame with another as he heaved. He'd cleared out most of his stomach contents already, at this point he was just trying to clear the bile from his throat. He pulled his hair to one side of his neck and coughed, hacking and then spitting into the dirt. Then he just sat there, half of his body outside of the car, trying to get his breathing and heart rate back under control. 

"Hey, um…" Angel said from the driver's seat, "you okay?" 

Angel placed a hand on Demie's back, gently rubbing it. Demie had it together enough to think that that was kind of gay, but not to actually tell Angel to knock it off. 

Besides, it actually felt kinda nice. 

After waiting a minute to make sure that he wasn't going to puke again, Demie heaved his body back into the passenger's seat and shut the car door. Angel moved his hand so that it was resting on the center console. He let Demie sit there in silence, gathering his thoughts. 

"I can't do this, man," Demie finally said. His words came out sounding like sandpaper. "Sorry. I just can't do this right now." 

"Hey," Angel said softly, turning in his seat to get a look at Demie, "it's okay." 

"Sorry, I knew you wanted to go to this thing, but I just can't do that right now." 

"It's alright," Angel said, his voice still low and gentle, "really. It's okay." 

No, it wasn't okay. Not to Demie. The thing was, he wanted to go. He really did. He'd never actually been to a music festival before and it sounded cool. He wanted to actually experience being in an audience at a show, instead of just playing them. He wanted to do normal things like normal people. 

But as soon as they'd left the town limits of Billy Brook, it was as if there were a million eels swirling around inside his stomach. His heart was racing, his head was pounding, and he felt dizzy even though he was just sitting in a car. And hanging over all of that was the inescapable feeling that something bad was going to happen. 

It was like the anxiety he got at shows, but ten times worse. At least with shows, he could step out on stage and know that he was protected by the plausible deniability of wearing a costume. And that he had the power to control everyone in the audience. 

Being an audience member, though, he wouldn't have either of those things. Worse, what if human musicians had a power like he did? He didn't have any proof that they did, other than videos he saw of performances where people in the audience were going crazy. What if someone was able to control him like he controlled his crowds? What if they made him do something stupid or violent? 

What if they made him do something to Angel? 

He wasn't sure which thought scared him more - that he could be influenced into hurting Angel, or that he could be influenced into something like that guy that he'd punched at that one show. 

For some reason, it never occurred to him to think that maybe Angel could be influenced into assaulting him. The gay panic only went one way. 

"Do you wanna go home?" Angel asked. His tone was so patient, so understanding. He made Demie feel so safe. 

"Nngh," Demie moaned, thinking. No, he didn't want to go home. He didn't want to go home only twenty minutes after leaving. He didn't want to walk into the trailer and have Elaine say that she'd told him so. 

"Do you still want to go to Charleston? We don't have to go to the festival, we could go hang out at my place or something private like that." 

"NNNNNNGGGHH," Demie moaned again. No. No way. He absolutely did not want to go to Angel's home. That felt dangerous. Like something would happen there that he couldn't take back. He wasn't sure what exactly could happen, but he just knew he didn't want it to happen. 

"Okay, so… do you maybe want to get something to eat?" Angel asked. "There's a gas station a little ways down the road, they have a diner attached." 

"I can't exactly go in there," Demie mumbled. 

"You don't have to. I can get something to go and we can eat in the car." 

Demie reached up and gripped his horns, pulling them up. It didn't really do anything, but when he got headaches he swore it helped relieve the pressure in his skull. It had become a nervous habit when he needed space to think. 

"Nnnghh… okay," he said, slumping back against the seat. He was shaking; maybe something to eat would do him good. 

"Okay," Angel said, starting up the car again. 

It took them about ten more minutes to arrive at the gas station. It was a run-down little place, the pumps about a decade old and the diner straight out of the fifties. Demie and Elaine had driven past it before numerous times on the way to shows, but they'd never stopped there. There was another station in Billy Brook that was cheaper. 

"You want anything specific?" Angel asked. He parked in the spot furthest from the entrance. Probably, Demie realized, to keep him out of sight. 

"Mm… water. And just something vegetarian." 

"Got it," Angel said, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of the car. "Be back in a few." 

Demie grunted in response, watching as Angel headed towards the diner. Angel had worn a tank top, and for the first time, Demie noticed that he had angel wings tattooed on his back. That was fitting, he supposed. 

Angel disappeared inside, and Demie was left to sit there alone. Angel had left the radio on, and the band they'd been listening to switched to The Cure. Demie wrinkled his nose. This was a band he knew - his brother liked them - but that he didn't really care for. He wasn't sure how to change it, though. Angel's car had a fancy touch screen, not the simple tape deck that Elaine's van had. Besides, Demie had seen Angel control the music from his phone when they first left, and he was pretty sure Angel had taken his phone inside with him. 

There was nothing to look at except the diner, so he stared at it. It was one of the silver train car-looking diners. Demie had never been inside of one, but he liked how they looked. There was something very iconic about them. 

He reached down to grab his backpack from where it sat between his feet. He unzipped it and pulled out his Polaroid camera, aiming it carefully so that the hood of the car wasn't in the picture, and took a snapshot. The camera spit out the picture and he waved it briefly before letting it settle to develop. 

He had been sitting there staring at the picture for who knew how long when the driver's side door opened and he jumped. 

"Settle down, it's just me," Angel said, slipping into the car. He carried a styrofoam to-go box and a cardboard drink tray with one styrofoam cup with a straw, and one paper coffee cup.

"Sorry, all I got you was a salad," he went on. "They didn't really have anything explicitly vegetarian, and I wanted to get out there as quickly as I could. I get the feeling gay folks and people of color aren't really wanted in there." 

Demie took the box, glancing at Angel's arm, and then at his own. "What do you mean, 'people of color?'" He asked. "I'm darker than you are." 

"Yeah, no, it just means anyone who isn't white." 

"Your skin is white, though." 

"It's just an expression," Angel said with a sigh. 

"Hm," Demie hummed, opening the box and digging out a plastic fork. He didn't really get it, but then again, there was a lot of human stuff he didn't really get. At least, he blamed it on humans being weird about things, and not on his very sheltered upbringing. 

"I didn't know you had a Polaroid," Angel said, nodding to the camera in Demie's lap. 

"Hm? Oh, yeah," Demie said around a mouthful of salad, "I've had it since I was a kid." 

"I like it," Angel said. "I know people who have the digital kinds now, but they aren't as cool as the old ones. Can I see it?" 

"Yeah, sure," Demie said, handing the camera off to him. 

Angel turned the camera over in his hands as Demie ate. Then, without warning, Angel lifted the camera to his face, and pointed it at Demie. 

"Smile," he said with a grin, snapping a picture. 

"Dude, hey!" Demie threw up his hands as the flash went off. He reached for the photo to snatch it out of Angel's hands before it developed, but Angel threw up an elbow to ward him off and held it far away at the other end of the car. 

"Ha!" Angel laughed, shaking the photo off as the image came into relief. "Omigod, you look hilarious." 

Demie could only sort of see the photo, but he could see that he was shoveling lettuce into his open mouth in it. He shoved Angel's shoulder and sat back in his seat. "Dick," he said. He never took pictures of himself. 

Angel handed the camera back to him, but held onto the photo. 

"Do not keep that thing," Demie said. 

"Oh, no, I am absolutely keeping this. I'm gonna pin it up on my photo wall." 

"You like taking photos too?" 

"What? Oh, no, they're all of myself. You're getting the distinction of being the first non-Angel photo on the Angel Photo Wall." 

"Fuckin' narcissist," Demie snorted. 

"Nothing wrong with a little self-love," Angel shot back. 

Demie poked at his salad some more. "Do you have any other tattoos?" He asked after a little while. 

"Huh?" 

"The wings," Demie jerked a thumb towards his own back. "Saw 'em when you got out of the car. You got any others?" 

"Oh. No, not right now," Angel replied. "I can't decide on anything that I'd like enough to put on my body permanently. Besides the wings, of course. Why? Do you have any?" 

"Nah," Demie said. "One of my cousins knows how to do stick-and-poke, he always offers to do some at the Bacchanalia, but… same, I can't think of anything I want permanently on my body." 

"What's the Bacchanalia?" Angel asked. "Something to do with your band?" 

"Mm, kinda," Demie said around another bite of salad. "Everyone in the area who worships Bacchus - Dionysus - gets together once a year and we throw this massive party. Basically everyone just goes into the woods and gets real drunk and has a lot of sex. We named the band after our God." 

"That sounds…" Angel tapped his mouth with his fingertips, "that sounds so pagan, but also so, so hillbilly." 

"Yeah, whatever. It's a religious thing." 

"No, that sounds fun. I wish my religion was getting drunk and having sex in the woods." 

Demie opened his mouth, but closed it very quickly. He had considered inviting Angel to the Bacchanalia, but decided better of it. Again, he didn't really trust himself when it came to losing all control if Angel was around, though he wasn't sure why. He told himself that he just didn't want Angel to get hurt, even though there generally weren't any fights at the celebration. 

"Hey," he said, changing the subject, "can I take a photo of your tattoo sometime?" 

Angel looked at him, arching an eyebrow. "Why? I mean… sure, but why?" 

Demie shrugged. "I dunno. Only so many interesting things to photograph out in the woods. It'd be cool to have a picture of a person." 

"Yeah," Angel said after a moment. "Yeah, of course." 

[split-n-splice]

in my heart this is the “dino nugget chapter” uwu

[Chapter Guide]

11. Distance – 4

It was a few days before she went back to the lair.

In the meantime, Shilo stayed busy familiarizing herself with the bus routes and the shortest path to Buckley’s Brew, which was just within walking distance as long as she told herself she needed the exercise. She bought a few things to spruce up the new digs with what cash she had left on hand, like blinds, bedding, and a VCR, along with some provisions for herself. She didn’t like the thought of settling in, or waking to an alarm clock even earlier than usual, but she had no one but herself to complain to.

The henchgirls-to-be she worked alongside in the mornings weren’t the nicest bunch, but she should have expected that much. Shilo had her suspicions the reason for the snub was because they knew she was Go City’s disgraced hero Shego, though it was never brought it up.

By Friday, she was glad to make it out of the shop without clashing with either of the girls.

Returning to her apartment didn’t appeal to her, no matter how badly she longed for a nap. There was no air-conditioning, for one, and autumn or not, it was still sweltering hot. It made her miss the ocean breeze and the beach and splashing in the waves to cool off when it got unbearable, but the closest thing in the Nevada oasis was a sorry river that crossed through town, which was shriveled up to little more than a trickle this time of year. She’d heard of a lake not far from town, but she wasn’t up to making that journey.

By the time she considered finding refuge in the library, she’d already caught a bus heading to the other end of town. Maybe next time, she told herself.

Luckily for her, she didn’t have to kick the gate or wait for an attendant, as she happened to catch a henchman marching by in his sweep of the perimeter. The new guy seemed unsure of her, as if she were just some civilian that had wandered in off the road and demanded entry. He reached for the radio on his belt, but thought twice about calling for instruction when Shego narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms impatiently. “I’ve got an appointment with the Doc,” she lied. The guarded man straightened up fast and fumbled with the key to grant her access before she could rip her way through the gate herself.

The new henchman said nothing. Shego didn’t thank him, but he earned a glare shot over her shoulder when he stepped toward her as if to escort her to the garage. It was enough to teach him his place, because he quickly turned to chain the gate shut again to keep out meddling kids, the likes of which he must have assumed she was. Shego relaxed when he resumed his patrol.

The lair was a cool respite from the scorching Nevada winds, although it was a little on the chilly side. She warmed her hands and rubbed her bare arms as she made her way deeper.

The lab was shut down, although the overhead fluorescents remained on. Dr. Drakken’s favorite worktable was buttoned up to hide his pet project, surgical light off, and the computer screen was dark, though some lights blinked across the mainframe that doubled as a desk. An arrangement of crates and boxes of supplies had been moved in for a new project, but Shego could only make out heaps of scrap metal. She didn’t bother to unroll the scrolls of blueprints.

She regretted not leaving a spare uniform behind, but popped into her room anyway for a sweater before peeking in the office. Her shoulders slumped and she hummed, noting it was especially dark inside with only the hall light and the ambience of the CCTV system. Even the oversized fireplace was put out, which explained why it was especially cold today in the subterranean lair.

A check over security feed gave away the positions of the henchmen only, the newest of which she already knew was still making his rounds outside. Two were in aprons and goggles and heavy-duty gloves, grinding metal and working some sort of press machine in a workshop in the deeper recesses of the lair, while the pudgy one was stuck with janitor duty mopping the hall somewhere between the henchmen’s dormitory and the cafeteria.

It wasn’t the first time Dr. Drakken had disappeared without a trace, but it was still unusual enough to make her quirk her mouth and huff. His van was still in the garage, and unless he’d gotten a new rig in the past few days, no vehicles were missing.

She decided he’d turn up eventually, and moseyed back upstairs. If she shut her eyes and concentrated, she thought she might have still smelled a faint trace of coconut in the stagnant air. A little part of her gave an ugly twinge at having run out unannounced as she had the other day, and she’d thought she’d gotten over it until now, but the guilt crept back to drag her down as she reached the door of his quarters.

Shego didn’t expect to spot him lounging on the couch. That alone seemed unusual for him, given the time of day.

She studied the back of his head as she shut the door silently behind her, which may have been a mistake. His hair was plastered flat as if he’d just gotten out of the shower and neglected to towel off. Given his bare shoulders, she was hesitant to approach in case he was au naturel. It was his living space after all, and she hadn’t exactly been invited. Maybe she should have knocked.

Unfortunately for Drakken, her interest was piqued by his indiscernible muttering before she could make her escape. Over the back of the couch, she saw him raise one of the dinosaur chicken nuggets she’d chastised him about earlier in the week, and he hummed a familiar tune in imitation of last summer’s box office hit.

As she neared, Shego was relieved to find he at least had sweats on. She didn’t need that much proof he was thoroughly blue from head to toe anyway.

Drakken interrupted the Jurassic ditty with a mock roar as he beat the brachiosaur nugget with a T-rex, dipped its head in ketchup from the plate on his stomach, and bit it off at the shoulder. The T-rex nugget got its share as Drakken supplied carnivorous sound effects around a mouthful, at least until he dunked it in ketchup too and popped it whole in his mouth.

It was then that Shego leaned over the spine of the couch to grab the plate from his stomach. “Oh yeah,” she chimed, selecting a misshapen nugget – she had to assume it was a pterodactyl – from his plate while he choked on his T-rex and just about fell off the couch in his surprise. “You are the embodiment of evil, Doc.”

He sat up, pounding a fist on his chest as he coughed into his other hand. Coughing and hacking wasn’t particularly charming, but she didn’t let it dissuade her from stealing another nugget off his plate. He’d certainly made enough he could spare a few.

“What—,” he paused to wheeze as he swung his legs around off the couch to put his back to her as he reached for his soda pop on the coffee table, guzzling it and gasping for air. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at Buckley’s?”

“It’s, like, three o’clock, Doc,” she noted around a stegosaur’s head end, and cast a glance back to the clock on the kitchen wall. “Three twenty. My weekend starts now.”

“That’s nice,” he said insincerely, and twisted around to grab the plate back. She held it out of reach and popped the rest of the stegosaur in her mouth as he grunted his complaint. “Get your own. That’s mine.”

“Fine. Here.” She forked over the plate, though she had half a mind to dump it in his lap, sauce and all. “They taste like cardboard anyway.”

She stood up and leaned back to sit on the back of the couch instead, ignoring the slight protest of the frame beneath the upholstery. “Did you always have the belly pooch, or have you just been in here snacking this whole time?” she wondered, casting a glance to the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, baking pans among the mess.

Drakken stood suddenly with an extra-annoyed grunt and adjusted the waist of his sweatpants. “You missed out on coconutties,” he said as if in explanation before shuffling off to abandon his plate on the counter.

She let herself fall back into the spot he’d occupied moments ago. It was warm, if not a little damp. She didn’t want to try identifying the lingering scent of his soap, and shoved the appreciation for this particular villain’s hygiene standards right out of her head.

“Are you here to work or for my cable?” Drakken called from the kitchen as she flipped on the TV.

“Depends,” she said with a shrug. “Did you save me any cookies?”

“No.”

“Jerk.”

She didn’t mean anything by the offhanded remark, but it clearly offended him because she heard him scoffing and sputtering disjointed syllables. She wasn’t about to apologize though – not for calling him a jerk, and not for bailing or tricking him either.

A cabinet slammed, and she didn’t think anything of it until a brown paper sack was dropped on her stomach to distract her from the TV. She stared at the bag dumbly for a moment, but as she turned her attention up to utter something in question, she just barely caught a peek of Drakken’s back disappearing into his room. He slammed his door with enough force that it bounced open, and she almost laughed in reflex at his added curse as he shut it again.

She was sitting up with the bag open and nibbling on her second coconutty cookie when Drakken came skulking back in. She’d had just enough time to feel bad again for ditching without warning the other day. Tricking him into baking had to be awfully degrading for an aspiring villain she was supposed to be abetting, but given the discovery of being labeled the boss’s girl, she was suspicious all over again of his motives and why she was here at all. She didn’t bring them into question, though.

Instead, “These are nice,” slipped out.

Now dressed at least semi-professionally with his black slacks and blue button-up, Drakken tugged at his cuffs and grunted as he approached. “They would have been better if you’d tried them fresh, but you looked like you had somewhere better to be.”

“Yeah. I did,” she muttered, drawing into herself a little without meaning to. Her hands felt warm. She really wished she had her suit, but consoled herself that she’d long since outgrown any combustion problems, at least while conscious. “So you got anything for me to do, or do I need to bend the rules again?”

“I’m afraid not today,” he announced as he passed by behind her. “But I’ll have something for you tomorrow, if you’d be so kind as to be here by nine.”

“I don’t like surprises, Doc,” she warned, tipping her head back to scowl at him upside down. “What’s the job?”

“You’ll have to be here at nine AM to find out.”

++X++

Just to spite him, she made up her mind to show up fashionably late.

Of course, it wasn’t like it was completely intentional. If she wanted to make it even close to nine o’clock, she couldn’t wait around to see if he’d send a ride for her, and it wasn’t like she could control how fast the bus driver drove without resorting to drastic measures.

She’d slept in a little anyway, after having spent the better half of the night awake in front of an oscillating fan, wondering what the surprise possibly was. She also waited to get sick from cookies she hadn’t tested on him first for poison, but the only queasiness she felt was over the fact she’d still brought the bag home with her at all and even nibbled on a couple more throughout the night.

On the drudging walk out of town, a sputtering rusty sedan pulled to a near-stop beside her. The occupants gave her deceitful smiles probably meant to seem friendly but instead invoked an urge to plasma blast them in their faces. She declined their offer for a ride, but they continued to creep along beside her as she made her way up the hill.

The car that came up behind honked their annoyance and sped past.

After the third rebuff and a middle finger, Shego hopped across the ditch to walk along the tree line instead, glad to have something between her and the car about to have its tires blown out. She had to squeeze her fists to restrain herself, finding it especially difficult to keep up the civilian act. She made a point to remember the men and the vehicle as it drove away. It was a small town, and she’d keep her identity a secret better if she avoided the hooligans.

Shego couldn’t help raising her brow when she saw two more cars wiz by. She was already long past the residences gathered around the foot of the mountain. Unless there was some party in the backwoods, she couldn’t think of any reason for the unusual traffic.

Half past nine, she found out what the hullabaloo was all about as she made it up Drakken’s driveway. The gate was open for arrivals, but one of the henchmen shut it behind her. All the vehicles that had passed her on the way up, plus a couple others, were parked out on the blacktop in front of the garage. The various strangers lumped together to socialize.

Flanked by two henchmen, Dr. Drakken was dressed up in navy-blue business attire, black gloves and oxfords to match his tie. He was looking particularly professional with a clipboard and shaking hands with the latest arrival.

“You’re late,” he called in displeasure as she cut through the crowd.

She ignored the remark. “So what’s the big surprise?” she asked, adjusting the shoulder strap of her go-bag holding her uniform. “Throwing a party?”

“Cute,” he snorted, and shook his head. “Tryouts. You’re going to help me assess these men.” He waved his pen like a pointer to them.

Shego eyed the lineup. “Wow, Doc. It’s only been, like, a week. How’d you rustle up ‘em up so fast? Mail order?”

He turned and all but stuck his nose in the air. “Connections, Shego,” he said, and gave a wave for the flock of henchmen to follow him.

“What’d you promise them?” she chuckled under her breath as they came around enter the garage through the side door. “A share in the spoils?”

“It worked on you.” He flicked a wily smirk down at her, and then quickly blinked and looked ahead again.

Shego dropped her voice further, shooting over, “Hey, I’m not here because I really think you can do it.” Which earned her a crestfallen gawp, and then he squared up again and glared at her and snorted and took two big strides ahead, as if trying to ignore her hot on his heels. “How do I tie into all this?”

“If you had been here earlier, I could have briefed you,” he noted.

He paused at the staircase in the foyer, instructing the senior henchmen at the head and caboose to take the candidates to the gym. He waved them off with his clipboard before turning to Shego, but held his tongue as the very last henchman, the early bird who’d arrived the other day, came jogging through the room to take his correct place in line.

Drakken waited for their footsteps to fade down the hall above before ascending the stairs himself. He cast Shego a sidelong glance along the way. “If you’re going to be picky about who I hire to work for me, then the least you can do is help evaluate them for me,” he said. “At least in terms of fight training. I’d like to know what I have to work with here, and you’ve handled enough henchmen to be a good judge of their capability, I presume.”

“Can I rough ‘em up?” she asked, just a little too eagerly. There were already two in mind she’d like to teach a valuable lesson to. Maybe three.

“I’d rather you showed some restraint,” sighed Drakken. “You can do that for me, can’t you?”

Sure she could. She’d had to subdue not-quite-villains more times than she could count without battering them, though she’d walked a fine line, and quite often that aspect was left to her big brother. “I can try,” she said reluctantly, giving her shoulder strap a squeeze. “No promises.”

She met Drakken in his office minutes later, suited up and ready to go. He almost said something about the gloves he’d specifically asked her not to wear, but he must have realized they were the old pair, as he shut his mouth again before he could whine about it. It would be too easy to forget about restraint anyway if she were brandishing concealed weapons at her fingertips. The old gloves felt wrong somehow though – unpleasant even.

She couldn’t wait to get this over with.

Drakken brought a stack of manila folders with them to the gym. Henchmen clad in secondhand jumpsuits filed in minutes later.

Shego would have expected the chief to make use of the time by interviewing while she performed her task of testing the men, but instead he sat on the bench along the wall with the goons, crossing his legs and folding his hands over a knee. Despite his stoic stare, something about it seemed a little too keen to watch the show. It made the hairs on the back of her neck rise, but whether it was over a suspicion she was being evaluated herself or just the fact she was being watched at all, she wasn’t sure.

Giving helpful pointers as she had before was different than actually putting the men to the test individually, but one by one, she sifted through them. Two didn’t know the right way to make a fist, while another was a bouncy boxing fanatic who horrendously overestimated himself and got a heel to the teeth. The remaining men were average, all except for one.

The last actually provided a challenge. Shego didn’t need to peek at his file to know he was a trained martial artist, likely with far more years experience under his belt than her, though he wasn’t a master by any stretch. The lithe man still managed to knock her down and pin her with a fist drawn back in a feigned punch, but the pause he gave to mark his assumed triumph was his error.

The second she was pinned, she saw Drakken in her peripheral rising from the bench, but then she was too preoccupied with kicking the candidate back with enough force to send him flying into the wall beside the benches. His head cracked on unforgiving stone and he collapsed momentarily. Two senior henchmen came to the aid of the limp heap as he groaned and came around.

Shego lay back on the mat for another moment to catch her own breath after having the wind nearly knocked out of her, and then swung her legs to hop up. She pulled her ponytail tighter and brushed stray hair back behind an ear as she came to take the man’s file from Drakken. A glance over his credentials and Drakken’s notes, and she nodded, sparing a breathy, “He’ll do.” What the man lacked in brawns, he made up for in skill and stealth, a good teammate if she ever needed one for infiltration and theft.

Drakken grunted and took the folder back. “Break time,” he loudly announced, already on his way back to the catwalk out of the gym.

As she followed him, Shego cast a glance back to the last contestant to be sure he was on his feet and not looking too resentful. It was reassuring the guy just smiled to the others and rubbed the welt on his head. He must not have taken offense to her getting the last strike in after the match was decidedly over.

Back upstairs in Drakken’s quarters, he threw the folders down on the coffee table, and Shego sank down on the couch to peruse them for herself finally. There was the shuffling of glass clanking in the fridge and cabinet doors, and before Shego could finish skimming over the first file, Drakken was beside her and all but shoving something in her face.

“Open this.”

Shego leaned back from the pickle jar with a scoff, and pushed it away. “Stick a spoon under the lid to pop it,” she suggested with a shake of her head.

“They’re all dirty.”

“Then wash your damn dishes!” she barked back. The grunt he gave her might as well have been a whine. “Fine. Just – give it here. Cripes.” She jerked the jar from him to give the snug lid a twist and pop the seal before shoving it back at him. She wished she hadn’t though, because he stepped around her to plop down a cushion away and crunch and slurp on what he considered a lunch. She made a mental note not to get into his contaminated stash as she tried to ignore him fishing around in the juice with his bare hand after the third pickle.

Focusing on reviewing the candidates’ files proved difficult, until she sat back with a sigh and warned him to take his snack elsewhere with a reminder not to wipe his hands on his clothes or the couch, because she was not going to put up with smelling pickles for the rest of her time here today. He glared, but complied.

He was leaning over the back of the couch a few minutes later. “Well?” he grunted. “What do you think? Are they up to snuff? Or are your standards set so high this was all a waste of time?”

Shego sighed and shoved each folder aside as she sorted them and gave her biased opinion. “Don’t like this guy. Really don’t like this guy. These guys just suck, this one’s worthless—”

“Must you be so picky?” Drakken interjected with a groan as he slumped over the back of the couch. He was leaning a little too close for comfort if she could feel his breath on the back of her neck and smell the vinegar on it.

“Why ask for my opinion if you’re not going to listen to it?”

“Oh, I’m listening to it,” he assured, and she shot a glare back at him as he picked an ear. “I’m just taking it with a grain of salt, that’s all.” She had half a mind to shove his face away with a plasma-coated hand, but instead she scooted aside. “Anyway, I need that last one. He stays.”

“Ew?” she couldn’t help scoffing. She grabbed the folder again to hold it up to him, to be sure Drakken was looking at the right name and mugshot. “Did you see that dude’s hands? He’s got missing fingers.”

Drakken snatched the folder from her to double check the file for himself. “Cut him some slack. He’s a metalworker. I need more of them down in the shop.”

“Must not be any good at it if he’s losing digits. Just saying. And he can’t fight worth a damn, so—”

“Henchfolk aren’t all one-trick ponies geared toward combat services, Shego,” said Drakken in a long-winded sigh. “Did you ever stop to consider that? They’re technicians, and tradesmen, and – where are you going?”

“If I’m done here, I’m out,” she declared as she made for the door.

“Oh,” Drakken uttered, and she didn’t want to look back at what she just knew was a deflated pout. “Alright. Well – be here tomorrow. On time, please, if you will. Nine o’clock sharp.”

“What for?” Shego scoffed from the doorway. She risked a glance back to him wringing his gloves.

If she had to guess, he was making up an excuse on the spot. “Ah, well, it would still do the lot of them good to have, ah…someone as skilled as you to give them some one-on-one—”

“Do I look like a personal trainer?”

“Well, you’re the closest to one I’ve got on hand, so you’ll have to do,” he retorted, scowling back at her.

“Fine. I’ll start with you. Tomorrow. Nine AM sharp. Be there or be square.”

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Economic downturn, racism and war.

So, normally I’d be in some sort of non-sober state while writing this, and be full of my typical rash wit. But not today. Today I want to talk about what I (and many others) are seeing down the tube.  First, let’s go over the quick run of what’s going on. 1, we’re having concentration camps of both migrants as well as asylum seekers. This is inherently inhumane and a violation of various multiparty agreements that were made post world war 2 to not cock things up like Germany did with the Jews, or more locally relevant, what we did to fuck over the Japanese in the same period.  2, We’re in a trade war with China, who is itself trying to do a hostile takeover of Hong Kong (and don’t kid yourself for a moment, that’s exactly what the fuck that is), which happens to be the 3rd most important economic center in the world by most accounts.  3, Russia is fucking around with our politicians and buying them off to make for easier voter suppression and just bloody hacking the electronic voting machines, which oh by the way, an adequately caffeinated high-school nerd could probably do.  4, And finally, despite not technically being “in a war”, we’re not at peace, either. Hell, we haven’t been for as long as I can remember. Like many people on this website, one of my first memories was 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I vividly remember the latter, as we sat in our living room watching the bombs drop and my mother in hushed tones said “Well.. This is it.” and my stepfather, an Army Ranger at the time, looked tired and said matter of factly “we’ll not be rid of this until you’re a grown man, and even then..”. And he was right.  Now, all of these things seem somewhat not related. Well, I guess I should say the 1st doesn’t exactly line up with the 2nd and 3rd, which have some geopolitical relevance to each other. But let’s take a history trip together, shall we? First, be sure to bring the hairspray, because we’re going into the Reagan-era and just before for a bit.  Imagine if you will the supposed dying throes of the Cold War. Bioweapons program supposedly being shut down, the Soviet Union splitting away, and the Americas? Well they’ve gone through hell, and by no small measure it was due to proxy wars, puppet governments and a complete disregard for “other” people for the sake of borders and protection. Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala and other countries are having civil wars funded by both sides of that iron curtain, causing institutionalized violence, setting the development of these countries back fucking decades, and setting them up to fail.  [Note that when I say “setting the development back”, I do not mean they are in any way lesser to us due to this. In fact, in my wheelhouse of Public Health, they arguably do a better job of handling shit than we could dream of in the US. They’re damn fine people, and in some ways thriving, but to say we didn’t fuck with them would be a disservice. ] Part of this “setting up to fail” strategy was the use of drugs as a means of easy funding, which the U.S. government did wholly support to the point of screwing African Americans (and to a much lesser extent, poor people in general) in particular over by introducing things like Cocaine and Crack to poor neighborhoods (though it should be noted such drugs had been in the realm of public notice for the better part of a century before, just not as accessible).  Funny thing about using drugs to fuel wars. Wars can end. But the demand for drugs by a population that doesn’t have the ability to be treated due to some “moral outrage” against helping addicts? Well, that still remains a very profitable venue. So even after we stopped giving a fuck about any of these countries and their governments gave up the sale of illegal drugs, at least in the open, criminal elements showed up to do what they did best: manufacture and transport drugs to where the best demand was, the United States typically. And to protect this profitable enterprise, these groups would claim territory, claim children as recruits, commit other crimes to support the chain, etc. And these activities still go on today, wherein some cartels and gangs have gotten rich enough to effectively buy off governments and have their own fiefdoms, where those with any ability risk their lives to run. And yet, so many do. Also, it’s important to note that while countries like Mexico are arguably more stable than say, Honduras or El Salvador, they’re still pretty fucked from the radiation of these activities. So these families try to make it to the closest, arguably “most stable” country they can, ironically the one that set the stones for the foundation of where they found themselves. And they are treated as trash, as less than human, as animals. Because we refuse to see our own guilt. We refuse to see what we have done, not centuries ago, but less than 50 years ago. And who is egged on the most to hate these people? Well, if you look at it, it’s the least “most powerful” group that can easily be manipulated: Lower class white groups by a vast majority. Groups who themselves see hardships, certainly, but more than anything know two words: Fear and Authority. They are afraid of the “other”, the “jawb steelin’ immigunts”, the “criminals and rapists” as the person who inhabits the White House calls them. And they respect and adore those who can wield an iron first. Someone they can imagine being, whether it’s a business tycoon of a dictator they see as a near-messiah, who says it’s not their fault they are struggling, and then makes an easy, low effort “solution” for them to point to as to what could cure all those ills which are, at their root, legitimate.  [Note: This by no means excuses any White Supremacist or other racist ideologies. That shit needs to be fixed, and there is no excuse for that.] Let’s take a pause for a moment on that, as it’s significant. Is this the first time this has happened? Heavens no, in fact, many examples exist in history. But one stands out to me above all.  Go back with me again, if you’d be so kind. You feel the warmth of the sun on your face, you can hear the distant waves, and the not so distant hustle and bustle of a city. You smell a mix of salt water infused air with just a hint of smelted metal or gunpowder.  Perhaps you hear some music from The Andrew Sisters crackling out of a radio near an open window. You’re in San Francisco, not too long after the World’s Fair, where the hopes of Utopia were promptly shut off to be dismantled and loaded for the war effort of World War 2. In fact, as you look around, you see the strangest thing. There are clearly Japanese inspired markets and homes all around, but inhabiting them? No Japanese, surely, but the Shoe Shines and markets filled with a vibrant African American community. Some would one day call this the West Coast Harlem. And by their account, it was a wonderful community, of which I have no doubt. However.  Those who lived and worked and loved in these buildings just months prior were put into camps. In Utah, in Nevada, California, Washington. In fact, it pains me a bit to know one such place is but a very hearty stones throw from where I sit writing this. They were put there and made to stay due to risk of espionage, national security, or “for their own safety”. They were told to join the war effort as translators or soldiers, or remain there. The doctors of that community and the nurses too would end up working without pay, saving their own communities with limited supplies and truly working goddamned miracles in these camps to keep people alive, as politicians would brag “For every cent we spend on the Japanese, we spend a whole dollar on our boys out on the front!” That kind of shit sound familiar?  And that African American community? Well, while it was a positive thing for that demographic, certainly, and they had a valid right to be a community, that was by no means organic. The military spread out to places like Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, wherever there were large populations of blacks, whom the whites saw still as highly undesirables, and the military saw as cheap labour.  Well, the military found their people. And those people found cheap, effectively abandoned communities, and were able to live somewhat better than where they came from, all while building warships. However, just like with the previous example, this war wouldn’t last forever. But not just like that previous example, the demand for warships is rather... Specific, in both timing and transferable skills, shall we say? So, this cheap labour was made of a demographic that could be relatively easily discarded without them having enough of a voice to cause waves. And soon enough, the Japanese would return from their internment camps, and let’s just say things were... Tense, between these two groups. Two groups who were, by most accounts, politically undesirable, and if they were fucked, well who would care, right? If it caused generational issues, and exacerbated an economy that would make a good deal of trouble, as long as it’s not the demographic that matters... No worries. It’s not like they even really have good proof of who was really at fault, nor who profited from later real-estate scoop ups and other such economic trends. After all, they moved for the jobs, and the Japanese? Well that was a national security issue.... Don’t you love your country?  While this isn’t analogous to what we are seeing today, I hope you can notice the similar theme. Except this time, the demographic in question has to feel “empowered” in some way, and having who they want voted in anyways due to international meddling is more an afterthought to the “yay, we won!” mentality. And the expendables will have a bit more of a veiled attempt to undercut their work via a trade war with a nation who is admittedly, a scumbag (which we have collectively supported with corporate dollars for decades). This trade war will cause a lot of businesses, farms, and the like to close, making it easier for corporate groups to buy out the competition and profit all the more for it (despite some initial risk due to economic trends). All the while, a different, remarkably innocent group is being blamed and tortured for their “crimes”.   It would not surprise me if in the next 2 years, we will see a recession that will make 2008 look pretty alright. And make no mistake, it will not be due to the president at that time. The gears of the machine have been turned now and in the last year and a half. Likewise, we may well see a war. With who? I do not know. But I most certainly know who will profit from it. And who will die from it, and who will be dehumanized further to be the scapegoat.  We’re in incredibly dangerous times, and we need to be aware of why, if we have any hope of surviving. 

[spookywolflee]

I quickly found out who the arresting officer who was now retired of Michael Drake, and locating him was pretty easy too. Joey Arnold. He was involved in a lot of community and charity work around Firgrove since he stopped working for the force, so he was in the Jorvik Gazette a lot for his good deeds. I got my lovely Sunny ready and off we headed too Firgrove. It would have been a lot easier for me to drive, but honestly, I needed time to go through everything we already knew, and just think about it somewhere that wasn’t cooped up in the office. Besides, it had been a while since me and Sunny had been on a long lazy hack and not on patrol and in uniform.

It was a nice day, not too hot, but not cold enough to need a jacket. A jumper was enough. The roads and pathways were quiet, I saw about 4 riders max. I soon found myself in front of the towering wooden pike wall that protected Firgrove from the horrors of the mountains. It always made me uneasy riding alone around here, wolves and bears didn’t seem to have any fear of humans or horses. A ranger lazily left his post above me and pushed the button which opened the entrance. I waved a thanks and urged Sunny to walk on into the village.

I quickly found the stables and approached Felicity whom I knew pretty well from when I’d rented a stable for a few days whenever I had competitions.

“Hey Felicity” I greeted, pulling Sunny to a halt.

“Hey you! Day off?” She grinned, walking over and giving Sunny’s neck a pat.

“A day off? What’s that?” I giggled, loosening my rein.

“What brings you all the way down here then? Someone been naughty and in hiding in the mysterious Firgrove? You’d never find them in these parts!” She joked.

“No actually, but can you point me in the direction of where Joey Arnold lives? Retired Detective Sergeant?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“Sure could, but he’s actually in the stables. He’s just getting ready for a ride.” She told me.

That made things easier.

I dismounted Sunny and tied her up, and entered the stables. Joey Arnold wasn’t hard to spot, a big 6ft4in man who was carrying about 15 stone minimum, attending to a big bay Shire horse who was tied up, falling asleep whilst getting groomed.

“Joey Arnold?” I asked as I approached.

“That’s me!” He confirmed with a jolly tone, turning to face me.

“Hi, I’m Vivien Wolflee, and I work for Jorvik Police Department..I’m really sorry to bother you, but we’re working on a case involving Amanda Drake and wondered if you could help us with something” I asked with a hint of desperation in my voice.

He groaned slightly

“That woman never gives up.” He muttered.

“What can I help you with?” he asked, placing his grooming brushes back into his box.

“Basically, we’re investigating a large volume of missing horses, and we’re more than certain that she has something to do with it. However, we have no clue where she is. There’s barely anything on either of them on the database, and no address. The only lead we currently have is that she is divorced, and her husband was Michael Drake...we were hoping to find him to question him. See if we can get some sort of insight into what she could be up to. You actually arrested Michael a few times. Do you know where he lived? Or what area? anything?” I pleaded. I needed something here.

He took in what I told him, then slowly nodded.  

“I may be able to help you. Ride with me, you never know who’s listening.” He told me, his tone a lot more serious now.

We rode South West to Applegrove, and small talk was made about our lives, our jobs, horses, the usual. Finally, we found somewhere where it was just us.

“Michael Drake...He was never really troublesome, to be honest, and I think all the crimes he got charged for were never his idea. He was always protecting Amanda, covering for her, taking the blame...He was, and probably still is absolutely besotted with Amanda Drake. it was plain to see she wrung him dry of everything he had, she never loved him. But I guess love is blind huh.” He began. We continued walking. Interesting.

“To be honest, we never had a fixed address. We tried so hard to get a warrant to look into both of them and find their address for a search...but they were always annoyingly armed with very high profile solicitors. We couldn’t even scratch the surface.”  

My heart sank.

“No address?” I asked, not really wanting the answer confirmed.

He shook his head.

“Nope. No address. He was always caught in the act, which made us think he sort of wanted to get caught to take our attention away from something else that Amanda was doing. I guess it worked, we only managed to arrest her once, but had to let her go due to lack of evidence.”

“Do you have anything that could help us?” I asked him desperately.

“There was always one thing that stuck out. He reeked, and I mean...reeked...of fish. All the time.” he stated, scrunching his nose as if remembering the smell.

Fish? What a strange thing to smell of.

“Fish.....” I said aloud, as if it would help me come up with something.

The only time people really smelt like fish was if they worked in a fishmongers...or on the docks.

The docks.

It made sense for him to be there, that was more than likely how he first came into contact with Amanda. She was forever importing and exporting god knows what overseas. But what dock?

As if reading my mind, Joey chimed in.

“I think Golden Hills dock would be your best bet. That’s the busiest one, the others have died down over the years and aren’t really used anymore. He would go unnoticed there, and somebody like him has a lot of enemies. He’s trying to be invisible on purpose”.

I nodded, my heart started racing. I lived in Golden Hills at the minute, but it would take me at least 3 hours to get home. But Alicia did too. I pulled my radio from my back pocket.

“Alicia? Over” I radioed in.

“Hey Viv, what’s up? Over”. She radioed back quickly.

“I need you to get to Golden Hills Dock, and quickly. I need you to try and find a Michael Drake. 44. 6ft3in, 17 stone. You can’t miss him. Captain Brus has hopefully at least heard of him. Speak to him, over. ” I quickly directed.

“On it, Boss. Over.” She replied.

[cromulentbookreview]

Ambergris!

Amberlough, Armistice, Amnesty...Ambergris? That could be a potential title for a 4th book, right? I mean, Ambergris is basically whale poo that makes perfume, but hey, it’d be a cool title. It’s also the basis of an awesome Bob’s Burgers episode.

I couldn’t find a gif from the actual episode, so...I picked this one.

And by all of that, I mean: Amnesty, book three of the Amberlough Dossier by Lara Elena Donnelly!

Hoo boy. 

So there are two things I really, really love in a story: old timey spycraft (there’s a reason why one of my favorite ever TV series is TURN: Washington’s Spies. You don’t get more crafty than 18th century spycrafting!) and Art Deco. I love Art Deco. I love the style that emerged in the 1920s and 30s - when fashion, especially for women, took a massive heel-face-turn, when electricity was only just becoming mainstream, cars were phasing out horse-drawn transport, radio was becoming a thing and everybody smoked like chimneys and drank like fish, and figured it probably wasn’t bad for you. Seriously, you go from the 1910s, where women’s skirts were floor-length and heaven forbid someone see your ankles, to dresses with hemlines above the knee. We’re talking knee-exposure, people! That is a DEFCON-1 sartorial situation, people! Edwardian matrons are having heart attacks at the sight of their granddaughters’ knees. The 20s and 30s it seems combine the sort of fun, old-timey lawlessness of Ye Olden Days with just a enough modernity so things are fun. I mean, come on, it’s like Boardwalk Empire or The Untouchables, or Jeeves and Wooster or Caberet. Or the planet Sigma Iotia II from the Star Trek episode A Piece of the Action. 

OK, so my love of the 20s and 30s and old timey spycraft has been well-established, right? Yeah, those are both things I very much enjoy. I love John Le Carre’s George Smiley books because that’s back when spying involved handwritten notes taped to the backs of benches and dead-drops in train station lockers. I’m sure modern spycraft still uses some of these old-school methods - you can’t hack a piece of paper, after all - but old timey spycraft just sounds, I dunno, more fun than modern spycraft. At least, it’s more fun for me to read about.

Anyway! This brings me around to Lara Elena Donnelly’s Amberlough Dossier series.

The Amberlough Dossier is technically a fantasy series because it takes place in a world that doesn’t exist. Though that world seems extremely familiar - it’s basically Sigma Iotia II from A Piece of the Action, or Berlin of Christopher Isherwood’s 1930s - a world of decadence, caberet, free-flowing booze and cigarettes...that is slowly rotting from the inside out. 1930s Germany is a fascinating place - and by “fascinating” I mean “pants-pissing-levels of terrifying.” As someone who spent many, many, many, some would say “too many” years spent learning German, a language I almost never, ever use in my daily life (like, ever), I also spent a lot of time learning about German history. The way the rise of the Nazis also saw the rise of the Kabarett. Anyway, Amberlough City is very much like a mix of New York, London, and Berlin of the 30s. You’ve got all the fun of the 30s, mixed with the rise of a Fascist party called the One State Party, or OSP, frequently referred to as “Ospies.”

Now, if you haven’t read Amberlough and Armistice, you should. You really should. In fact, why don’t you do that. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Did you read them? Aren’t they fantastic? OK. So, on to the grand finale: Amnesty!

Just as Armistice begins with a three-year time jump after the events of Amberlough, Amnesty does the same, only this time, it’s five years after the events of Armistice, eight years after everything that went down during Amberlough. I’m not always a fan of time jumps - more often than not they make me angry, because I want to know absolutely everything that happens all the time always. Only, in the case of Amnesty, as with Armistice, I got over it pretty quick. Donnelly knows how to smooth over a time jump, filling us in with the events that happened in-between, and it does make sense that, for the most part, most major events of interest don’t always take place in perfect, chronological order. Anyway, we’re at five years after Armistice - Aristide and Daoud failed in their efforts to find Cyril in the Lisoan jungle, and they ended up setting up their own half-legit import/export business instead. Things are going pretty well - then Aristide gets a phone call from Prince Asiyah. They’ve found Cyril. Gasp!!

Meanwhile, in Amberlough, the Ospies have fallen. The revolution is over. If you were hoping for a whole book dedicated to guerilla warfare between Spotlight and the Ospies, well...sorry, you’ll be disappointed. Instead, we skip immediately to the interim government, trying to rebuild Amberlough from scratch. Lillian DePaul, with her husband Jinadh Addas and their son Stephen, now 13, have relocated back to the DePaul family home in Amberlough. The houses (a country estate and a town house) didn’t fare too well during Ospie rule, nor did the DePaul family’s assets. Plus, there’s also Cyril’s reputation is traitor to the nation to deal with. So Lillian, practically broke, has to contend with two crumbling houses that she can’t afford to staff properly, a husband who is not 100% happy with life in Amberlough, and a 13-year-old boy who acts like, well, a 13-year-old boy. Namely: moody, pissy and generally insufferable.

Then she gets a call out of nowhere from her old kind-of-sort-of-friend, Aristide Makricosta, with the news that her brother Cyril is still alive, and heading back to come stay with her. Yay?

Poor Cyril. Things were not great for him during the 8 years between the end of Amberlough and the start of Amnesty. He’d spent most of that time running dangerous ops for the Lisoan government in the jungle, with little regard for his own life. So when he finally emerges back to civilization he’s...well, different. There’s definitely a strong combination of PTSD and extreme guilt there. Plus a bit of survivalist kleptomania (hey, if you don’t know when you’re going to eat next, you’d squirrel away bits of food, too). Cyril is basically a man with a death wish, not giving a fuck about much of anything, preferring instead to retreat behind the mask of his work identities. Now he’s back - reunited with his old lover, Aristide, and his sister, Lillian. Plus, he gets to finally meet his nephew, Stephen.

But Cyril’s return to Amberlough isn’t exactly the best idea: once word gets out that he’s back, one of the politicians running for president of the new Amberlough decides to use Cyril as a political platform, namely that he should be arrested and put to death for treason. Cyril is like “sure, OK,” to that, but Lillian and Aristide? Yeah, they definitely don’t like that idea, and now they have to scramble to save not just Cyril, but themselves as well.

OK, so I fricking love this series. I tore through Amberlough and Armistice in just a couple of days, and I’m a slow reader, so that’s saying something. Amnesty is a completely satisfying end to the series, though I will still want more details about Cyril’s SuperHappyFun Jungle Adventures, or Aristide’s adventures in Porachis Bollywood or Coredlia’s rise as the leader of the resistance. Having those time gaps between books means we get to imagine all the adventures that happened in between. Which means: fanfiction! Woo! Or possible future short stories of novellas. (Cough cough hint hint Ms. Donnelly). If you’re not fond of big time gaps, then you might find this series frustrating, but still, Amnesty is an absolutely satisfying conclusion to the series.

My biggest complaint is, however, most definitely a spoiler, so I will be as vague as possible: one of the characters is killed off between Armistice and Amnesty. At first, I was pissed - it’s like when a character is killed off between seasons of a TV show because the actor got fired or left for a different job. You’re like, “noooo!” but, going directly from Armistice to Amnesty, the death of this particular character does make sense, and it’s not like their death is dismissed with a hand wave. It’s a huge part of the story. I’d already forgiven the off-screen death by the time I’d gotten halfway through the book. So if you’re tempted to throw the book across the room when you learn that [character] died between books, don’t. Keep going. You’d be cheating yourself otherwise.

My second biggest complaint is that we never get a map that includes the exact locations of Liso and Porachis. I want to know where everything is, damn it!

In all, you need to read this series. If you want a fantastic LGBTQ romance, a story that spans nearly a decade, old-timey Le Carre-level spycraft, political infighting, scheming, and a 1930s-esque world, then you need to read the entire Amberlough Dossier. Go on. You know you want to.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Fans of worlds inspired by the 20s and 30s, John Le Carre fans, anyone in need for a LGBTQ romance with spycraft elements.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anybody not interested in reading about the minutiae of politics of a world that doesn’t exist. I love that sort of thing but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

OVERALL SERIES RATING: 5/5

AMNESTY RATING: 4.5/5

AMNESTY RELEASE DATE: April 16, 2019

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR ANOTHER BOOK / NOVELLA / SHORT STORY / ANYTHING: Olympus Mons

[threeteentrio]

Control; Mafia!Jihoon

♡ Group/Member: Seventeen - Lee Jihoon/ Woozi

♡ Requested;  ‘ Mafia!Au + woozi from seventeen (or any au works) !!!!! ‘

♡ WARNING; Mentions of death, murder, swearing.

♡ Author: @joyfuljihao

♡ Notes;  I haven’t actually done like one-shots/scenarios in YEARS, so i’m quite used to writing multilpe chapter fics, so if this isn’t 100% what you like/ best qaulity, i promise i’m doing whatever i can to improve my writing! Also, i put Jihoon as having red hair in this because i honestly loved his red hair and that’s all i have to say...

This can lead to maybe a series if you guys want, make sure to tell me! :) // UNEDITED

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |

The static of the radio echoed throughout the room as the blinking computer lights filled your eyesight. Typing away at your computer, the exaggerated sigh left Mingyu's lips.

"Are you even smart enough to do this?" You scoffed.

You? Smart enough to hack into the opposing mafia's database to secretly download their mission plan for the next two months. Of fucking course, you were smart enough. You were Jeon Wonwoo's younger sibling for god sake.

It had been a thing since you were younger that, whatever Wonwoo did, you followed. So you learnt a lot of stuff whilst growing up, but once you found out more about computers and their systems you did everything you could, to learn everything you could.

"Shut Up Mingeww and let me focus" you sniggered, you knew the use of that nickname would just piss him off more.

"I swear to god if you weren't Wonwoo's younger siblings I would have decked you by now" Mingyu stresses, crossing his arms over his chest and tapping his foot against the floor. Rolling your eyes, you let the comment pass over your head as you knew Mingyu never would do that, especially not to someone on his own side as well.

"I have to find a backdoor in their systems, make sure if they do even notice that someone's hacked in that it jumps to at least a 1000 different IP address very ten minutes or so, so it can't be tracked back to us" You explained, you threw a look over your shoulder at Mingyu and raised an eyebrow. "And let me guess, you want me to try and put some sort of spyware into their system too"

Mingyu blinked for a moment, he almost looked confused- before snapping out of it and nodding his head.

"If you can do it without getting caught then sure" You let out a sigh, before linking your fingers and cracking them in front of you.

"It ain't going to be easy, but trust me, I'm the one for the job" Mingyu clicked his tongue as he ruffled your hair.

"You really are Wonwoo's sibling aren't you?"

"Without a doubt my dude, without a doubt"

"Minghao will probably be by later to check up, Wonwoo is still out with DK checking things out" you hummed, waving your hand up.

That was his queue to leave. To leave you to do what you do best. Hack the shit out of the rival mafia's database. Mingyu rolled his eyes at you but leaves quietly anyways. Shutting the door behind him, he lets out a small sigh.

"You better get this right kid"

You had spent your whole life in the mafia, yours and Wonwoo's father was the leader of the South Side Mafia, but when an argument between your father and his right-hand man caused your father to get shot and killed, the mafia got split into two. The side that supported your father and the side that supported his right-hand man.

Wonwoo quickly took over your father's position, growing up quickly considering he was still only 18 at the time, whereas you were 16 at the time. Wonwoo, for the most part, tried to hide you well from people outside the Mafia. It was safer for you to stay secrete than to be in harm's way.

You understood that, if anything, staying secrete helped you with your job of hacker/computer expert.

The other side, on the other hand, got taken over by Choi Seungcheol, the too cocky for his own good son of your father's right-hand man. Seungcheol was handsome, he knew that too well. He had an ego the size of a double-decker bus. Even though it had been three years since the initial split of the Mafia, the war- if you could even call it that- was still ongoing.

After a few hours, you managed to bypass their firewall and not long after that, you bypassed all their sensors. You raised an eyebrow to yourself as you clicked through some of the files. You bite your lip as you continued, the whole process seems too easy.

You loved an easy job, but this? This was too easy and too easy was risky.

You continued on, cautiously of course. Clicking through files and going through walls of security, you start to locate the file of their plans for the next few months.

The door opens behind you, which doesn't surprise you and Minghao appears beside you with two large cups of coffee.

"Thought you need this" He chuckles, placing a coffee next to you and moving to the small couch of coffee table that was in the room. Humming, you send him a smile and quickly pick up the large cup and sip at it.

"Thanks, Hao" After you place it back down and go back to work. Letting out a sigh, you turn your head to Minghao and send him a look. "Hao, I think there's something off about this"

He raises an eyebrow and pulls up a chair to sit next to you.

"What do you mean?"

"This was so easy to hack into, this was more than easy, it was easy and quick and for hacking that isn't always a good thing," Minghao chuckles slightly, sending you a look.

"You have a way with words don't you" With a blank you stare at him.

"This really isn't the time Hao" Chuckling again, he motions you to continue. "Most big organisations, have their things to the most part un-hackable, but your favourite person here isn't just anyone, so normally things like this can take at the least a day or two to hack into, because of their firewalls and their systems, but do you know how long this took to hack into?" You asked, pointing at him. He raised an eyebrow.

"Half a day?"

"No! Three hours!" You hold up three fingers to exaggerate.

"Maybe you're just too good at hacking" You laughed, flicking some hair over your shoulder.

"I may be good, but I'm not that good" Minghao keeps silent and I soon continue to talk. "Anyways, this is way too quick to be able to hack in a big organisation like this, especially a mafia"

"Yeah, I understand what you're saying"

"I think something's up, I can upgrade the amount of IP address it switches to so it never gets back to us, but I still think something's fishy about this" Minghao nods, agreeing.

"Upgrade the amount of IP addresses, if you can get what you came for and get out of it, make sure there's no way to trace back to us" You nod at what Minghao was staying and quickly get on it.

"I'll get it done before you can say My I"

"Okay then, M-" You cut Minghao off with a laugh and lean back in your chair.

"Done!" Minghao looks at you with a shocked expression and you send him another blank look. "What? You think I couldn't really do it?" Chuckling, he shakes his head.

"You amaze me every time"

"Well you amaze me too" Turning back to your computer, you finishing doing your final things and kept the machine next to your computer that changed the IP address on. Once you had successfully shut everything off, you turned back to Minghao and smiled at him. "Now where's my brother?"

Seungcheol raised the cigarette to his lips and took a long drag. He sat with his feet up on his desk and a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes. To most, this would seem unprofessional, but to the rest of the mafia, this was just your typical Tuesday lunchtime. 

Seungcheol was professional when needs are, but on days like today, when he had no meetings some time to himself in the office, well he was going to do it his way. 

Jihoon sat across from him, a blood stain on his collar and his gun holstered on his hip. He had unbuttoned his waistcoat once he had gotten back to Seungcheol's office and leant his head back to look at the ceiling. 

Seungcheol leant forward, offering Jihoon a drag from his cigarette with Jihoon declined. Seungcheol scoffed slightly as he chuckled. 

"You can kill people, but smoking is what you say no to" Jihoon raises his head to look at him.

"Because you're letting the stick kill you and you know I only go for the people who deserve it" Seungcheol takes a long drag again and releases it slowly.

"But my younger assassin friend, who can you tell who deserves it or not?" This time Jihoon scoffs, sending a judging look to Seungcheol.

"Like you're one to talk, you know I get most of my jobs from you right?" Seungcheol waves him off as he takes another drag. 

"Let's not think about that right now and let's just contemplate the meaning of life or something" Jihoon raised an eyebrow.

"What drugs are in your cigarette?" He asked, making Seungcheol laugh.

"Nothing is in there, I promise" He hands out the cigarette "you can even try it yourself to see" Jihoon just rolled his eyes and denied. 

"Yeah, no thanks" 

"Your loss" Seungcheol mutters, leaning back in his chair. 

The door swings open and Soonyoung pops his head through the gap in the door. His usual large smile covered his face and his brown hair fell to just above his eyes. Seungcheol moved his feet from off of his desk and turned to Soonyoung's direction. 

"What do you want?" Soonyoung's smile for bigger as he laughed.  

"I hate to break the party, but you'll never guess what our software just picked up" Seungcheol gasped, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk. 

"You haven't"  

"Oh, but Boss, we have" Soonyoung smirked. 

"We caught the fly in the trap" Seungcheol's smile dropped and he hissed throwing a hand up in Soonyoung's direction. 

"Come on Hosh, what have I told you about using those codes" Soonyoung sighed, looking away. 

"Not to use them" 

"And what do you keep doing?" Seungcheol asks, pushing his lips into a straight line. Soonyoung just sighs as he replies. 

"Using them" Jihoon covers his mouth as he coughs, looking between the two. 

"You were on about Hosh?" Soonyoung's eyes widen and he nods his head dramatically. 

"Ah yes!! Our systems picked up something earlier and I think you'll want to see what" Seungcheol picked himself up out of his chair and raises his hands to the roof. 

"Then let's get going shall we?" He turned his head to Jihoon. "Ji, you come with" 

Jihoon doesn't bother to argue and just stands up. Running a hand through his dyed red hair, he waits for Seungcheol's orders. 

"Boys, this might be our day!" Seungcheol cries happily, slapping Jihoon on the back and they follow Soonyoung out of the room. 

"Isn't every day our day though?" Soonyoung asks confused and Seungcheol just sighs. 

"That it is Hosh, that it is"

They quickly made their way to their tech room, where Soonyoung was normally centred. Soonyoung was their tech guy, their number one hacker. He could spot a bug from a mile away and decode it and send it back in less than ten minutes. Jumping into his chair and crossing his legs, Soonyoung turns himself to his computers. He started to click on some files before a large black document with a bunch of long different codes in red appears on the screen. 

"What's this?" Jihoon asks, leaning against the back of Soonyoung's chair. 

"Well this you see my assassin best friend is a map" 

"A map?" Jihoon asks, unconvinced. Soonyoung hums. 

"Well you see, a few days ago I created and set up this trap, which I call the fly trap by the way,  and basically what it does is it makes it seem easier to hack into our systems when in actual fact it's all false!" Soonyoung explained, "from what I heard about their hacker, they should have noticed this straight away, but for some reason they didn't, maybe they weren't as smart as I thought they were" Soonyoung pouted. 

"Just get on with it Soonyoung" Seungcheol panned and Soonyoung nodded his head. 

"On it boss, anyways I basically set up a fake system to trick them and I set up all fake documents for them to take and tada!" Soonyoung cries, clicking on a few buttons and the screen changes into a large map. "We are in the process of knowing where they are" Seungcheol clicks his finger and pats Soonyoung on the shoulder. 

"God Soonyoung you're amazing" Soonyoung smiles, proud of himself. 

"They set up so many IP addresses to bounce around, but so it might take a while to directly locate their main source of tech" 

"Damn Hosh, you've really outdone yourself" Jihoon compliments. 

"It's all in a day's work of Hoshi Prince" Seungcheol and Jihoon just stare at him. 

"You know no one calls you that but you right?" Seungcheol asks, to which Soonyoung nods his head.

"That's what makes it even more awesome" Seungcheol shook his head, before turning to Jihoon. 

"If anything comes of this-...” Soonyoung cuts him off with a whine.

“This will work!” Seungcheol sighs, rolling his eyes before continuing to talk.

“Soonyoung here will call you with the address, I expect you to take care of this” Jihoon stays silent, just watching Seungcheol as he thinks.

“I’ll get back to you on it,” Jihoon says, waving him off and turning to walk away. After a few steps, Seungcheol calls after him. 

“You know if you don’t do this I’ll just get someone else to” Jihoon sent a look over his shoulder.

“And I said I’d get back to you on it, so see you later” 

"So you know what you're doing?" Wonwoo asks, you simply reply by nodding your head and sipping an ice tea.

"I know what I'm doing brother, don't worry about it" Wonwoo looked blankly at you. You noticed his fist tightened slightly. 

"You know I worry about you and you can't stop me from worrying" You sighed quietly, placing the ice tea down on his desk. You moved slightly so you were sitting on the edge of your seat and placed a hand on his. 

"Won, I'm 19 now, I'm not a child you can trust me" 

"I know I can trust you, but I just don't want anything bad to happen to you" You smiled as you gently squeezed his hand. 

"I'm strong, I can fight off anything" you giggle, releasing his hand and bringing up your fists in a fighting stance. "They're going to wish they never tried to go against me" Wonwoo laughed, shaking his head before running a hand through his hair. 

"You really are our father's daughter" Wonwoo chuckles, sending you a smile which you return.

"And you are our mother's son" Wonwoo sighs, standing up from his chair and motioning to the door. 

"You should get back now and start working" you nodded your head and stood up too.

"Okay Won" Pulling your big brother into a hug, you both stand there for a moment before pulling away. "I'll get right on it" He patted your head and smiled down at you. 

"I'll come to see you later okay," He says. "I'll have Mingyu drive you home" You roll your eyes and huff slightly. 

"Mingyu seriously? Why him?" Suddenly the door opens and Mingyu enters the room. 

"Hey! It's not like I want to drive you back either, so shut up pip-squeak" You make a face, sending him a look. 

"It's not like I'm short, you're just freakishly too tall" Mingyu let's out a whine, rolling his eyes and looking to Wonwoo. 

"Why are you asking me to do this?" Wonwoo laughs, as he watches you both.  

"Because you're my best friend and their my younger sibling, who else would I want to look after them?" Mingyu rolled his eyes again, before muttering a reply. 

"I'm only doing this because you said I'm your best friend" Mingyu grabbed onto your wrist before dragging you out of the room. "See you later Won" 

"Bye guys" he laughs, waving you off and going back to sit in his seat. 

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" You repeat, tugging at your wrist. "Oh wait," you ask, getting Mingyu to sigh and stop, also making him let go of your wrist. "Can we go to McDonald's on the way back?" 

"Oh my god," Mingyu says, it was evident in his tone he wasn't the slightest bit impressed. Happy that your wrist had freedom again, you skip next to him with a large smile on your face. 

"Well can we? Can we? Can we?" 

"Maybe if you shut up" 

You silently giggle to yourself and link your fingers together behind your back. You and Mingyu silently walk until you reach the main elevator and he clicks the call to buttons. For the next few moments, silence continues until the pleasant ding of the elevator arriving is heard. 

The doors part and your mouth drops slightly at the sight. 

A young looking man, with seemingly dyed red hair and he, had a pair of large sunglasses that covered his eyes. He had on a white button-down shirt, and black trousers with a black waistcoat to match. 

You blinked as he nodded his head to Mingyu and looked at you for a single moment before walking past and heading down the hallway. Your mouth dropped more as you gaze followed him. Mingyu just rolled his eyes and grabbed onto your wrist again. 

"Oh come on" You opened and closed your mouth a few times before turning to Mingyu. He leant over and clicked the ground floor.

"Who was he?!" You felt your cheeks blush. Mingyu shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. 

"I don't know, probably just someone to see Wonwoo, why?" 

"Because, he was the most beautiful person I've ever seen" you gasp, looking at Mingyu with wide eyes. He scoffs, motioning to himself. 

"Sorry, but you must be blind as I'm the most beautiful person you've ever seen" You clicked your tongue and sent him a look. 

"Oh hunny, I think you're going blind" you patted him on the shoulder. "I think you need to go get your eyes checked" He forcefully moved his shoulder and your hand fell. 

"No, I think you're the one who needs their eyes checked"

Wonwoo raised his head at the sound of a powerful knock at his office door. Clearing his throat, he spoke. 

“Come in”  The redhead pops his head through the gap in the door and cracked a smile. Closing the door behind him, he sat in the seat across from Wonwoo. “Ah, Jihoon, what are you here for?”  

Jihoon didn’t say anything for a moment, he just silently undid his waistcoat and leant his head back and let out a deep sigh. Wonwoo raised an eyebrow, but knowing his friend, he didn’t think too much of it. 

“So, what’s going on now?” Picking his head back up, Jihoon stared at Wonwoo letting out another sigh.

“Soonyoung’s a lot smarter than he seems” Jihoon chuckles, “He’s designed this new tech that fakes a software to make it seems like its easier to hack and with that, he can get passes the IP scrambler” Wonwoo gulped as Jihoon continued. “And you know what that means? He can get original IP addresses and could you take a wild guess at who their first target is?” 

“(Y/N)” Jihoon clicks his fingers and points at Wonwoo.

“Bingo” Wonwoo sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I’m lucky they haven’t even noticed that I know you” 

“Wait,” Wonwoo says, looking up at Jihoon. “Do they know it’s them, or who they are?” Jihoon shakes his head.

“Not yet, they don’t know it’s them yet and I doubt any of them remember you have a sibling” Wonwoo becomes silent, he had a thousand thoughts rushing through his head at a mile a minute. 

“Why are you telling me this?” Jihoon didn’t reply instantly, he just fiddled with his fingers until he found the words.

“Because when Soonyoung finds out their location Seungcheol wants me to do whats in my job description” Jihoon explains. Wonwoo’s hands turn to fists on his desk table. 

“Would you, would you do it?” Wonwoo asks, sending a look to his friend. 

“You know if I don’t do it, Seungcheol will just send someone else” Jihoon responds, his voice showing all of his emotions. 

“You know that doesn’t answer my question” Jihoon stays silent again, a frown covering his face which matched Wonwoo’s. “Jihoon...” 

“If there’s a way to get out of it then sure, I would get out of it, but you know how thorough Seungcheol makes everything and how he checks everything, it wouldn’t be easy to get past him” Wonwoo’s face changes from a frown to a smirk. 

“But it’s not impossible” Jihoon’s mouth opens slightly in shock, he blinks for a moment.

“Wonwoo, what are you planning in your head?” 

“A full fi-...” Wonwoo got cut off by the sudden bang of the door slamming open and Mingyu panting as he stands there. Both suddenly both standing, they turn to him. “Mingyu, what’s going on?”

“(Y-Y/N),” He gasps for breath, “They’re hacking their computer” Wonwoo’s eyes go to Jihoon and he shrugs in response.

“That’s probably Soonyoung, once he has their address he’s meant to call me with the details” Mingyu scoffs, now with his breath back.

“See this is the problem with you and being on both sides, you’ll do whatever you're told” Jihoon scoffs too, rolling his eyes before spitting an answer. 

“I’m here to warn your fucking asses about them so shut your face” Mingyu scoffed again, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. Wonwoo hissed.

“This isn’t the time for you two to be arguing right now, we’re going to them and we are finding a way to get away with fooling Seungcheol any way we can” Wonwoo explains, picking up his gun from the drawer and putting it into the holster on his back. “And if either of you tries to argue I’m shooting you myself” 

You typed at lightning speed as you did whatever you could to keep whoever was trying to hack you from hacking you. You chewed on your lip as you concentrated and didn’t try to move an inch in case you lost focus. 

“Whoever you are you fucking piece of shit-...” You mumbled to yourself until you got cut off.

“Watch your language” You hadn’t noticed the door open and Wonwoo, Mingyu and Jihoon appear. 

“Well if this piece of shit didn’t try and hack my computer I wouldn’t have to call them a piece of shit now would I?!” You spat. It was easy to tell you were annoyed- more than annoyed, extremely pissed off. Jihoon chuckled and you raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar chuckle. Only moving your eyes you saw the head of red hair and gasped. “Mingyu, you fucking asshole, why did you bring the hot guy, do you want me to lose focus?!” 

Jihoon covered his mouth to try and cover up his laughter as Mingyu rolled his eyes and sent a glare to the back of your head. 

“I’m sorry that I make you lose focus” Jihoon laughs, this time making you roll your eyes.

“Not the time hot guy” Jihoon tried not to laugh again and Wonwoo just sighed, facepalming. 

“This really isn’t the time for this” Wonwoo says.

“Hate to break it to you big brother, but I pretty much just said the same thing,” you shrugged. “Just different phrasing” 

“Anyways,” Wonwoo starts, “Can you stop Soonyoung from hacking you?” You ran your tongue over your teeth in annoyance as you spoke. 

“So this bastard is called Soonyoung then huh” A smirk covered your face and you started typing quicker than the pace you were typing before. “You want a fucking show Soonyoung, I’ll give you one” 

“Don’t do anything too stupid now” Wonwoo says, making you laugh. 

“When have I ever done anything stupid?” Wonwoo raised an eyebrow and sent you a look.

“Do you really want me to answer that question?” You took in a deep breath but responded.

“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t” 

The room went silent- well as silent as it could go with how fast you were typing away and you giggled to yourself as you repeatedly hit a few buttons. Mingyu sent a look to the back of your head and looked to Jihoon and Wonwoo, with both of them shrugging in responses, he spoke. 

“What are you giggling at?” 

“He wanted a show, so I sent him a bunch of jumpscare clips to try and slow him down” Mingyu gave you a stank glare, judging you completely.

“Couldn't you think of something better than jumpscares?” 

“Mingyu,” You started, your tone evident for him to be wary of what he said next. “Shut the fuck up before I spread your internet history online”

“Better do what they say” Jihoon laughs and Mingyu only sends him a glare. 

After another few minutes of silence, you hit your keyboard, but still, continue to type.

“No! No! No!” You yell as large black box appears on your screen. You gasp, moving away from your computer. “H-He hacked in, h-how did he?” You stuttered, before trying to do whatever you could to get your computer working again. “I have no control”  

You turn to the three boys and see they mirror the same expression you’re wearing. Wonwoo’s eyebrows furrowed together and he let out a sigh. Quickly turning to Jihoon, Wonwoo grabbed his arm. 

“How long will it be until he calls you?” You didn’t understand what Wonwoo was going on about and just like how he had grabbed Jihoon’s arm, you grabbed his.

“What are you on about?” Wonwoo turned to you and moved his arm so you’d release it.

“Not now (Y/N)” He then turned back to Jihoon. “Well?” 

“I don’t know, it could be anytime now” Your eye flicked between the two as your brain raced to try and put together the puzzle of what could be going on. 

“We need to do something now” Wonwoo responds

“It’s not going to be easy, you have to know that” 

“What’s going on?!” You yell sending your brother the worst look you could muster. “I swear to god if you don’t tell me right fucking now” Wonwoo went pale as he turned to you, you raised both of your eyes and let out a sigh. “Just tell me please”

“Soonyoung, who’s apart of the other side made a new software and that was to catch us- you- in a trap to be able to locate you and to try and overtake us” Wonwoo explained and it left like all the air left your lungs. “They’re planning on killing whoever is behind the screen”

“W-What?” 

With that, Jihoon’s phone rang, the loud music blared through the deafening silence. Jihoon took the phone from his pocket and stared at it for a moment before nodding to Wonwoo.

Incoming call; Hoshi Answer Decline

"Who is that? Why is this happening?" You rushed, but before you could say any more, Mingyu rushed to your side and covered your mouth with his hand. Your cried became muffled against Mingyu's hand and Wonwoo placed his hands on your shoulders to try and calm you down.

"You need to stay silent, you need to trust me" You went silent, no matter what happened, no matter what your brother said or did you always trusted him. He turned to Jihoon and nodded. Jihoon picked up the phone and placed it next to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Woozi! Dude! I think this has been the most fun time hacking I've had in a while!" Jihoon sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Hosh, just get to the point already"

"Oh yeah yeah sure okay, anyways I hacked in and got the address for you, make sure to get it done by the end of the day, you know what Cheol's like," Soonyoung said.

"Sure, just send it here"

"Will do, talk to you later" Soonyoung cheered before clicking off the call. Making sure the call had ended, it wasn't a second later until Jihoon's phone beeped again and the text from Soonyoung appeared.

"By the end of the day" Jihoon looked at Wonwoo "that doesn't give us much time" Running a hand through his hair, Wonwoo starts to mutter to himself.

"We have to find a way," Wonwoo says, before repeating it. "We have to find a way"

With Mingyu's hand still covering your mouth, you blinked rapidly as you felt your eyes begin to well up. You hated seeing your brother so frantic, especially over you. Especially now over what might be the lead up to your death. Feeling the tears run down your cheeks and onto his hand. Mingyu turns you around and sends you a look.

"Nothing is going to happen to you, don't worry so much pip-squeak" Mingyu chuckles to try and brighten your mood, but you just nod.

 You already knew who Jihoon was, who he is. It didn't take long for it to click into your brain after he got the phone call, you knew he was the one they were planning on sending to kill you, but he was here, he had been all this time so sure he wasn't going to... right?

 Everything was going to work out like Mingyu had said. Everything was going to be fine. Wonwoo clicked his fingers and looked at Jihoon with a smile.

"I think I figured it out, I think I know a way this could work" Jihoon blinks and motions for him to continue. "Seungcheol will never realise a thing"

Jihoon waited for the elevator to ding once it reached the top floor and let out a silent breath of air as it did. Looking up to the camera in the corner of the elevator he winked, knowing Soonyoung would probably be watching.

Exiting the elevator, he swiftly makes his way to Seungcheol's office, knowing twice before entering. 

Seungcheol was sat like he usually was, his feet up on his desk and a cigarette in between his fingers."Ah! Jihoon! My assassin friend!" Jihoon chuckled, raising an eyebrow as he sat down in the chair across from him.

"What are you on now?" Seungcheol smiled, taking a long drag before puffing out the smoke quickly."Its new in from out west, it's beautiful stuff" Seungcheol laughed, before holding his hand out for Jihoon to take. "Want some?"

"No thank you" Jihoon declines, making Seungcheol roll his eyes.

"Always the same old Jihoon" Another drag. Another puff of smoke released. Sitting up and moving his position, he stares at Jihoon for a moment. "I notice you've dyed your hair again" Jihoon nods, running his free hand through his hair.

"You know my routine," He says simply.

 Dying his hair after every kill.

"So that means you've done it?" Seungcheol asks and Jihoon responds by throwing a file onto his desk. Seungcheol chuckled, picking up the folder and flicking through it.

"That what you mean?"

"You're simply amazing, Ji, this is why you're the best in the business," Seungcheol said, picking up one of the photos and holding up as he examined it. "Your work is honestly perfect"

"Well, I do what I know best" Jihoon laughs. "And this is what I know best"

"It certainly is"

Jihoon silently unbuttoned his waistcoat and leant his head back as he let out a sigh. He sat like that for some time, just thinking. It wasn't too much time before Seungcheol coughed, making Jihoon lift his head.

"Jihoon, you can go now, I have a new business meeting to attend about the new drugs from out west" Seungcheol explained, he sent a smirk Jihoon's way.  "If you want any, all you gotta do is ask"Jihoon rolled his eyes, which Seungcheol accepted. He declined anyways.

"Seriously no thanks, I don't care how good the stuff is, you know I don't do any of it" Seungcheol hummed, nodding his head.

"I know, I was just testing you" Jihoon raised an eyebrow.

"Testing me? For what?" Seungcheol shrugged, getting up from out of his seat.

"Oh Nothing, just nothing" Getting up, Jihoon stayed silent. He seemed like he should just go by what Seungcheol was saying and take this as his queue to leave.

"Okay then, I guess I best be going..." Jihoon starts, "Call me if you need or want anything, you know that dude" Seungcheol smiles

."Same back" 

Once he shut the door behind him, he walked quickly, without seeming to look suspicious to the elevators and waited for it to arrive. Entering it and clicking the ground floor, Jihoon let out a sigh. 

The ground floor soon arrived and Jihoon exited the elevator and left the building, this time running to his dark car that was parked in the car park outside. Getting in and turning on the engine, he let out another sigh and clicked on the fourth-speed dial number on his car phone system.

"Jihoon?" Your voice called out from through the speaker.

"Pack your things, I'll be there soon"

[polymetis-23]

Diary Entry Sept. 12th, 2021

Day 1: Sunday - Computers Galore!

   Everything is starting to settle down after the hectic week that was orientation. There are still some events happening for fraternities and sororities, but I don't think I would have the time to commit to them this semester, maybe I'll try recruitment next year. Either way, now that I am not running around like a chicken with their head cut off I can focus on getting properly set up my station.

   Wait… I'm not sure I ever explained to y'all what my goal is. Looking back through old posts the answer is no, sorry to keep you in the dark but basically I want to become a hero. I've always loved reading the comics and watching the movies growing up and now I'm somewhere that I can develop the technology to become one myself. Cool right!?

   So basically I brought a couple monitors and a desktop tower with me so I could surveille the city for anyone in need of help. I do need to figure out how to hack into the cameras around the city though … I have gotten some books and am taking a class this semester on coding so hopefully the hacking thing won't be too bad. I mean, everyone in movies has somebody who can do it right?

Day 2: Monday - Coding == spaghetti + alphabet soup; result = TRUE

  Okay, so I promise I read some of the coding books prior to coming to campus and thought I understood what was going on, but uh, I don't? I mean there are all these letters floating around and subsets of letters that are supposed to be abbreviations for long words but then multiple words start with the same first few letters sooo… yea idk. And even if you can figure out what variable they are talking about (or even the ones you create, because I'll be honest, I term a variable and then work on some code and about 20 lines later have forgotten what it means), you are then jumping all over the place because of functions and then there are classes above functions and objects which can jump between classes and each have their own set of functions so you can't use the same function on different objects if they have different classes unless one is a subclass or the function exists in multiple places but then you could have the same named function that acts differently depending on the class of the object and yeah. Are you confused yet, because I'm not (that is a lie, I am totally lost in this mess of coding and hope the intro class can help untangle it).

Day 3: Tuesday - Going old fashioned

  Okay so maybe I was a little over ambitious trying to hack into the city camera network without having taken a single programming class cause yesterday was a complete fail. So I think I'll go a bit more old fashioned and get a radio to scan all the police channels. I'm not giving up, that's not what this is, I'm just putting the coding on a back burner until I actually understand what is happening, plus the police scanner will be enough for the majority of crimes right?

  I went dumpster diving (I know gross) around campus to see if I could find any old police radios, cause correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think store bought radios can usually hear those frequencies? Thankfully it was worth my time cause I found an old radio hidden in-between the cushions of a couch. (those things are literally black holes). Anyway I returned to my room to take a shower and set up the radio.

    Upon searching the best ways to connect the radio to my computer, I discovered that yes, you can buy radios that can listen to police channels so I guess all that the dumpster diving did was save me some money/time (you can apparently build these things too? Maybe I should research more often). Anyway I got the radio hooked up to my computer so I can keep things centralized before going to sleep. Oh yeah, classes also start tomorrow.

Day 4: Wednesday - Classes, Yay!?

    So I had my first day of classes today and isn't college supposed to be less time consuming than highschool even if the material is more advanced? Classes only meet 2-3 times a week and I don't even have all my classes everyday. Like seriously, in highschool I had 7 classes every day 5 days a week. How on earth did my 3 classes today feel like more work? Maybe I'm just not used to it after summer break? I'm going to bed early tonight cause I have my remaining 2 classes tomorrow and I feel like I'm gonna need more energy than a single human can possess.

Day 5: Thursday - Classes aren't that bad.

  I guess I was just a little overwhelmed yesterday cause today was much better. Maybe it was partly because I attended a small highschool so, seeing that many people in the same long hallway was a very new experience. Maybe I'm just starting to get into the swing of things, I don't know. Reflecting on classes so far, I don't have much actual work yet seeing as most classes have just been reviewing the syllabi, though I'm sure I will actually have to start learning stuff tomorrow and next week.

   I did have some free time today in which I was able to create a prototype of the lenses that I want to use for my goggles. They're a bit flatter than I would like but I don't know how to curve the technology without breaking it yet so I guess that will be an advancement for later. Thankfully I was able to find some code online that already takes the signal from the camera I ordered and puts it on a screen so I might actually be able to use these soon.

Day 6: Friday - The camera hath arrived!

  I got a notification this morning that the camera I ordered had finally arrived and I could pick it up. Thankfully Friday is a pretty light day for me in terms of classes, otherwise I might have skipped some to get the goggles working and that would not have been a good start to my college career. Of course nothing can go smoothly when building stuff (why do shows have everything just working, can't they actually show me how to make it work and the errors I might encounter? It is so much more entertaining watching them than some old white dude drone on about vectors and integration… maybe the fact that they montage through the failures is what allows the shows to be interesting. Hmm something to chew on there I guess.)

   I'm writing this at midnight and should probably get some sleep, but I will most definitely be testing these goggles tomorrow.

Day 7: Saturday - The test!

   The goggles turned on without blowing up! (That's a start right, something I should be excited about and not something that is a given with these sorts of things?) And I could actually see what the camera was seeing, although it was a little disorientating cause the camera is a good inch above my eyes and the screen is translucent so I'm getting an overlap between what I can see in front of me an a shrunken off set view of what the camera can see. The weirdest thing is the fact that the IR camera (the code maybe?) shows things tinted red, I guess that is how the programmer decided to depict the IR waves since we can't normally see them. The camera had a couple different modes built in, the most interesting being the thermal detection where everything was displayed in a gradient across the rainbow (I'm sure that will come in handy later). But I think the default is all I can use for now with the contrasting position of the camera and my eyes, I'll have to sort the rest out later.

   I went outside once it got dark to test the goggles in a setting more similar to where I would be using them. Thankfully I went out late and there weren't a lot of people around. Everything was covered in a haze of red, I had no idea there was this much ambient IR radiation. Some of the building windows were slightly more intense, I assumed there was some poor grad student staying late to finish their research. I continued to look around exploring the new layer of information I could see before turning around to head back to my dorm. As I was walking to my dorm I could see across the river and stopped in my tracks. There were bright red beams shooting across my vision, quickly I took off my goggles to get a better view, but the lights vanished. Confused, I put the goggles back on and there they were again. Every few seconds a bright beam would shoot up off the ground and across the sky. The angle looked too steep to be coming from a window so there was definitely something happening on the ground, but what? That was the question. *low battery* flashed across my eyes. Great, I forgot how long I had been testing the goggles, I'll need to add a power pack to the next version of these. I guess my exploring is done for the night so I'll see you guys next week.

- Polymetis

[junker-town]

Dorktown: Bill Belichick keeps drafting good quarterbacks because he’s bored

Since drafting Tom Brady in 2000, Belichick has never had to worry about finding his quarterback of the future. And yet, he can’t help himself. Here are some charts.

Sunday we saw Jacoby Brissett, who used to be a Patriots quarterback, return from injury and lead the Colts to a win after taking back the reins from Brian Hoyer, who used to be a Patriots quarterback. Elsewhere, Jimmy Garoppolo, who used to be a Patriots quarterback, engineered a game-winning drive to squeak past the Cardinals, who are coached by Kliff Kingsbury, who used to be a Patriots quarterback. In Washington, offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell, who used to be a Patriots quarterback, saw his unit sputter out in a loss to the Jets. And finally, New England pulled out a win despite a lackluster performance from Tom Brady, who is currently the Patriots’ quarterback. He also, and you can’t tell me I’m wrong, used to be a Patriots quarterback.

In this century, thanks to Brady, the New England Patriots have had far less reason to draft a quarterback than almost any other NFL team.

Only the Saints, who dusted off their hands after neatly transferring power from Aaron Brooks to Drew Brees in 2006, have had to make fewer changes at quarterback than the Patriots. Even so, the Pats didn’t face any sort of long-term dilemma when Matt Cassel took over for the injured Brady in 2008, since they knew he was returning.

Deciding which quarterback to draft is one of the toughest and most important calls an NFL team has to make, so it’s sort of comical that Bill Belichick, the smartest man in football, hasn’t even had to think about it for nearly two decades.

And yet he does! He can’t help himself. It’s a particular talent of his that just can’t remain dormant. Let’s look at that chart again, this time highlighting the quarterbacks he’s chosen who have gone on to find success elsewhere in the NFL.

Garoppolo and Brissett are franchise quarterbacks who are chucking some very good football for playoff contenders. Cassel was a low-potential, hyper-conservative quarterback who I love unconditionally; despite his limitations he strung together a four-year run with the Chiefs and wasn’t terrible. Hoyer, a serviceable option who has started at least one game for six different teams, is the reason I had to use “chosen” instead of “drafted” above, as he actually went unselected in the 2009 draft only for Belichick to sign him off the street the following day.

Including the Patriots themselves, eight teams — exactly 25 percent of all teams in the NFL — have picked a Belichick-selected backup to be Their Guy for the plurality of a season. If we expand the definition to ex-Pats who have simply thrown a pass for another team, we’re talking about 13 franchises. That’s within spitting distance of half the teams in the NFL.

These names represent a pretty wide variation in quality, from the very impressive Garoppolo and Brissett to the unfortunate Ryan Mallett. But on balance, Belichick is very, very good at drafting quality quarterbacks without spending quality picks. To understand this properly, let’s look at some bullshit.

This is the most commonly-used iteration of the “Draft Pick Trade Value Chart”. It was devised by Jimmy Johnson as a means of assessing the relative value of a draft pick. For instance, the No. 1 overall pick is valued at 3,000 “points”, but only six picks later, the No. 7 pick is valued at just 1,500 points. I say it’s bullshit because it assigns a definite value to a draft pick, a thing that is wildly dependent on context, but I will acknowledge that as a very loose and general set of guideposts, it’s useful.

For our purposes, it’s especially useful as insight into how NFL teams value their picks, because they themselves tend to rely heavily on this chart. The early picks are, indeed, disproportionately valuable to them. Belichick doesn’t even think about using them on a quarterback.

Once he struck gold with Brady, he never had any incentive to, but it’s amazing to see what he’s done with a couple fistfuls of low-value draft picks. Unsurprisingly, the Patriots have spent far less draft-pick value on quarterbacks than the majority of NFL teams.

It’s hard not to notice that the bottom seven teams on this chart — the ones who have spent less draft capital on quarterbacks than anyone — all have quarterbacks who most teams would kill for. It’s a predictable and cruel outcome. Teams who strike gold once get to settle their quarterback situation for the next decade-plus, and teams who bet big on a quarterback and miss the mark just have to go back to the well and try again.

But just because it’s predictable doesn’t mean it’s not really funny.

With all their numbers combined, Belichick-drafted quarterbacks hold a cumulative passer rating of 92.3. This eclipses 26 teams, most of which have spent at least three times as much draft capital on passers.

What this 92.3 passer rating doesn’t reflect is longevity. Bored by the endless success of Brady, Belichick continued to flip low-value picks (or, in Hoyer’s case, a day-after-draft signing) into quarterbacks with long, successful careers. Quarterbacks he didn’t even need.

Even ignoring Brady, those four represent a very strong track record, particularly since all four were had at a bargain. Let’s look again at the “combined passer rating” chart, but this time, plot New England as though Brady never existed.

Seemingly for the hell of it, and with a tiny amount of draft firepower, Belichick assembled an army of quarterbacks he didn’t need that surpasses those drafted by the Vikings, Ravens, Bills, Bears, Panthers, Bucs, Texans, Jaguars, Lions, Cardinals, Titans, Jets and Browns. Thirteen teams. Nearly half the NFL.

Again, passer rating accounts for quality, not quantity, so let’s look at the latter. It’s borderline crude to assess quarterbacks solely by passing yards, but it does at least represent on-the-field production. And of those 13 teams above, Belichick’s gaggle of elevated backups has out-gained eight of them in terms of yardage.

This is embarrassing.

This comes with an important caveat: many of these teams spent lots of draft capital on decent-to-great quarterbacks who still have a ton of football left to play (Marcus Mariota, Deshaun Watson, Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen). But remember that the Patriots’ figure here is probably rising even faster, as both Garoppolo and Brissett are in the same boat.

Since those numbers are adding up in the service of other teams, how much has Belichick actually benefited from this wildly impressive draftsmanship?

Relatively speaking, not much. He was able to flip all these picks for slightly better draft position, and in the meantime, these quarterbacks contributed a 14-6 record. While certainly significant, it’s a pittance compared to the long-term value Garoppolo and Brissett bring to the 49ers and Colts all by themselves.

Belichick is magnificent at a skill he doesn’t need. And while exercising this skill for dimes on the dollar is still good football strategy, I’ve chosen to invent a narrative of my own: Belichick just loves solving football problems.

There’s a scene in Belichick’s episode of A Football Life in which he’s sitting in his office, slouched in an office chair, mumbling with Brady over how the hell to play against the Ravens’ Ed Reed. These couple of frames manage to capture his personal Valhalla.

Weird stack of home audio hardware that probably includes a turntable and/or Minidisc player. Jarringly mismatched furniture. Cherry-wood desk from 1994. Nothing on the walls. Framed artwork perilously set on top of the couch on the far wall. Shirt sleeves that look like they were hacked off with a pocket knife.

Dell laptop that is two feet tall when closed. VGA port on laptop? Several other cords jammed into laptop. Ethernet cable in the year 2011. Quad-shielded flat gray cable that looks like it’s only sold at Home Depot and is probably plugged directly into a fuse box. External monitor faced at 90-degree angle in act of open warfare against the principles of feng shui. Monitor has either an AC jack or an audio output positioned near the top for reasons known only to God. Bose wave radio and pencil sharpener from 1979 on windowsill.

Number 2 pencil. A man and his football problems. Belichick is mildly annoyed and has never been more happy.

The majority of this data was found via Pro-Football-Reference’s Play Index.

[bethgreeneishopeunseen]

Interview Inconsistencies & Strangeness

Emily and the other walking dead actors may be amazing actors, but no one is a perfect liar. Over the last two-and-a-half years they have given off subtle clues in their speech and behavior patterns, specifically in relation to Beth. For ease of research and to stress how suspicious the whole Beth conspiracy is, I gathered all the suspicious interviews and articles that I could find, as well as any metas on them that I had in my archives. This compilation isn’t just my efforts, but all of the efforts of Team Delusional, as you all helped to provide the evidence. I would also like to give a special thanks to @fioredi for her help in finding some interviews.

If there are any interviews that you think are suspicious, please reblog them with the relevant quote/time mark and the source/link.

Present Tense:

In early October of 2014, Emily was on the podcast, EW Morning Live, with Dalton Ross. (It was likely recorded in September, after she would have finished filming.) She was giggly, referred to the show in the present tense, and even mentioned buying furniture for her apartment. When she was asked if she was going back to Atlanta, she quickly said, “I will be,” as if she had let something slip. (X).

Under the Radar: “Well, obviously, we're not all filming all the time. It depends on scenes and episodes and stuff, so I know I'm going to have some time to still fit in some stuff. But it's funny how this has become a home base for me, because when I'm here I'm focused on just working on one thing, and it's quieter. I'm usually not trying to fit a million things into one day. As much as the show is not a calm show, there's something really nice and calm about being in Georgia. It's a great atmosphere. Now it's beginning to feel more like a home, because this is my fourth year on the show. It's very familiar here. I'm sure the season is going to be amazing, and it's great to be around my family. During the break, we all go off and do our own things. I'm doing my music, and Norman does his photography. But it's always good to be back. It's such a supportive group.” (X) (X). (October 7th, 2014.)

Emily gave this interview probably within two months of it being released. She moved to Atlanta during season 3 (X at 46:13), and she’s had her Georgia apartment going back to summer 2013 (X), and the “now” is pointed. She felt like Georgia was home during 5b, because she spent most of the fall filming in secret, and because of this arc, she knew Beth would be one of the last characters standing.

On Coda’s Talking Dead, they showed a clip from set of Norman talking about filming the episode: “That was a really crazy day, because I really like Emily and I like that character.” (X) (X). (0:15). (November 30th, 2014).

FML 949: “It’s hard for me sometimes to separate, ya know like oh if I was just watching the show, like as far as making the show is so much…was so much a part of my like everyday life…” (X) (X) (June 11th, 2015). *audio removed*

Jefferson Public Radio (JPR): When asked what it’s like to pretend to kill people, she said, “Yeah, well we do a lot of…you know we have a lot of, um…there’s stunt coordinators and stuff like that on set, so there’s some choreography involved and also there’s some, um, there’s some like (pause) uh, special effects that are involved too so sometimes you’re not actually stabbing the person in the head…” (X) (X). (June 11th, 2015).

SplashTV (at 1:10): “[The Walking Dead] is so protective of anyone finding out anything that we have fake names. [...] My fake name was Mariah.” (X). (August 9th, 2015).

TPTB likely changed Emily’s call name after season 5 as a further security measure.

Spoiler Alert: “[Masters of Sex is] [v]ery different from Walking Dead,” Kinney said. “To me that definately appealed to me. I loved working on Walking Dead but I sort of liked the idea to of going to work and, like, people not getting shot in the throat. To me I welcomed the break of not necessarily exploring people getting torn apart but instead exploring relationships and sex and drama and people falling in love.” “This was a nice change of pace.” (X) (X). (7:14) (7:58). (August 17th, 2015).

Screener: “Now I’ve watched all of [Masters of Sex] and I really like the show. It’s really fun to do something that’s about relationships and families and [being] sexy. It’s a nice break from “The Walking Dead,” which, of course, was a lot of death and destruction. It’s fun to have scenes of just talking things out. That’s really fun for me.” (X) (X). (August 30th, 2015).

Emily spent most of The Walking Dead Food Special discussing the show, specifically in the present tense. She didn’t talk about her current projects until the end. (X) (X) (X) (X). (October 6th, 2015).

Julia Stoepel: “today i happened to run into emily kinney who is beth on #thewalkingdead and i am her german voice.” (X) (X). (October 31st, 2015).

(X) (evidence of her speaking English well, meaning that the quote above wasn’t just a grammatical mistake).

Hallmark Channel (at 0:27): “Is there a big difference in playing the two? Emily Kinney: They’re definitely very different projects. [...] For Walking Dead you know I show up to set and they just get me dirty and bloody and then I show up to set for Love On the Sidelines and I get to be pretty.” (X) (X) (X). (January 13th, 2016).

At her HelloGiggles interview, Emily refers to the show in present tense and as “we” when discussing the differences between TWD and Conviction when it comes to getting ready. This makes sense as we’ve theorized that she filmed for both TWD and Conviction, so she would constantly be going back and forth. She’s made similar comments about hair and make-up when talking about Masters of Sex and Love On the Sidelines. By the time of this interview, she had been off the show for two years and done multiple projects, so she had adjusted to non-horror costuming, but she hasn’t. (X). (3:20). (August 30th, 2016)

For her interview on Intrepid Broadcasting, she uses the present tense and hedges when talking about filming Beth’s death, using “umm” a lot. (X) (X). (7:38). (November 16th, 2016).

Your Morning Show: “I love being on the show” when talking about TWD. (X) (November 1st, 2016).

A fan met Emily and told her that, “Beth and Daryl sure were a match”, and Emily agreed. “They sure are.” (X). (November 2016).

Newschannel 20: “I’m so thankful to be a part of something that had such a big audience. And umm, I learned a lot. It was a big chunk of my life. It was like four years, working on that show. I learned a lot. I think I became a better actor, working with the people I got to work with. So yeah it was a good time.” (X). (June 9th, 2017).

Emily’s two primary social media accounts, Instagram and Twitter, reference her role as Beth in the present tense. On December 18th, 2014, she took “Beth on The Walking Dead” off her Twitter bio but added it back hours later. Then in late 2015, her Instagram hacked and her bio was changed. She had to fix her bio, and could have updated it, but she put Beth back. (X) (X).

Edited 7/22/2017 to add: Once on Twitter she replied to a follower about her bio being changed, explaining that her manager did it. Her manager will sometimes change things or sometimes tweet information. She kept Beth in because she liked it (X).

Interview Anxiety:

Lauren Cohan and Scott Gimple were asked about Maggie’s relationship to Beth. Lauren joked that the Greene sisters were texting the whole time, and Gimple mentioned radios before cutting himself off, as if it were a spoiler. “Yeah, there are radio waves that are still…[hesitates and cuts himself off] Okay, we just won’t get into that.” (X) (X). (July 30th, 2014).

When talking about Beth’s “death” after Coda immediately aired, the cast and crew all exhibited traits associated with lying. Emily probably did the most, who was on Talking Dead at the time. (X). (November 30th, 2014).

BTS of Coda (Andrew Lincoln): “I said to Emily, “You’re so fricking good. People adore you. Which is why you're worthy of this death.”” *fidgeted and didn’t look directly at the camera* (X) (X) (2:40). (November 30th, 2014).

Access Hollywood: “They brought Scott back. If they came to you and asked you to do some sort of flashback, or dream sequence, do you feel like you’re done, or would you be happy to say yes, provided you aren’t busy touring [with your music]? Emily: Yeah, it would just depend on my schedule, but of course I would. I mean, I love being on set, I love working. Of course I would. I love working.” Repetitious, which is a sign of lying. (X). (December 3rd, 2014).

When asked about bringing dead characters back for 5x09, Greg Nicotero’s tone and body language changed when talking about Beth/Emily. Chad L. Coleman first had to remind Greg about bringing her back, and then Greg gave unnecessary detail about it. The detail also clashed with filming schedules and with what Emily mentioned at a concert about being brought back. (X). (February 8th, 2015).

While listing off the dead characters in 5x09, Chad L. Coleman conveniently forgot to mention Beth. (X). (February 8th, 2015).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY COMMUNITY: “What’s the experience been like, being killed off of a show? The fans were pretty upset about it. EMILY KINNEY: I would say now, I mean, it’s great. What’s really cool about this show is that even though I’m done working on it, there are conventions and people reaching out. It’s really exciting to see that fanbase, that they’re so interested in what I’m going to work on next. Obviously I miss working on the show. Right now a lot of the cast members are on hiatus anyway, but what’s cool is that working on that show, I made these really amazing friendships. When I do these conventions, I get to see all these friends again. So even though I’m not working on the show anymore, I still feel really connected. It’s also one of those shows that people will watch later—you know, binge-watch. So I constantly have people tweeting at me or contacting me saying, “I just started watching this show” or “I just finished season four.” So even though I’m done working on it, it’s kind of one of those shows that keeps generating more fans, and it’s something that will always be a big part of my life.” Repetitious, which is a sign of lying. (X) (X) (X). (February 23rd, 2015).

While on River 105.9, at 5:54 the hosts asked Emily if it would be possible that Beth would return as a flashback or hallucination. Emily struggled with a response before diverting the conversation to her other acting projects like The Flash. She never actually answers the question. (X) (X) (X). (February 23rd, 2015).

At 5:25, Emily also mentions that her album, This is War, would come out the first week of May. This makes sense, as albums usually come out before an artist goes on tour. Instead, Emily pushed up her album release date to early October, after she had done most of her shows.

On Good Morning America, leading up to the season 5 finale, Norman licked his lips and looked excited yet cautious when asked about romance. As we all know, Bethyl is the only romance for Daryl (X) (X), so that’s what Norman would be excited about. Which is only possible if he knows that Beth is coming back. At 3:28 in the interview, he participated in a trivia game with the host. He got everyone question except which death nearly broke the Internet that season. He said Emily instead of Beth, also licking his lips before responding. (X) (X). (March 27th, 2015).

(photo credit @bethgreenewarriorprincess​)

On Talking Dead, Seth Gilliam was asked about Boots’s identity, and his demeanor and body language changed. He stuttered and spoke strangely (X). (February 19th, 2017).

Greg Nicotero, Christian Serratos, and Norman Reedus all exuded anxiety, and Norman became very fidgety, when asked which dead character they would want to bring back. (X) (X). (March 3rd, 2017).

Newschannel 20: Repetitious, which is a sign of lying. (X). (June 9th, 2017).

Interview Absences:

Emily hasn’t done a panel in the United States since before Coda. It was even confirmed that at least once the network canceled one of her scheduled panels. (X).

During a Behind-The-Scenes video for 5x09, Emily was the only main actress not in the video. All of the actors in Tyreese’s hallucination, except Martin’s and Emily, were there. Interestingly, Emily posted a picture of her in a van, with faded scar make-up, at the time the bedroom scenes were being filmed. She likely filmed the bedroom scenes first and then left, to go film. (X) (X) (X). (February 8th, 2015).

Emily didn’t do any commentary for the season 5 DVDs. It was her last seasons, which included her own episode, yet nothing.

None of the Grady actors have done a panel, even though past communities like Terminus has, and there have been a limited amount of interviews.

During an AMA, Emily confirmed that she would be recording her version of Struggling Man. She promised to release information in the coming weeks, but she never did. (X). (October 15th, 2015).

Lack of Death:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “I know it’s tough for you guys off-screen, but what does the loss of Beth do to Rick and to the group moving forward on-screen?” Andrew Lincoln: [...] And yet again we’re in a desperate place and we’re in the middle of Atlanta that is overrun. We’re compromised, yet it’s one of these places where he has to step forward as a leader. There isn’t time to dwell on this. He has to keep pushing his troops forward. [...] I do have to say that losing Emily — it was so painful on so many levels. I adore the girl. I think she’s amazing. We lost the voice, her song. And after her having such a tremendous episode that she led in in episode 4 to not even get the chance… I mean, I had three or four seconds to act with her and then she was taken away. It’s just cruel, this job, man. It’s just cruel.” (X) (X) (X). (December 1st, 2014).

MTV News (Andrew Lincoln): “The interesting thing about the [Virginia] decision was it was the only physical way they could honor Beth. She’s dead and gone, and we can’t affect anything outside of that. One thing we can do is honor her wishes, and try to see if we can find Noah’s parents. I love that, when you realize the reasoning behind it was actually a softening, a tenderness, the humane side of Rick we haven’t seen for quite some time...[He had] very possibly a quite paternal feeling towards her.” Repetitious and overly-detailed, which are signs of lying. (X) (X). (February 3rd, 2015).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY (Andrew Lincoln): “There are a lot of people grieving the loss of such an important person. There was so much hope invested in Beth and finding her, and then to have it ripped out of our grasp was unbearable for actors and for the story.” (X) (X) (February 6th, 2015.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “So, why was it Tyreese’s time to go? SCOTT M. GIMPLE: That question for any character is very difficult. You know, like, why was it Hershel’s time to go? Why was it Bob’s time to go? I mean, because there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to this stuff. I’ll say that it was his time to go in as much as that’s what the story dictates—not just in that moment, but for the future too, and the way the story turns off of these events.” (X) (X). (February 8th, 2015).

On 5x09′s Talking Dead, Greg Nicotero mentioned that “[The characters have] lost two people in the group,” either forgetting Bob or Beth’s death. Considering in the same episode he had to be reminded of Emily being brought back to set, I’m going with Beth (X). (February 8th, 2015).

Norman doesn’t refer to Beth as dead. For example, he describes “carrying [her]”, not her body. (X) (X). On Good Morning America, when asked which season 5 death caused an uproar, he said Emily. (X).

On the Talking Dead Fear Special, Chris Hardwick listed out the moral compasses, who always died, like Dale and Hershel. He left out Beth. (X) (October 4th, 2015).

News 4 Jax (at 1:03): “Once Beth left I felt like we had done a good job of you know really... filling out her character and like people got to know her.” (X) (X) (X) (X). (November 18th, 2015).

So in summary: People forget that Beth is dead.

Breaking the News:

During Scott Gimple’s tenure as showrunner, former cast members find about their characters’ deaths with some advanced notice. Later the cast and crew throw a death dinner. Everything related to Emily finding out and what happened afterwards stands out from the others.

“TVLINE: “How long have you known about Andrea’s death? Laurie: I didn’t get the official word until a few days before we began [shooting] the finale. It was a shock to everyone. It was never part of the original story docs for Season 3. And it was rather unexpected. That said, this is The Walking Dead. This show is not conventional by any means — and we know that as actors going in. So you roll with it. You show up, you do the best job you can, and you honor the storytelling. Overall, this has been an extraordinary experience and I just feel so blessed to have been a part of it.” At a con last summer: “Well I had an 8 year deal, I was supposed to be there until the end. I was supposed to end up with Rick. I was supposed to save Woodbury on a horse, and I was buying a house in Atlanta.  I got the call at 10 o’ clock the night before, while I was shooting, from the show runner who is no longer a part of The Walking Dead, saying that they couldn’t write the episode and that he was killing my character. So we all got the script everybody on the set was sobbing. I felt like I got shot. None of it was supposed to happen the way it did.” (X). (March 31st, 2013).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “You mentioned you didn’t know yet when you were filming episode 5, so when and how did you get the news of your impending fate? SCOTT WILSON: Actually, I found out right after that episode, which was kind of ironic. And I kind of truthfully expected it after episode 403 when Hershel had this great speech about risking your life and what you’re risking it for. I had a suspicion then. And then when I read 405, that really confirmed my suspicion in a way, but I wasn’t officially told until after we were finished shooting 405. Did you plead with the producers for a stay of execution like Rick pleaded with the Governor? He called me into his office and I went in and talked to him. He explained to me that I was going. I said to him, “I think you’re making a big mistake, but it’s yours to make and I’m not going to try to talk you out of it.” Someone from the show was going to go. I would not want to be the one to make the decision that he had to make there. And I respect him for how he told me, and I am grateful for the scenes and episodes they gave me before they took me off. So, it’s all good.” (X). (December 2nd, 2013).

On Coda’s Talking Dead, Emily mentioned that she found out during filming for 5x07 (X). (November 30th, 2014).

TVLINE: “How long have you known that Beth was getting killed off? EMILY KINNEY: Since late August. I found out the day the script [for the episode] came out. Who told you? [Showrunner] Scott Gimple. Did you reach out to your co-stars for emotional support? I think the original plan was for everyone to get a call [before they read it in the script]. I know when Scott Wilson was killed off [in Season 4], everyone was called [ahead of time]. And I think Scott Gimple originally [planned to do] that because he had times set up to talk to everyone that day. [But] I know not everyone got called, because some people called me the next morning when they read the script. Like, Norman Reedus and Andy [Lincoln] didn’t get any kind of call or anything like that. [Editor’s note: A source close to the show maintains that Gimple, on set in Atlanta, contacted all cast members either in person or via phone within hours of his meeting with Kinney, well before the script was distributed.] Did Scott offer an explanation? He didn’t, really. I think the whole point is there is no rhyme or reason [to the deaths on the show]. It’s like real-life. Why does that person [die] as opposed to other people? We really don’t quite know why.” (X). (November 30th, 2014).

Emily meant late July, not August. 5x07 was filmed at the end of July and Coda at the beginning of August.

The Hollywood Reporter (THR): “When did you find out Beth was going to die? Emily Kinney: The day the script came out, during episode 507. I was really sad and shocked, I had no idea. I had a meeting with [showrunner] Scott Gimple and it was very sad. He didn't explain why [Beth was being killed off], but he said it was something he had been planning since season four. I was very upset. We both love working together and for whatever reason, that's how he saw the character going.” (X). (December 1st, 2014).

There was an interview that Emily met with Scott in his office, but I couldn’t find it. And actors meeting with Scott in his office is characteristic of main characters’ death. It’s consistent in past cast members’ interviews, so why would Emily mention it only once? Because it’s a lie, and it’s hard to keep the details of a lie straight the more times you tell it. (X).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “Tell me how and when you got the bad news. EMILY KINNEY: The season finale was episode 508 and I found out during 507. So I found out a few hours before they released the script to everyone. Showrunner Scott Gimple gave you the call? I actually talked to him in person. So did you go then tell your castmates or did they find out on their own? All I know is how I found out, which is that day a few hours before the script came out. So different people from the cast reached out to me after that and that was really nice.” (X) (December 1st, 2014).

The Daily Beast: “When did you first receive the news that Beth would be killed off? Emily Kinney: I found out during [Season 5, Episode 7], the day the script came out. I mean, I found out a few hours before the script went to everyone.” (X). (December 1st, 2014).

Us Weekly: “How did the showrunners let you know about Beth's death? Emily Kinney: I found out the day that the script came out. They came to me and told me before everyone else in the cast. I didn't read the script right away because I was working on [last week's] episode seven at the time. I wanted to avoid reading it at first, because the next day I had to do all my scenes for episode seven. Not to mention I wasn't really excited to see what was going to happen. I just stayed focused on that first. I had a little while to emotionally prepare… at least a little while.” What was your initial reaction to reading it? I was pretty sad. I really had no idea [that Beth was going to die]. I know it's happened like this in the past but for some reason I thought, 'Oh, they would tell me.' I really didn't know, so I was very sad and just dealing with, 'What am I going to do with all my stuff?' All the little stuff that you go through with a big change like that. It was quite a few years of my life. How did you say goodbye to the show? There was a little party. We had a campfire, campout party. It was good to see everyone. It makes you realize that you have to enjoy the time you have with people. At the end I was trying to really soak up everything.” (X). (December 1st, 2014).

In the same interview, there are inconsistencies. Emily first said that TPTB “came to [her]”, yet it sounds like they didn’t, as she didn’t know. In THR interview, she mentioned meeting with Scott. So why not in this one? Why use the ambiguous they?

Emily a posted a picture of a s’more on August 24th, 2014 (X). She was likely in Georgia at the time filming (X). Many fans speculated that she was at her death dinner. After Coda aired, she revealed that she had a fireside, campey death dinner, and she shared with Chad L. Coleman. Christine Woods wasn’t invited, even though villains are given death dinners too. David Morrissey and Scott Wilson shared death dinners, since they died in the same episode. I wouldn’t be surprised if TPTB kept the dinner to a tight circle, since Tyreese’s death and the filming of it are so tied with Beth’s.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “How did you first get the word from Scott Gimple that Tyreese’s time had come? Chad Coleman: Scott called me up and was like, “Chad, I’m meeting with all the cast,” and I’m like, “You know, Scott, I’m busy, man. I don’t mean harm, bro, but no big deal right? Everything’s cool.” He’s like, “Yeah, no, everything’s cool. I just want to talk to you.” So I went in, and he said, “Tyreese’s time has come.” And I said, “Stop joking, Scott. Come on, man. Stop playing.” And then he teared up, and then I knew it was real, and then I just kept saying, “Wow,” for, like, five minutes. I just kept going, “Wow. Wow.” And then I breathed in and breathed out, and realized that hey, man, I’ve done everything I could do on the show, so let’s go do this one, and make it the best we’ve ever done.” (X). (February 8th, 2015).

Yahoo: When did you find out that this was going to happen? Did you know from the beginning of Season 5? Chad Coleman: No, three episodes prior. But also, we got caught in the Beth situation. Because [Emily Kinney] was supposed to find out at least three episodes before, and it didn't happen. It happened pretty much one episode out. So she's reading the new episode and going "Oh, shit." Everybody was hurting tremendously from that. When [Scott Gimple] called me into the office, I looked at him, and he teared up. I said, "Wow." I said that about fifty times. "Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow." And he's just looking at me, and I'm going, "Wow." Then I just breathed in and breathed out and said, "You know, I've had an amazing time. It's been an amazing run." Did you get a chance to have a going-away dinner with your castmates, as per tradition? Oh, absolutely. It was around a campfire at the house of one of the producers. And it was beautiful. It was warm and heartfelt and everybody poured their hearts out.” (X). (February 9th, 2015).

Canada.com: What was your reaction when you found out that Tyreese was going to die in the Season 5B premiere, especially so soon after Beth? Christian Serratos: We all get a call when either you or somebody else will be going, so you never really know what’s going to happen or what the outcome of that phone call is going to be. I think we all got the news of both of them in the same phone call. We’re used to hearing about just one person leaving, but as soon as the shock settled with one, we were told we’re also going to lose somebody else. It was a double whammy for all of us.” (X) (X). (February 13th, 2015).

Cast members are allowed to fight for their characters, yet Emily didn’t and didn’t even think to (X). And she wouldn’t need to because Beth wasn’t dying in the first place.

Scott Gimple killed Beth and Tyreese essentially at the same time, and yet he was very clinical towards Beth and Emily when discussing the death (X).

So in summary:

There are inconsistencies in how Emily found out, and she found out later than she is supposed to. Typically cast members know a few weeks ahead of time, but Emily found out a week before, and we’re still not sure how.

Emily’s departure bears similarities to Laurie’s, except Emily still promotes the show. It appears that TPTB created a narrative similar to what happened in season 3

Stalking Dead Interview:

After the mid-season 6 premiere (February 14th, 2016), Kate Nash hosted Stalking Dead with Emily as a guest. The informal interview revealed Emily’s discomfort when talking about Beth, and specifically her death. Team Delusional was also brought up, as well as Beth’s lack of a funeral. It was a gold mine of an episode, and I recommend anyone interested in Team Delusional to watch the whole thing. (Full video here: X. It runs from 4:20 to 1:21:15, before repeating.)

Towards the beginning of the interview Emily pointed out that Glenn left out Beth’s name when listing deceased loved ones, like Dale and Hershel (X) (X at 10:00).

At 46:50, Emily finished talking about how she got the role of Beth and summarized her experience on the show as, “It’s been really amazing.” ‘It has’ is present tense, and Emily had been off the show for over a year at this point. (X).

While reading tweets from fans, Kate read a tweet that referenced Team Delusional, prompting a conversation about the group and conspiracies in general. Emily concluded “You never know” multiple times and “Don’t give up”, even though this would have been the perfect time to shut down fan speculation once and for all. (X) (X at 36:06).

She also said “You never know” when a fan asked if Beth was with Negan. (55:15).

When asked about Bethyl, Emily agreed that she felt there were romantic undertones being hinted at in the script. And again, TPTB would not put Daryl on a romantic arc and then just end it, as Daryl loves for life and Bethyl’s canonicity hasn’t even been confirmed to the general audience. (X at 39:20).

When asked if Beth was in the comics or was supposed to be Andrea in the comics, Emily said,“I don’t think that Beth is supposed to be anyone in the comics. She’s just supposed to be one of Hershel’s kids.” She then explained how the show liked to be different and a remix of the comics, so there were still surprises. Emily’s body was tense, she was fidgety, and she did not look at Kate until she moved the topic away from Beth specifically. Emily shouldn’t “think” that Beth is an original character; she should know. Earlier in the interview she mentioned having read some of the comics when she first got the part, and she also owns second The Walking Dead Compendium, which covers issues 49 to 96 (X). By issue 49, the Greene family had been introduced and reduced to just Maggie. Of her sisters, none of them were like Beth. Interestingly, the second compendium has a lot of Andrea storylines, as it covers the Hunters and Alexandria arc, when she loses her adoptive family and becomes Alexandria’s sniper. (X at 55:22).

Emily confirmed that Beth never received a funeral. A follower on Twitter asked Kate if she believed that Beth deserved a family, and Emily agreed. Though she clarified that, “They had to get out there… I understand. I feel like Beth would have been like I get it. I understand.” Kate asked her then what happened to Beth’s body, and Emily froze. She looked like a deer in headlights. She said, “I don’t really know. I never really -”, and she looked around the room, using Periscope as a distraction. (X) (X at 56:24) (X).

“I do feel like it’s going to go for a while, though, I feel like we’re -- the -- this show.” (X) (X at 1:13:03).

I’ve watched a lot of Emily’s interviews. She is introverted, but open and well-spoken. During Stalking Dead, she fluctuated between that and tense and nervous. For “safe” topics she was completely open. Later in the interview she and Kate talked about performing at another WSC cruise, and she lit up. Emily guards herself when talking about Beth, especially her death. It wasn’t a guard for sadness, there was too much tension. It was a guardedness out of anxiety.

So in summary: 

Beth never received a funeral, as something happened between 5x08 and 5x09, forcing the group to run. This confirms what fans have speculated for over a year, as well as supports the Beth-car theory. 

Emily is a terrible liar. It’s adorable.

The Beth situation is suspicious, and it has been consistently suspicious. Which means that whatever is going on behind-the-scenes is still ongoing. Emily hasn’t moved on from the show, and neither has the narrative and the marketing. Why move on when she’s going to come back?

[mittensmorgul]

5.16: *cue horrifying yet somehow disturbingly humorous montage of all of Sam and Dean’s deaths to this point* *shakes fist at 3.11 and 4.08*

Yep, this is another one of those episodes I have really already covered, and recently, in multiple posts on s12... *waves hello at Dabb again* *gee I wonder why this episode has had so much relevance in s12? we may never know >.>*

Heaven, the Samulet, Joshua, the incredibly squicky idea that John and Mary were “soul mates” based on the gross cupid touch making them into the “perfect couple” because they weren’t “perfect” until after Mary was dead, Dean and Sam’s VASTLY DIFFERENT notions of “happy memories” and the fact their heavens are sort of each other’s version of hell (i.e. Sam and Dean are not soul mates, they are absolutely repulsed by each other’s heavens), the fact that Heaven is a construct that we apply our own personalities and experiences to in order to perceive it:

*again under a cut, because wtf is wrong with me, I keep saying “I have already talked this into the ground” about every episode, but apparently I’m trying to talk it straight through to the other side of the planet. I suspect I’ll be bobbing up in the Indian Ocean any minute now*

This is why, once Dean “broke out of his heaven” and set out on the Axis Mundi to find Sam’s heaven, it didn’t look like a pristine white corridor the way Heaven seems to look to the angels (or just in s10 and later, or whatever).

Castiel: Some people see a tunnel or a river. What do you see? Dean: Nothing. My dash. I’m in my car. I’m on a road. Castiel: Alright. A road. For you it’s a road. Follow it, Dean. You’ll find Sam. Follow the road.

Because we were seeing Heaven from Dean’s perspective here, we also saw the road. But he had Cas to give him the secret hack on how to get out of his heaven to find Sam’s heaven.

Ash later underscores this, and strangely 10.17 proves him out. We saw “Bobby Singer” land (like Ash described “Winchester Land” as a section of heaven. We saw ALL the Bobby Singers grouped together in one long corridor. Not ONE BIG HEAVEN COMPARTMENT. All those Bobby’s were NOT soul mates.

Okay? Okay.

I think I’ve seriously talked plenty about this episode. Have my tag for it if you’re interested in the metaphysical nitty-gritty of it, 

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn%205.16

or my tag for Heaven stuff (and all the other realms) heaven hell purgatory and the empty

Dean actually didn’t wake up when someone sneaked right up to his bed and stole his gun out from under his pillow? Incredible. But hey, at least he woke up quick and figured out what was going on before Roy and Walt shot him and Sam...

Seriously one of my favorite Dean lines in the entire series, because Roy and Walt think it’s bravado, but Dean 100% ain’t kidding here:

Roy: Killin’ Sam was right but Dean... Walt: He made us and we just snuffed his brother, you idiot. You want to spend the rest of your life knowing Dean Winchester’s on your ass, ‘cause I don’t. Shoot 'im. Dean: Go ahead, Roy, do it. But I’m going to warn you, when I come back I’m going to be pissed. C’mon! Let’s get this show on the road.

Just like Charlie thought she was “dreaming” in 9.04 when she was dead in and heaven, Dean thinks he’s dreaming here now...

Until something “breaks through” his dream in a traumatic way, trying to get his attention and alerting him to the fact that no, he is definitely not dreaming. Cas “disrupts” Dean’s memory with a reminder of his own death and then tries to communicate with him on the radio.

Dean: I’m dead. Cas: Condolences.

and then when he realizes:

DEAN: Heaven? How did I get to heaven? CASTIEL: (on radio) Please, listen. This spell, this connection, it’s difficult to maintain. DEAN: Wait. If I’m in heaven, then where’s Sam?

NOT because he assumed Sam would be in his personal heaven with him, because HE WAS TERRIFIED THAT SAM DIDN’T GO TO HEAVEN AT ALL. I mean, just two episodes ago he was detoxing Sam off the demon blood again and watching Sam control demons enough to kill the Horseman Famine. I mean... >.>

(Dean was terrified that Sam was actually in Hell here, not wibbly over Sam not being WITH HIM)

Meanwhile Sam is experiencing Awkward Thanksgiving with Complete Strangers, and has no idea he’s dead or in heaven, because Cas wasn’t able to connect to Sam the way he did to Dean to pass that info along... hmmmm

Dean was then able to “Call” Cas through the tv, but as the transcript describes the connection:

“Dean and Sam move over to the TV. They can see Castiel but the picture rolls and is filled with static. His voice fades in and out and is sometimes distorted.”

He heard Dean “praying” to him, but his connection isn’t as solid as it was in Dean’s actual Heaven.

I’m not actually making any real s12 meta points here, just riffing on all the destiel-y bits because it’s late and the rewatch is actually cutting into my nightly writing time now... I should probably try to stay on point and just get to the point here...

Cas thinks he’s got a couple of “Inside Men” who can get information for him that can only be obtained in heaven... which heck sounds an awful lot like 10.17, called Inside Man... I wonder why... Oh, right, it was also written by Andrew Dabb. What a coincidence.

CASTIEL: (on TV) It’s called the Axis Mundi. It’s a path that runs through heaven. Different people see it as different things. For you, it’s two-lane asphalt. The road will lead you to the Garden. You’ll find Joshua there. And Joshua… can take us to God. (The pictures starts to break up badly.) The Garden. Quick. Hurry.

The Road, that Dean drove on to reach Sam’s heaven. It’s ENTIRELY METAPHORICAL, because Heaven is a construct. And Zachariah is officially messing with Sam and Dean.

SAM: Dean. What are you doing? DEAN: Looking for a road. SAM: You… (Dean opens the closet under the stairs) You think the road is in a closet? DEAN: (turns on the light) We’re in heaven, Sam, okay? I mean, our memories are coming true. Cas is on TV. Finding a road in a closet would be pretty much the most (he sees something on the floor) normal thing to happen to us today.

(Dean finds the road in the closet)

And we’ve talked this scene to death recently as well, now that Mary’s back.

Sam is FREAKING MISERABLE watching Dean and Mary interact as if he didn’t even exist, Mary cutting the crusts off his sandwich and giving him pie, but even one of Dean’s “greatest hits” memories includes the fact that Mary and John were fighting, because he got to care for Mary and tell her she was loved, that he loved her.

And that’s it, the only time in canon Dean has ever said “I love you” to anyone.

SAM: I just never realized how long you’ve been cleaning up Dad’s messes.

And speaking of messes that Dean had to clean up, Sam finds the next “road,” on a post card.

Sam is GIDDY to find his dog from when he ran away, and DEAN IS FREAKING MISERABLE.

*HEAVILY IMPLIED THAT DEAN IS STILL HIDING JUST HOW AWFUL THINGS WERE FOR HIM WHEN “DAD CAME HOME” AND FOUND SAM GONE HERE*

Dean walks out the door of the trailer, while they are STILL IN SAM’S HEAVEN, because they haven’t yet found another “road,” and walks straight into what Dean considers one of the worst nights of his life, and Sam considers one of the best...

SAM: Dean, I’m sorry. I just, uh… DEAN: I know. You didn’t, you didn’t think of it like that. SAM: Dean! DEAN: C’mon! Your heaven is somebody else’s Thanksgiving. Okay. It’s bailing on your family. What do you want me to say? SAM: Man, I never got the crusts cut off my PB & J. I just don’t look at family the way you do.

And then we see how Ash hacked heaven. 

ASH: See, you gotta stop thinking of heaven as one place. It’s more like a butt-load of places all crammed together. Like Disneyland except without all the anti-Semitism.

...

ASH: Pretty much. A few people share—special cases. What not. DEAN: What do you mean ‘special’? ASH: Aw, you know. Like, uh, soul-mates. (Silence greets his statement. Dean and Sam don’t look at each other.) Anyway. Most people can’t leave their own private Idaho’s. DEAN: But you ain’t most people.

Yet Ash found Sam and Dean together... and he made some assumptions. He didn’t know that Cas had been giving Dean the “ain’t most people” cheat codes to Heaven.

But Zachariah’s already got Sam and Dean trapped:

MARY: Honey. Why are you up? DEAN: Look. I’m-I’m sorry. I love you but you’re not real and we don’t have time— MARY: Did you have another nightmare? Tell me. DEAN: I gotta go. MARY: Then how 'bout I tell you my nightmare, Dean? The night I burned. ... MARY: Don’t you walk away from me. (Dean stops) I never loved you. You were my burden. I was shackled to you. Look what it got me. (She blinks and her eyes turn yellow.)

And about this point Dean and Sam both realize that Heaven can be just as good at torture as Hell can...

MARY: And then, finally, I was dead. The one silver lining was that at least I was away from you. (She takes a big breath.) Everybody leaves you, Dean. You noticed? Mommy. Daddy. Even Sam.

But that is NOT THE REAL MARY. That’s not even her ghost or spirit or soul or whatever. Zachariah calls it a “Blessed Memory” of her, and honestly that’s pretty much what Dean has always thought of his memories of Mary. 

They finally meet Joshua and arrive at the garden, where we learn that God talks to Joshua, but it’s really only a one sided conversation. It wasn’t until 11.20 when Metatron was allowed to talk BACK to God (and I mean that in the sense that he back-talked at God) and push him to accept his responsibility for EVERYTHING, and it STILL took three more episodes after that before he finally acted on it at the 11th hour and because of Dean’s direct influence on both him and Amara:

JOSHUA: He knows what the angels are doing. He knows that the Apocalypse has begun. He just doesn’t think it’s his problem. DEAN: (stunned) Not his problem? JOSHUA: God saved you already. He put you on that plane. He brought back Castiel. He granted you salvation in heaven (he turns to face Sam directly) and after everything you’ve done too. It’s more than he’s intervened in a long time. He’s finished. Magic amulet or not, you won’t be able to find him.

And back to the “magic amulet.”

Proof to Dean about his own “deadbeat dad” from way back in 3.09, and now proof to Cas about his “deadbeat dad” in 5.16. And that was just one deadbeat dad too many for Dean. When he first gave Cas the amulet in 5.02, he warned Cas not to lose it, and then asked for it back later... but now, 

Dean’s first act on reviving from being dead is to call Cas. And he has to watch Cas’s moment where his faith in God breaks completely, and he returns the amulet and disappears...

Sam is still talking about finding another way to end all of this, but Dean’s losing his faith in himself, and throws the amulet in the trash...

Now in s12, Dean does have faith in himself again. He doesn’t doubt his instincts anymore. He’s not dealing with things so far above his pay grade that he can’t even get straight answers and is getting dragging around by the nose by middle management angels.

God has made Dean pancakes and told him he and Sam can take care of Humanity now... (with Cas’s help of course, because God keeps bringing Cas back for them).

The one thing Dean has to reclaim for himself is Mary. She’s absolutely not this warped Torture Hallucination Version that Zachariah presented him with, but she’s also not just that “Blessed Memory” version that Dean had presented himself... Nor are Sam and Dean the little boys that she thinks she remembers from her own version of Heaven. They’re just as fake as Dean’s childhood memory of Mary was in his heaven.

And to continue this already ridiculously long rant with more from the continuing series of Chats With Lizbob:

mittensmorgul maybe dean will tell mary what heaven's really like, since she's got this weird idea her whole family was there with her... he needs to set her straight, tell her that NONE of them actually share a heaven because he and sam have been there that it's just your memories and not real

elizabethrobertajones yeah, I can almost hear that - "It's not real Mary, WE are£

mittensmorgul: that PEOPLE are real, that the Dean and Sam on earth here with her are real. Heaven was just memories

(I love that there’s an accidental typo of a pound symbol there, like a random reminder I’m talking to a British Person, in case I was forgetting to read Lizbob’s parts in an English accent...)

mittensmorgul well, she's already brought up heaven twice, once saying she didn't remember it, the next saying she was there with John and her little boys, and now I think she needs to hear the truth

elizabethrobertajones DOROTHY Dream? Charlie, you died. Don't worry about it, though. You're not a real hunter until you've died and come back again. CHARLIE Slow down. Why would you think I died? DOROTHY Heaven -- it's your dream life.

Because as much as Mary knows, I’m not sure she really understands all of this yet. And I think she really needs to in order to be able to finally let go of the past, for better or worse.

Okay, now I have officially used up more than an hour of my writing time on this episode I’m gonna go see if I can’t write some fic instead. :P

[tinymixtapes]

Feature: 2017: Superficial Temporal

“I’m sorry” (the aluminum clicks of a walker’s kiss scuff up this linoleum universe, an acidly sterilized) “we don’t” (air bleaching breathing into stifled hacks from out of polite lungs. A sniff, a limp, a tightness around the temples: admissions of the unwinding ways down that) “have a patient” (strip wind out of our bodies and snuff galaxy from behind our eyes, sending stillness past selves and illnesses and incapacities) “by that name” (into urns and Earth. We, nothing, live. We, languished, die. Again and then: nothing) “here.” All this, I think, I feel because that old man slumps his two failing legs into the four metal infallible ones. Leaning on his walker, he is crossing the hospital lobby floor. He’s here to see someone, maybe, to visit his relative health and generous spirit on the falls of failed bodies. He didn’t mean to put dying on my mind. Hospitals don’t mean to put dying on our mind. Hospitals put a good show of pretending they function like any other worldly and boring institution. The glass clinks and steaming milk hollers of their lobby coffee cafes, the corner gift shops stocked with apparel memento (“I survived double bypass surgery and all I got was this t-shirt!”) and floral or helium-filled tribute; that distractive mallness almost sells a body on a hospital’s regularness. What’s mortality when there’s free Wi-Fi? But the telltales are there: that sterile smell of bleach and waxed floors, a cleanliness past humanity. People walk around and smile and wave and hold hands, but emotions run haywire; there are more flash tears and snaps in patience than in the rest of the world. Directory signs organize our inching mortalities, shuttering trauma into units (Short Stay, Behavioral Care, Observation) and banishing an Emergency into a single room. Brandished words — like radiology, neurology, oncology — that are half-familiar to us but stand for sciences untouched until we discovered the things inside our bodies that shouldn’t be there. We didn’t have hospitals until we weren’t well. Hospital from hospes, a guest or a stranger. We shouldn’t be in hospitals. Hospitals aren’t health. Hospitals are imperfect occasions for addressing a body’s crisis. I say my friend’s name again to the man sitting behind the Visitor Information desk. He says he’ll check again. “I don’t think she’s here,” he reminds me. --- We lose things all the time. Does losing have a sound? Is it neon like a wail, an enveloping thing to fill our new abscess? Does it bang and rattle without words, a techno throb that reaffirms populous in us, “unos pro omnibus, omnes pro uno?” Will we recognize it when we hear it? Would we even want to? “It’s not for singing about;” it’s always phrased like a question. A hospital visit is not resolution because inquiry (like healing/listening) exists separate of knowing. Absence (and art) reacts like a vaccine, a killed sample of the organism. In this shaky year of loss, our health eroded, under storm and assault. The reacted resounding sounds are those killed samples of the organisms (love, hate, memory, grief), manifesting a plot through plod as pop music then electronic analog, an ambient into something “barely music.” The deterioration from one to the next is how history works, a whittling language until it’s just feelings, “glimpses of hope in trying times.” Feeling like listening like visiting like missing becomes a sort of vaccination against the ills. An art of absence is. Is that enough? --- The man behind the counter clacks more keyboard keys. He’s not a man, really. He can’t be more than 14. Maybe he was dropped off at work today. Maybe he’s missing school today, here interning as work-study. Maybe he’s missing someone too, (maybe you’re gone already) maybe here despite it all. What would moving forward feel like? We didn’t have feelings until we injected our humanity into a world. Feelings aren’t health. Feelings are imperfect occasions for addressing a body’s loss, either of joy or of control. The clacks stop. It’s still now. He speaks efficiently for 14. “I found her. I made a mistake. I’m sorry, sir. She’s here. Fourth floor.” He hands me a sticker. I write my name on it. I walk off, a guest echo in an unfamiliar space, stutter-moving like that man and his walker. With a destination now, I’m a little lost. What does moving forward sound like? I place the sticker with my name on in the space over my heart. “Go back and tell it.” --- HEART FAILURE / MELODRAMA Richard Quain, The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body, Plate 2 It’s Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, a weakening of the heart’s left ventricle, brought on by sudden emotional or physical stress. The left ventricle’s apex balloons abnormally while the base contracts normally; the heart, pushed and pulled, begins to resemble tako-tsubo, a fishing pot for catching octopuses. Symptoms of takosubo cardiomyopathy resemble those of a heart attack, but it’s a trap, almost. To differentiate, diagnosis requires attention to detail, especially to a slight but rapid rise in cardiac biomarkers, which get released into blood when the heart gets damaged. It’s a sensational response to bombast. It’s Melodrama, this broken-heart syndrome. Hearts are movable, depressive neon rowers running us from out of our chest. Too frequently, we wish for permanence in things: a job to maintain, a relationship for support, a health to lean on. Impermanence encroaches on flippancy, instability, combustibility. We veer and tip over, “Our rules, our dreams/ We’re blind.” “We’ll always have Paris” really means “we’ll never know what else we don’t have.” Lorde knows what she and we don’t. Melodrama tips off from tripping, the spectacular Technicolor zenith of “Green Light” and the pulse of hip’s arrhythmia in “Sober” pool in the chest of absence. Lorde loses, lacks, misses. “After your heart is broken, music enters you on a new level,” she said in a New York Times interview, insisting in the same piece that Melodrama wasn’t a breakup album. “It’s a record about being alone.” Melodrama is loveless spelled out letter by letter, the syllabic stretching out of wrecked and wrecking “hard/feelings.” These are what they call being alone, every promise of a pop dream (ful)filling the abscesses history lobs into us. The pop sounds mirror the feelings, imagined rectifications of real loss. On “Louvre,” absence means shouting, “broadcast the boom boom boom boom/ and make them all dance to it;” listening to loss means seeing where the boom comes from, that “megaphone to my chest.” The craft of Lorde, of writing pop songs, is a supercut, a montage and a dream, “this sadness about it, where you feel young listening to it, but you feel impermanence at the same time.” 2017’s radio pop vehicles were scant maybe, but the ones on the road hemi-screamed with this happy-sadness. Taylor’s “New Year’s Day” warned against unguarded mis-memory (“Hold onto the memories/ They will hold onto you”) and Charli’s “Emotional” worked to bridge-up tensions between history and memory, old and new: “We were close, but still so far away.” You will lose and miss, these voices remind us; the melodrama and the ache “let’s you feel something you didn’t know you needed to feel.” It’s superficial temporal, a moment of fluorescent dream resolving real-time loss, an artery to the head that pulses us to move forward. But being alone doesn’t mandate reconciliation, really. Hearts fail in so many ways. Like pop music, heart failure, that bracket term symbolizing the splits and splays of that most vital muscular organ, is symptomatically movable: can the heart not pump the blood, or does the heart not fill with blood? Is the heart broken, or could it not be moved in the first place? Hearts are movable things, good metaphors for this year’s shaking instability; hearts are vital organs and proof that all bodies need care. Given time, it’s tempting to think that ailments and failures fix themselves, that we subject us immune systems and self-reflection. But care isn’t universal. We connect feeling to organ, but while every body has a heart, not every heart gets the same love, gets the same kind of time, the right kind of healing. 90% of takotsubo cardiomyopathy patients are women ages 58-75; a lifetime in a toxic world has to break somewhere. 2017’s pop arteries began to flush some of the poison from out of the blood, but this is about detailing how far we’ve deteriorated, not celebrating catching the octopuses at work. Spaces and abscesses are not created equal. Without love is just that. We break in loss, we lose some sounds. What does the way forward sound like? Is it enough --- (in this elevator, I move up in the hospital that I haven’t been in since that first birth day. It and I were smaller then, infrastructures and biologies running alongside time. I’m worried about my friend, on the fourth floor. She didn’t say what was wrong with her. I can’t say what’s wrong with me, but I feel it, somewhere near the chest, somewhere near the cheeks. Something like language can’t help but slip away, aloning us. 2017’s track of absent sounds moves away from the hemorrhaging Louvre into the drum corridors and bass ruins of hurling upward into baseless space. My body reflected black in the ceiling’s mirror, my cords and tendons thrumming, motors and sockets snapping. Cell climbing no human voice. Booming insistence, without love, “LET US NOT BE SILENCED”) --- CELL DEATH / BLACK POPULOUS Richard Quain, The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body, Plate 19 “I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA.” Cells die when they’re damaged. Cells die when they kill themselves. “I got hustle though, ambition flow inside my DNA.” Cell death is the result of disease and the reason bodies still walk around. Cell death occurs with damage, skin seared under whip or sun. Cell death occurs when the body’s done with these cells, when it needs to make new ones. Our bodies are imperfect occasions for mitigating living and dying; they em-body us, regulating and mistaking our time on the planet. Our capacity for good is matched by our capacity for evil, we the disease of these United States. Like a vaccine then cell death and birth, Black Populous is the bounce of absence, the abscess of presence. AceMo’s rolling roiled Black Populous unfolds without love from above, without words within. It’s the old “New Dialect,” whisked noise and acid hiss, cassette dreck bombed in the street-to-street straight-to-tape master take piece. It’s the bang of the future in the instruments of the past. It’s “The City’s Decay,” a unfurbished reverb-soaked reminder that infrastructures and biologies run alongside time alongside each other. Diaspora squeals, like toxic cells replenishing a virus, systems organized in killing healthy bodies. Balms, like cells dying to become the outer layer of skin. In the absence of life here, our skin asserts our existence. In his words, the few accompanying the wordless release, AceMo: “Black populous is whatever you, want it to be.” Maya: “It reminds us that we are not just flesh and blood, and that our hungers are not going to be set aside as just flesh and blood.” Our hungers, those hopes, embodiments of life in and after loss. Flesh, dying cells making skins, infrastructures of a living death. Blood, love to the heart and air to the brain, proof of life when it’s inside, evidence of trauma when it’s out. James Baldwin, from out of The Devil Finds Work: “This tension between the real and the imagined is the theater, and this is why the theater will always remain a necessity. One is not in the presence of shadows, but responding to one’s flesh and blood: in the theater, we are re-creating each other.” Black Populous by AceMo The theater of flesh and blood is the theater of the body. Our hearts break and our brains forget, but our flesh lets us walk, our blood proves us precious. The tension inscripted on our bodies leads us to hospitals and into each other’s arms. Black Populous, like DAMN, like Kaepernick and Mavis and CupcakKe and Toni, does not settle for shadows. By sending the sounds of the body into the city’s language of drum and bass, Black Populous is absence’s negative, taking it back, giving it away. It will not be silenced. AceMo, again: “For black is the color of endearment. Black is of pain, black is of freedom, black is cold, black is warm.” Maya, still: “…indeed, we have souls.” “I got dark, I got evil, that rot inside my DNA:” We are responsible for our bodies. “We are all each other’s flesh and blood.” This year, mediated and afflicted by loss, saw the same trends and disparities along body-lines. We locked us up. We found new depths to the same old hate. “We are all each other’s flesh and blood.” Not all bodies got the same time to heal. Take a knee. Shake analog. Hold history accountable to itself. Do not make it anything that it pretends it was when what it was was sick. Care isn’t universal, but hope, like cell death, is renewable. We plot a building in the losing, crumble like refracted fractures aching to be stacked again, a new city. An art of absence, a black populous has the bravery to dare hope for what can be, to shine light at shadows and celebrate sounding. Indeed, we have souls, like Langston: “O, let America be America again — The land that never has been yet —” --- (step out of elevator doors on the fourth floor and remember. Try. I texted hello, you texted you were in the hospital. This morning, my dad said to me, “one of my friends has Parkinson’s now.” I think we were drinking coffee. Then my dad said, “and he says to me, ‘I got all the information Joe, it’s there in my head. It just comes out slowly. Like leaks. It just takes so much to get it out.’” After this, my dad went to work. I texted you. Now the fourth floor. Orthopedics. Stroke. Hospes, guest or stranger, I wander forward in this hallway like a sheaf. I remember, I try: given time, it’s temping to think that ailments and failures fix themselves. But care isn’t universal. We’ve done this before, like a sheaf. And. The way ahead feels lonely) --- DEMENTIA / EVERYWHERE AT THE END OF TIME Richard Quain, The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body, Plate 87 (We lose things all the time. Why test time? Is there a voice to fill that void? What is moving forward? Why won’t it stop?) “Please listen carefully. I am going to say three words that I want you to repeat back to me now and try to remember. The words are “remember,” “care,” and “beautiful.” (remember how easy it was then, to exalt, and sway? all that follows is true: before dwindling, before that fall down the stairs, we danced like sheafs. “sheaves,” you said. “sheafs,” I said. the beach. the shore. the place between knowledges, that lapse of water on sand and the furious motion of sediment with every crash. mostly not crashes though. mostly a familiar strain through rising fogs. somewhere back there is what I know.) “Please say them for me now.” (what does it matter how my heart breaks! what does it matter my city is ruins! we must erode as we go, holding tight the golds of days, the way a sky over water shines the world back. things have always been the best they can be. it’s us that changed. “now i can’t stand to be alone/ let’s go to perfect places!” “I want you to draw a clock for me. Put in all of the numbers where they go. And set the hands to 10 past 11.” (why test time? memory works, an imperfect knowing occasion to see history remembering drifting time misplaced) “I want you to draw a clock for me.” (with a destination now i’m a little lost) “Put in all of the numbers where they go.” (i don’t think she’s here) And set the hands to 10 past 11. (i’m sorry) And a nurse helps him bend his arm at the elbow. He shakes, (“thank you.”) Memories Overlooked: A Tribute To The Caretaker by Various Artists All sounds won’t end in oblivion. Help helps. The Caretaker’s relentless and ugly project traces an arc of plaque, but it does so to extend empathies and imagine new ways of treating bereft consciousnesses. Memories Overlooked means unseating reality revision, nostalgia-sale, and selective national memory loss as king, means treating dementia not as inevitable, but as a thing to be addressed and understood and, ultimately, cured. “100% of the digital proceeds of [Memories Overlooked] will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association.” We break and lose. Bodies get better. When they don’t, we help them. Memory isn’t health. Memory is that imperfect categorizing of history into moments. Remember: History always favours the winners. Remembering favours a humanity. We must confront what can’t bear to lose, those fourth floors of our selves and our loves. Caring for the caregiver takes a lot. Care isn’t universal. Health isn’t forever. Deterioration isn’t beautiful. Deterioration isn’t reversible. Between those sentiments, in the cracks of a tape pop and a brain’s hiss, Everywhere at the end of time weeps a unknowing grace for what it loses, for what it gains in losing. Take care and give it. The way ahead, worth it. --- DEATH / A CROW LOOKED AT ME Richard Quain, The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body, Plate 43 You didn’t die in that hospital room. That has to be said now. Attaching “death” to your pronoun is like imagining a dog’s permanent flight, winter temperature forever, silence. Death isn’t for compelling narratives, a detail to be withheld to heighten tension. Death is real. You could try to put it in an essay, but there’s no words for death that a body doesn’t already know as soon as it’s awake. When I walked into the hospital room, the fourth floor, the sun wooing window heat onto curtains separating the room in two, onto the robot bed that wouldn’t stop beeping, your mom walked out. Legs want motion. Hospital rooms want stillness. We don’t belong in hospital rooms. You said that to me. We were trying to be brave. You joked about the miniature can of Generic Luxury Brand Ginger Ale. I mentioned I was driving to Matawan New Jersey that night. We laughed. No body belongs in Matawan New Jersey. You mention how much that old woman coughed and complained. She slept here for a night, now she’s gone. We say we hope she’s okay. “October wind blows.” They have nice blinds in hospital rooms, horizontal and clean, but welcoming of light. They have nice blinds in hospital rooms, I say to you. You look out the window. It’s too gold in here, I think. You say how weird it is to be in a hospital, the age you are, the age I am, the way we’re in this hospital room now. I nod. All poetry is lost. We ache in loss, but we are not lost. Death is real. Life is real. Geneviève Castrée drew comics, made sounds, died. Phil Elverum, her husband, lost her and can’t forget. These words are not meant to be pat or diminishing of two humans’ story. The songs on A Crow Looked At Me aren’t simplistic or reductive of the monumental collapse loss has inflicted on a human being. “Please don’t come,” Phil urged; “this new album is barely music.” Real death is supposed to be the end, at the very least the last words on the subject. A Crow Looked At Me breaks and re-breaks, because it’s a life’s words trying to make sense of irreparable loss, over and over. “I’ll speak to your absence and carry our stories around my whole life” is sibling sentiment to “I’ll speak to your presence and carry our stories around my whole life. A Crow Looked At Me is non-song and barely music. But by its existence, it reaffirms the negatives its existence stands for. Bodies get better and better. We all end up together. Life is real. Babies get born. Hospitals save lives that humans make. In the release of such hopeless losses (love, body, self, life), we re-member the sounds of 2017 as vaccinating reminders of what those losses feel like and how we can reconfigure them into stepping forward. Moving through this cycle of crumbling sounds reminds us that memory is a deconstructive process striving to reconstruct, that there is healing in a losing sound: Lorde’s neon-alone radio-glow gives way to the dusty unshackled analog techno of AceMo, gives way to the constantly untying and affirming sounds of The Caretaker that follow time’s arc. It all ends with something like Mount Eerie’s non-music that can’t help but reconnect us back to the love that Lorde eulogizes and memorializes, that Phil misses and holds closest to his heart, that drives AceMo to herald his body’s voice, that reminds The Caretaker it’s okay to cry. History and memory, loss and memorial, are circles to circulate our years, reminders that humans are (and always will be) at the center of our body’s traumas and joys. Will we survive us? An art of absence, a re-membering of loss says yes. Is is enough; the way forward is precious. We listen, wrecked and healing, swept and stepping, before and after and always past now. (They have nice blinds in hospitals. We laugh.) http://j.mp/2BYcXm8