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 Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 9:16 pm
Adversare et Obtegere. The words were burned into Fish's mind as if stuck there like a cattle brand. Adversare et Obtegere. The swooping bird emblem. MIB. They had stolen something from him, exacted a price in human life. The Game had come home. The Game had struck too close to his own heart. He had been foolish, allowing himself to fall in love. Miss Floros had warned him this might happen.
He had been foolish.
Everyone was a fool in love.
Adversare et Obtegere.
He could not cross the border. There were blacksuit guards at every main road out, checking IDs. Fish did not have papers. He could knock some heads together but that would only cause a scene. Instead he wandered. There had to be another way out.
It brought him to a familiar mural. Noah's ark. This time it was complete.
"I would drown this whole world and save only the righteous if I could," said Fish dryly when he first laid eyes on it.
Easy, tiger, said Poseidon, in a too-jovial way that pissed the cultist off like nothing else could. That's quite beyond your reach.
The painting was finished, and it was glorious. Not a detail was out of place. There was something so incredibly optimistic about it, everyone so safe and comfortable on that boat, a dove with an olive branch swooping in, a brilliant rainbow arching over the top.
Fish scowled.
There was graffiti on the mural already. Graffiti on graffiti. Someone had drawn a beard on Noah's wife (or maybe that was intentional?) In messy freehand in permanent marker, someone else had scribbled "death to fags" on the side of the boat.
"I will flood this whole goddamn city," said Fish.
You most certainly will not, said Poseidon.
Fish gripped his trident and paced the alley. There had to be another way. He knew where the blacksuits were hiding. He knew how to get in. He just needed to get ******** this ******** s**t," he said.
This was all his fault. He had created his own weakness and now someone else was in trouble because of his selfishness.
Since the night of Ciro's death, he had been afraid of his powers. Now, he was aching to use them.
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 9:45 pm
Worst day ever.
He left the house, left the paint all over the walls, and left the now un-readable card discarded somewhere on the floor. He ran. He ran up the buildings, across the barriers, and to The Scene.
He needed to see it. The painting. His favorite painting. The best one in the whole city, in his opinion.
Noah's Ark.
He knew the story, but didn't know the specifics. Some guy got a bunch of animals in a boat so that he could repopulate the earth.
It was stupid. The animals would interbreed, get stupid and ugly and fat and die out. It wouldn't work. They'd all be retarded.
That didn't make the story any less beautiful, though.
He saw it growing in his vision as he got closer. He saw something else, too. Someone else. Someone staring at it just as he had since the painting had been made. When he was a kid, just a few months before.
It was Fish.
"Fish?" He must have looked bad-- tears were still on his face, his hair was awful and messed up, and there were paint specks all over his bare skin. Splotches completely covered in a color. Small lightning bolts were dancing across his body.
"Fish? Is that you?" He knew it was. He just had to make sure. He needed Fish to confirm it.
"The Blacksuits. They ******** up. They ******** up big time." He had to glare up at the sky to keep from tearing up again.
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Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 6:33 am
"Yeah," spat Fish, who was thoroughly wishing he wasn't Fish for once. If he wasn't Fish, if he wasn't playing, then none of this would have happened.
He nodded. "They ******** up big time," he agreed, and looked over at Quinn, fully noticing the other player's physical state for the first time.
"What did they do to you?" he asked.
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Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 1:23 pm
"My mother." Quinn could feel the tears coming on again, and he banged his forehead against the mural, resting it there. "The only person I had left outside of the game."
"The worst part," he explained, "Is that I have no idea what to do about it. No idea who to kill in retribution, where to go to find them, anything. Just that stupid card I ruined. Abservare et Obtegere, or whatever." He was pretty sure he butchered the pronunciation.
"I hiate feeling useless. I have no idea what to do."
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Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 1:50 pm
Fish banged the base of his trident against the ground of the alley. "s**t, really?" he asked. Well, at least he wasn't the only one.
"I know where their offices are," he said, trying to restrain his anger. If a player attacked another player's family, that was one thing. But this, this was Abbot all over again.
"They kidnapped Dwayne," he said brusquely. "Or arrested him. Some bogus charge. They left their card. Adversare et obtegere. No ******** idea what it means. It's probably a trap, but I've still got to go after him. It's my fault he's even involved in this mess."
"They're worse than other players," said Fish. "It's like they're not even human beings."
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Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:01 pm
"Yes, 's**t, Really'." He growled, prying away from the wall and glaring at Fish. "They might have taken your little boyfriend, but at least he isn't dead." He found himself getting closer to Fish.
"And besides, he's just your roommate. You can get another one of those. My mom is gone. 's**t, really'! Pah." His fists clenched and unclenched. It was irrational to direct his anger at Fish, but he couldn't help it.
"You don't know. You don't even know what this feels like." He was in Fish's face now, practically yelling.
"They aren't human beings. They're monsters. And they're going to die for what they did." He pulled away from Fish, and his voice got quieter.
"I'm sorry." he paused for a moment, to strengthen his resolve. "Let's go to their offices, then."
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Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:59 pm
Fish nodded and motioned towards a fire escape at the far end of the alley. "How's your roof running?" he asked, and then shrugged. "Stupid question. We gotta make it to Uppers before they-"
He trailed off, shook his head, and started to climb.
"This all happened once before, two winters ago. You wouldn't remember it, it was before your time," he said, talking as much as to fill up space as to supply information. 'Before your time' was a weird concept - he knew Quinn was roughly the same age as he was, both physically and chronologically. Of course he was nearly fourteen now by his best estimates, a strange thought.
"They kidnapped someone. Ciro's father. As far as I know, Ciro'd only met the guy once in his whole life but it still made him a mark. They interrogated him and then they killed him."
He stepped up onto the roof and waited for Quinn.
"I'm-- I'm sorry about your mother, Quinn," he said, "But if we don't hurry they're going to kill two innocents in cold blood tonight."
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Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 3:15 pm
"I hate all this sneaking around. Can't we just break our way through?" He followed Fish up the fire escape, nonetheless.
"Ciro?" That conjured up interesting memories. "Ugh. No one deserves this. No one." He was able to keep his anger in check, but only for the moment. "How did you find their offices, anyway?"
"We'd better hurry, then." He shivered. "I like Dwayne. I hope nothing happens to him."
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Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 3:29 pm
"They have barricades and they have guns," said Fish. This rooftop brushed up another, and a rusty ladder ascended to the next, higher roof. "Come on."
"I don't remember," he shrugged. "They have some kind of government seal on them. That bird logo. It was almost two years ago. Hurry up."
He ached to echo the statement about Dwayne, but what he felt was quite a bit more than 'like'.
"Why today?" he asked. Exploding fireworks painted this rooftop eerie and alternating shades of red and green.
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:42 am
"And we have magical powers gifted by deities. We could beat them any day." He grumbled.
The bird logo. Yeah. It was etched into his brain. Something on the side of the roof caught his eye. Two cans of spray paint, discarded on top of a half-finished mural. Somebody must have been caught painting, and ran. He picked up both of the cans, and shook them.
Yep, still some in there. Plenty, actually.
He tucked them into his belt on opposite sides, makingsure it was tight enough to hold them in place. Black and blue. Fitting.
"Why not?" He shrugged. "This holiday doesn't mean anything any more."
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 6:12 am
"Dwayne was arrested for 'defacing public property'," said Fish, a sneer in his voice. "I wouldn't call what he did 'defacing'," he added. "It wasn't just tagging. It wasn't just writing his name on stuff. Half the paintings of his that he showed me, he never signed."
Here, they came to a gap of about three feet between rooftops. No major alleys yet, just a little gap. Fish took a bit of a running start and jumped neatly to the other side.
"Come on," he called back to Quinn.
The fireworks continued, purple and gold and blinding white.
"On a night like this you wouldn't be able to hear gunshots," mused Fish.
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 6:18 am
"That's stupid. Dwayne was one of the best artists in this neighborhood." He took a few steps backward, then ran and leapt to the other side. He didn't like doing this, but that didn't mean he wouldn't do it gracefully. He landed on his toes of one foot, but had to keep his momentum going, so ran a few more steps before skidding to not fall off the other side of the roof.
Okay, not that gracefully.
"And besides, since when do you need the special ops to arrest some misdemeanor street punk? They aren't even trying to pretend like this is real. They want you there, Fish. And they left a card at my house. They want me there, too. Are you sure this is smart? I know Dwayne's important, but running straight into their trap seems...too much like something I'd do. Maybe we shouldn't go at it head on, you know? For all we know, there's like, twenty thousand of them in the building waiting for us. What would we do then?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 6:26 am
Fish hesitated a moment and then looked straight at Quinn. "We are farther into this than I daresay anyone but Writ has ever gotten," he said. "And we call them monsters, but - When I saw Writ, when he'd grown twice and I'd grown once, the immediate thought was that he was more god than man."
"I will flood their whole building if that's what it takes," he said.
That is far beyond the reach of your powers, said Poseidon.
"Come on, fire escape over there. heading up."
The increasing altitude was the only sign they they were headed in even remotely the right direction.
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 6:37 am
Quinn sighed. "I guess so. I'll help you. Hey, water conducts electricity, right?" He grinned. "We're a good team." He continued to follow Fish, but was hastily growing weary with their travels.
"How much longer till we're there?" I'm tired. I need to go to the bathroom. I'm hungry. Are we there yet? He's touching me.
"Not if that kills you. I've never tried too much electricity at once, but I'm pretty sure I'd burn out fast." He grinned. "I hope they have electric locks on their doors so I can fry them open. I've always wanted to do that."
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 6:50 am
"Once we're in Uppers, we can switch to surface streets. Shouldn't be too much longer now," he said. He looked over the side of the building, out to the streets below. This was still Middling, but a bit of a ritzier part of Middling. Uppers wasn't too far away.
"If it had been anyone else, any other one of the people living in that apartment," he said shakily as he pulled himself up onto the next rooftop, "Do you think I'd be doing this?"
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