[network] @Mnemosyne; video, day 244; secrets we keep we now have to reap [open]

[bookofnope]

[It's midday, or what passes for it in Norfinbury, when Beckett's ongoing video feed opens up to the whole network, showing the field of snow with the shadows of skyscrapers in the background. Front and centre, fading in and out of the snowfall, is the anomaly. His anomaly.

Two faces: perhaps an amalgamation of limbs and pieces, all pallid and corpselike, making up the body of a sharply beautiful young woman, her hair sweeping to her waist, her lips ruby; perhaps that same face within swarming, oozing darkness, floating at a distance among writhing tentacles. But it isn't her appearance that Beckett is interested in. He asks her questions, urgent, demanding, and she speaks back, but doesn't answer - not in any way that makes sense. Between them they make a drawn out disjointed dialogue:]

What is your name?

- just like you, [says she.] Forced here against my will. Always forced -

What is the last thing you remember?

And you always knew when to get out, didn't you. Not right, not fair -

Who brought you here?

And me - we - me - all wrong, dragged across in bits and pieces -

Who - what put you together?

Without the light, it's not a thing, you fool, you can't dig it up from the ground, it's the idea, the luck of it -

Where are your other parts? [His voice starts to strain. The camera tilts.] Lucita, tell me -

Thought it was fixing me, look at me, look at us, I can still feel it saw at my bones. Why couldn't it have been you? It was my sacrifice, mine, mine -

Do you know who I am?

And you are whole and what are we what am I - [The vision steps back as Beckett pushes towards it, into the thickening snow, black fading out in white.] Tore my hands tore my eyes tore my heart and you - you - you - !

Lucita! Do you know who I am? Do you remember us? Do you -

Damn you, Beckett, you left me to the darkness!

[With that howl, she's gone, faded into the storm. Beckett takes a few running steps after her -] Lucita! Answer me! Lucita! [ - and gets nowhere. She's gone. It's gone.

The screen tilts wildly. In a flash of fury, Beckett smashes his tablet down to the snow.]

Comments

[action]

[0thingsonmymind]

*He doesn't do anything during the interview, but once its over and Beckett throws his tablet down he approaches.*

Beck ett?

[action]

[bookofnope]

No, no -

[It's an instinctive reaction, somewhere between rejecting Brian's help and warning him off as Beckett's temper hangs by a thread. He stands over the half-buried tablet, shoulders rising and falling with hissing, snatching breath.]

I need to talk to her, I -

[action] if Enoch's not wanted here/yet I can ICly delay and give him his own thread!

[warriorscribe]

[Enoch had fallen behind as he pieced together the myriad whispers coming from Michael's mouth atop the patchwork creature that followed him. The usual flash of rage that came with his grief burned itself up before he could even open his mouth to scream at the light that had so tormented him in his first month here. It burned away without a word, leaving him to deal with its ashes of crushing sorrow that turned his legs to lead.

When Beckett stops after this, he catches up, arms folded tightly under his cloak, bitter sobbing lost on the wind. He glances at his friend with teary eyes, too choked to speak, then across his shoulders at the anomaly Brian has become, as if asking what happened.

Hesitantly, he watches, mind numbed with grief and not sure what to do. He can't lose the friends he has here too.]

it's fine for me!

[0thingsonmymind]

*He shakes his head.*

not her

*Not all of the statement is 'voiced' but that should be enough.

He tenses as Enoch nears but doesn't move against the man.*

[bookofnope]

[Not her but he already knows that, in the way one is certain when the other option is simply beyond contemplation. And yet it's the other option battering him forward, urging him to shout her name again. He needs her. He needs her to tell him - something.]

She - she knows about what happened. How she died. I just have to know -

[Not even anything about Norfinbury. He just has to know if she could forgive him.]

@hotstud_xxx; text

[rubikscomplex]

yeah
that's about what i got for mine
looks like we were half-right
anybody want to bet the ones of us who get killed have pieces of these guys in our bodies now?

"the anomalies are inside you"

video;

[bookofnope]

[It's a good fifteen minutes before Beckett picks up his tablet again to see House's message. From the looks of it he'd rather have kept it on the ground.]

That can't be what it means. Eve spoke of neutralising "our" anomalies, she was referring to our abilities.

[By God he is going to stick to this story.]

[rubikscomplex]

easy way to find out
i'll see if evie's willing to talk

[bookofnope]

I have tried to ask her about these anomalies when they first appeared. Whether they are who they appear to be. Nothing, from either her or Miller.

[rubikscomplex]

they never talk when these kinds of things are going on
or haven't you noticed?

text; @zd

[swatsflies]

[ He's feeling like shit, so he's sticking to text. ]

getting that from mine too
do you think its true

video;

[bookofnope]

[Fifteen minutes later, Beckett finally picks up the tablet. He doesn't have the presence of mind to switch out of video. He sees the words and his face twists and he swallows as though violently nauseous.]

I don't want to believe it, Zell, I don't want to, but the things she knows...

[swatsflies]

[ He really doesn't like the way Beckett is looking. It certainly adds weight to the thought that she might be someone Beckett knows. That the pieces of his own anomaly are made up of his friends. ]

Yeah
but it's not the first time this place took stuff from out head
it could be another illusion we're all sharing right

[ The words on the screen aren't convincing even to Zell. ]

[bookofnope]

But why, to what end? Just to get our sympathy? I said a hundred times that I'd give her my light, I said it and meant it, and nothing... when does it become too dangerous to dismiss them? How can we dismiss them if there is the barest possibility - !

fifty years latrer

[swatsflies]

i
don't know
maybe to tell us what happened to others
to show us what the cult did or whatever the hell anyone did when all of this went wrong
i
i can't believe it

i don't want to think that my friends aren't
they aren't whole any more
that i was picked over them

@tantalus; voice

[tidalflame]

So they're us, huh? I wonder what broke when they came through...

[The last thing he remembers before coming here is being with his brother and he can swear that he saw something of his sibling in the creature that's been haunting him lately.

Why did he make it through intact but not Kuja?]

@Ecks | text

[ecks]

he should be whole I should not be whole
he is a whole and I am parts but I am the one who has the light and I am whole and he is not
this is not how the magic is intended to work

video;

[bookofnope]

[Fifteen minutes later, Beckett finally picks up the tablet. He doesn't go to text. He stares at the message through straining eyes, and shakes his head.]

I don't know what to tell you. I don't understand this. Not any of this. The more I think the less I understand.

permatext

[ecks]

I understand
I do not want to understand I understad

how dare you with that icon

[bookofnope]

Maybe... [Who better than Ecks to know about things being taken apart and put together? He shakes his head again, this time in a twitchy clearing gesture.] Your Dr. House would say that we're both projecting. That it isn't... isn't what we think we've seen before...

hahaaa

[ecks]

HE IS NOT A FAKE ANIMAL HE IS REAL

@beyonce | audio

[thewarningafter]

[There's no real reply, just clicking and rasping of metal against the surface of the tablet. Someone is breathing nearby, the sound of it wet and labored.]

video

[bookofnope]

[The answer is long in the coming, as it takes Beckett a good fifteen minutes to pick up his tablet again. He visibly tenses at what he hears from it, expression flickering between horror and the strange relief of having something get some blessed focused adrenaline in his system.]

What happened to you...?

audio

[thewarningafter]

[What happened? There's a painful stutter in Stephen's breathing that isn't immediately recognizable as laughter. More recognizable is the faint sound of a woman crying as though from across the room. She's nearly incoherent, some of her words lost to the microphone.]

This isn't working, Stephen, you can't -- you didn't give me enough. God, I can't -- I need my own, can't you see that? I need --

[Stephen's voice cuts in, but he's speaking through broken teeth and a mangled jaw and Beckett might be forgiven for not making out his words.]

Help. Couldn't -- I won't. Dormammu...come to bargain....

audio

[bookofnope]

[Well. It's a kind of answer.

Beckett has seen enough. Seen his friends transform, and seen them fight the transformation. Seen what the encounters with their anomalies have done to them. Knows the sound of speaking through a broken mouth. He can put together the signs. The hand holding the tablet goes limp, half falling, while he drags the other down over his face.]

Why did you call me? I have nothing to give you. There's no bargaining. They won't talk...