Siege Perilous - Prologue - In The Field
Dec. 18th, 2020 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_changeling posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsGabe and Natasha investigate a body dump spot and Gabe gets the DPS heebie jeebies.
The body dump site — or, as he had cynically referred to it at least twice to varying reactions, the corpse drop-off — was not exactly what Gabriel had expected.
Not that he was sure what to expect, exactly. Though Gabriel's time with X-Force had certainly been bizarre and had often bordered on macabre, he had never been on a mission involving this many cadavers.
So Gabriel felt fortunate that he was with Natasha, whose extensive field experience and general ass-kickery would be something of an asset here.
"At the risk of making myself look like a total amateur," he said, as he crouched over a patch of dirt that had clearly been recently disturbed, "I'm not entirely sure what we're looking for. Though, I guess this is a know-it-when-you-see-it situation?"
The amount of dead bodies dropping without regard to the attention they were drawing was unusual for this type of crime. The players involved likely thought they were invincible but that's where X-Force and Natasha's former employers came in.
She walked to a corner of the displaced dirt, eyeing the kinds of sightlines visible from the surrounding buildings and trees. "Yes, unfortunately. That gut feeling where something's off and pulling on that one thread leads you to the 'oh shit' moment."
She glanced down at the dirt unsure if it was another body they were going to unearth or something more tangible. The bodies had been devoid of anything useful to be analyzed back at the lab. Just once vibrantly alive people now dead. "Whoever this is playing hard to get. No cameras with a good line of sight. Either they're paying for this expertise or doing it themselves."
Gabriel, still feeling at a loss, kicked the dirt somewhat idly at his feet. "Would stand to reason that someone draining corpses doesn't like getting their physical hands dirty." Even with his training, he felt out-of-his-depth. And there was a growing pit in his stomach as he surveyed the area. How did you know when the corpse repository, already a bizarre place, had something off about it?
"You know, I—" His speech stopped suddenly, as out of nowhere, his skin started crawling. There was something — well, he wasn't sure what it was exactly, but this feeling (or a sensation, maybe, not really a feeling, but something more concrete than the anxiety he'd already been feeling) washed over him and even though he was standing there, he was in that spot with Natasha, he felt that he was somewhere else, and somewhere beyond that, and yet all those places where all very much him and very much in the spot.
"Do you — are you hearing something?" Gabriel looked at Natasha, wondering if he appeared as ashen as he imagined he felt. It wasn't voices, it wasn't whispers, but something was resonating in a way he couldn't quite his finger on, and he swore he heard someone saying Where've you been? but it wasn't Natasha (and it couldn't have been who he thought it was, that possibility he had let go of), and Natasha was looking at him strangely, and all he could do was look at her and shake his head.
Her attention snapped to Gabriel when he stopped mid-sentence. It wasn't like him. There'd been some initial tension when she'd joined the team but that had smoothed out as time had worn on. Natasha had worn professionalism like a shield in those early days, unsure of her welcome, and her place, but that had eased. She stepped closer to him, scanning him and the ground around him for any clues. "What's going on, Gabriel? You okay?"
They were too exposed here though there was nothing physically wrong with Gabriel that she could see. Nothing recently introduced to have brought about this change. She felt her pulse begin to slow as her adrenaline kicked in and everything around her went into hyper clarity. "Let's grab a couple dirt samples and circle the next couple streets over. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a camera or someone that caught some suspicious activity."
She shook her head no in response to his question. What was going on? Some days she wondered why she couldn't have been blessed with some psionic abilities of her own. Clearly that's what was going on and they were both operating out of their depth.
"Yeah, okay," Gabriel replied, clearly not convinced as he looked down at the ground. He was feeling less wobbly, he supposed, but he couldn't shake this feeling that something was humming or echoing, some voice, some something. He'd never been here before, and yet he felt like he had. Maybe he was going insane. It would have been a longtime coming, given, well, everything. "Dirt samples," he repeated, trying to steady himself in the world and ignoring this feeling that reality was collapsing in on him. "Let's do that."
Kevin and Clea go seek out information among the magical underground.
"Not what I expected, but looks can be deceiving." Clea looked up at the house and then back down at the piece of paper that had a name and address on it. Getting out of the car and checking her surroundings, immediately she saw the wards around the house, cleverly placed. "This is the right place."
"Of course your contact would be out on goddamn Long Island. I hate Long Island." Kevin muttered, adjusting his gun in its holster. His job was mostly to make sure Clea didn't get herself killed. His contacts in this kind of area were thin at best, forcing him to rely on Amanda and her team. "So what's the play? Briefcase full of money? Threaten them with a blow torch? I have both in the trunk."
"Probably why they picked a place. From what I heard, no one likes Long Island." Clea looked over at Kevin with a devilish smirk, "Of course you would. Alas, a blow torch would be overkilling it. Even if it is tempting. But money does loosen lips." Turning back to the house and taking a step forward, the wards were heavy for those who were sentestive to magic. "Paranoid much?" She whispered but continued up the walkway to the front door. She pressed the doorbell to let them know that their guests had arrived.
"No such thing as too paranoid." Kevin said, looking at the peeling paint on the cheap door and wondering what this contact could possibly have.
The woman that opened the door was, charitably, a walking junk pile. The stacks of books and papers that bracketed the door screamed 'hoarder', and her two hats, three sweaters and multiple dresses made her look like a garage sale formed into a rough cone.
"Hello. I'm looking for Robin." Clea said trying her best not to stare at the stack of books and a paper, she had heard of hoarders, but never really seen them in person. She saw the women looking behind her at Kevin and then back at Clea.
"You Clea?" The woman asked to which Clea nodded. The woman opened the door widely to allow them entrance, "Follow the books to the stairs, take it down." Clea looked over at Kevin before entering the house.
"I doubt it's a trap. I'm sure the piles of magazines and papers that crush us to death will be entirely accidental." Kevin muttered, nudging Clea to take the lead into the woman's home. The stairs were where she said, piled with candle ends and headless doll bodies to the point that they could only go down one at a time.
"That would be terrifying." Clea said and took the lead and poked one of the headless doll bodies. She didn't sense any magic coming from them, but further down the stairs with a door at the bottom. Clea opened it and stepped through, it was almost like they had stepped into a different house. It was completely opposite of the state of the upstairs, open, organized, and clean. There were several bookshelves with books and a few items that Clea suspected had a magical purpose.
"Welcome. To what do I owe the pleasure of such a visit?" A body moved into a line of sight shortly after.
Kevin, to his credit, didn't go for his gun immediately. Afterall, he'd seen enough weird shit that the woman with stark white skin, white hair and a fog of cold air puffing out of her mouth didn't immediately scream danger.
"Is this Astriel, Clea?
Clea nodded, "It's them. So we have come for some information." The witch moved forward, careful not to enter the circle that was etched on the ground. "Regarding recent events of the magical kind."
"You will need to be more specific, my dear. After all, omens, potents and the games the gifted play are always around us. Even I can't keep track of everything." She reached for a glass of water, the sides frosting around the touch of her hand. "Perhaps where and when could speed your inquiry?"
"Weird anomalies. There have been youtube videos of odd things happening, snowing over someone's home but no one else, objects appearing where they aren't supposed to be. I know that the magical community would be aware of these and I...we are here to find out what you know." Clea finally found her voice. She was still getting used to the field work and this should be a piece of cake.
"Very well. There is the question of payment, of course." She gave Kevin a long look before shaking her head. "Not you. There's something not right about you."
"I thought you reminded me of my ex-wife."
"But you will do." She turned back to Clea. "A single tear, freely given."
Clea clicked her tongue at the request, but knew it was coming. She reached into her inner pocket and pulled out a vial and held it up, "Freely given." She placed it near a nearby side table.
"So refreshing to find someone who understands the transactional side of our world. A moment." The woman's eyes rolled up in her head for a moment, a nimbus of blue energy crackling around her as she wove whatever spell she'd chosen to completion. Kevin fidgeted behind Clea, always distrustful of magic. Finally, the energy stopped and Astriel's stare met Clea's.
"I'm afraid you wasted a trip, my dear. Your random incidents are not so random, but they also are not connected. If there is a connection you seek, it lies not in the magical world. Or, at least, as I can see."
Clea sighed and rubbed her forehead, she hated when witches spoke like this. "Fine. If you hear anything, let me know." She pulled out a card and set it down next to the vial. "Let's go."
Amanda and Wanda meet over books and discuss that they both feel something ‘off’ but can’t pinpoint it.
"Tea's up," came Amanda's voice and a mug appeared in Wanda's peripheral vision before being placed on the boardroom table in front of her. There was barely space for it between the books and papers strewn everywhere. "I figured any more coffee and you'd turn into one giant ulcer, so, tea." The witch sat down at the table, clearing a space for her own mug. "Are we getting anywhere?"
Wanda waggled her hand back and forth before shrugging. "If you're talking about something concrete, then no, we have not been getting anywhere. And cheers." She accepted the tea gratefully, picking it up in the hand she'd been gesturing with while pulling another tome closer to her. "Gut feeling on the other hand? It seems we have plenty of that to go off of."
"Yeah, there's tonnes of that going around," agreed Amanda with a sigh. "But gut feelings don't always give you your bad guy." She reached for a legal pad and scanned her notes. "What we have established is that Satana, or whatever she calls herself, is still in Limbo. So there's one less magical boogeyman. Only another dozen to go."
"Such a small number when you're buying, say, books or bottles of wine and yet a much larger number in this case," Wanda said, shaking her head, flipping through her own notepad as she took another sip of tea. "I've checked on any rumblings with the Chthon cult - they've been suspiciously quiet as of late. And, as our luck would have it, continue to be so. This doesn't have their fingerprints on it as far as I can tell."
"I'm heading out with Artie to see what I can find on the ground, but I haven't had any warnings from the network OR the city. Clea's going to check out a contact she's made in the magical underground with Kevin, just to be sure, but..." Amanda looked at the spread of books and papers a little helplessly. "I don't think this is one of ours, to be honest."
Wanda blew a chunk of hair out of her eyes and sighed. "At least not one we're familiar with," she agreed. "So either someone so new that our extensive network has no information on them or someone who kept themselves so far off the grid that they aren't known. I don't like either scenario, honestly. New and powerful or older, powerful and good at hiding..."
Amanda stuck out her tongue at the last suggestion. "Please not old, powerful and good at hiding. That gets way too messy and end-of-world-y."
That got a laugh and a bit of a wince out of Wanda, a mix of lingering healing rib pain and the mental image. "No thank you, my calendar is far too full to deal with end-of-world-y anytime soon." Her smile dropped as she thought on the issue at hand. She didn't enjoy not coming up with a plan of action but with so little to go on... "I'll keep reaching out to my contacts to see if there's been any rumors, no matter how slight. There has to be something out there."
"Let's hope so." Amanda glanced at her watch. “Shite, I need to meet Artie. You all right here?”
Wanda waved a hand. "Oh, I'm sure I'll manage."
Marie-Ange takes Topaz under her wing, showing her the basics of information gathering.
"Investigative field work is not quite my speciality." Marie-Ange explained, as she and Topaz took what looked exactly like a office coffee walk past a food truck and around a corner. "But you and I perhaps have a similar reaction to our powers registering something we cannot perceive with our eyes." She tapped her eyepatch - today it was a warm autumn amber that complemented the brown of her coat. "That, how would you say it in English, not quite something but something, that for me indicates a significant moment and for you means a great deal of emotional drama, yes?"
She sipped at her coffee, consulted her phone and before Topaz could answer, added. "And one block that way, I think. Must get all our steps in."
"Bit of a sixth sense thing," Topaz summed up. "But less ghosts." She paused, then added, "Or maybe not if we're dealing with weird, supernatural murders." Death did leave an imprint. Topaz had felt it several times, but it was usually immediately after a person died.
"Ghosts might be more welcome than alternatives. If this is Selene, we are well and truly out of our depth." Marie-Ange said.
Selene was long before Topaz' time at the mansion, but she knew stories. Not exactly flattering stories, either. "Look on the bright side. Maybe it's another life-draining witch."
"Why." Marie-Ange started. "Why is that particular bit of magic so common?" She did not at all expect an answer. "Perhaps we could start with signs of a fight. Blood is obvious, but trash out of place, road gravel or glass where it is not usually found..." She glanced around, pointing with her phone to a discolored patch against a dumpster. "Could be someone using the alley as a bathroom, could be where one of the bodies were left. I think my power is less useful here, but yours perhaps?"
Topaz raised a hand, letting a bit of magic swirl around her fingers before releasing it into the alley. "Probably because it's the easiest, technically speaking." Marie-Ange got an answer anyway while the magic inspected the spot. "Drawing off of artifacts, out of places, that gets complicated. But there's always another person around to pull off of." The spell popped. She tilted her head. "And the winner is body."
Of course it was a body. Marie-Ange huffed, shook off a moment of feeling as though she had something stuck in her eyelid - in the eye that was not there, and then snapped a few pictures discreetly. "Any sense of magic, particularly that kind? I am not... I am not not having anything itch my brain but, it is like, imagine a phantom eyelash in your eye."
"There's... something." Topaz frowned, stepping further into the alley. She couldn't tell if it was pinging her magic senses or her psi senses and that was irritating. "It almost feels like a liminal space. A real one, not a three a.m. in a Target one."
"That would explain the phantom eye pain." Now Marie-Ange did rub her face, avoiding the eyepatch entirely but pressing her fingertips into her cheekbones. "Now we see if anyone else has learned anything. I am going to guess that the other body dump sites have the same feeling."
"Brilliant." Topaz took a moment to focus on the Weird feeling, trying to imprint it in her mind so she could figure out words for it when the time came. "At least it's easy to connect the dots. I doubt many murder scenes feel like this."
"Not the ones I have been to." Marie-Ange answered. "Or caused... "
Artie and Amanda use their respective street-level resources - personal contacts and talking to the city itself - to find more information.
Artie sat down on a stoop that had been thoughtfully swept clean of snow and cracked a can of coke, taking a long drink before resting it on the ground beside him. He unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite before pausing, fishing around inside to pull out the onion and tossed it into the gutter.
There was a flicker of movement in a shadowed area where some garbage cans sat and then Amanda came out, awkwardly making her way around the cans and slush and piled up trash. "Gee, thanks for the obstacle course," she grumbled as she made her way to Artie's stoop and leaned against the pillar at the bottom. "Well, New York's not particularly chatty today. Too much going on with things in general for it to pay much attention." She reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. "Mind if I light up?
He shook his head and waved go ahead. "Things are pretty quiet. Nothing coming up, no real chatter. Everyone is just getting on with things, you know?"
Amanda lit her cigarette and took a deep drag before replying. "And that makes it even stranger. You'd think with someone draining life energy out of random people on the street, there'd be a lot more fear. Which means that it's going unnoticed, which doesn't mesh with where bodies are being found. They're just off the beaten path, so to speak. Someone has to have seen something."
Artie sighed. "My people do mutant seperatist movements and street level operatives. They haven't seen anything, and they're tuned in to any shift in power that might be happening." He fished another piece of onion out of the sandwich and tossed it into the gutter, too. "What if they can't see it? I mean, ley lines, fucked up physics, weak places in the world. Why the fuck does it have to be something from here and not magic weird shit from amother dimension?" The idea was stupid and Artie let the text he was projecting to Amanda fade, shaking his head. "No, that's crazy."
"Not as crazy as you think," she responded thoughtfully, taking another drag as she considered things. "New York doesn't know anything. Your people don't know anything. No witnesses, no rumors, no actual crime scenes, just these bodies turning up. And they're turning up at the weak points of this dimension. So why can't it be happening somewhere else? Nab the victim from here, do whatever, then dump the body back where you got it.”
Artie turned to face Amanda more directly, signing in a sort of resigned way "You know, next time, all I want are some nice mutant separatists on a neo nazi murdering spree. The sort of shit we can ignore. Interdimensional serial killers are above my pay grade."
Amanda grinned. "Welcome to my world."
The two walking wounded set about searching the Web.
“Dude, okay so like, I’m finally here long enough for training and I’m not gonna have to run off to Russia to back North up against people in tracksuits. So, where do we start, Oh Sensei of the technical world?”
Jubilee threw her backpack in a corner and slid into one of the spare roller chairs Doug kept for visitors, cracking each of her knuckles with a shit-eating grin as she placed a decidedly fake look of hero worship on her face. She knew Doug would see through it, which was why she did it. The day she could fool his powers was the day she knew she’d successfully mastered a facial expression. Of course, the fun was also in the twitch it gave him when she didn’t as well.
She was a petty bitch sometimes, she knew it. But he was the one who’d gotten fucking weird and distant on her after everything, so whatever.
Doug gave her the one twitch, and only because he knew Jubilee was expecting it. She'd get even more abrasive and pushy about it if he didn't. His industrial heating pad was wedged behind his back, his cane was off to one side in easy arm's reach if needed, and one of those foul iron supplement shakes that Clea had taken upon herself to keep him topped up on was by his left hand.
Jubilee's phone beeped a particularly strident noise, and displayed a cartoonish little figure who informed her 'time to take your goddamn pain meds'. The corners of Doug's eyes crinkled. Two could play at the game of causing the other to twitch, after all.
She wrinkled her nose at him but popped a bottle of the aforementioned meds from her other pocket (Cargo pants, whoever invented them was a genius) and dry swallowed two. She was used to it by now, and the neck brace she had to wear every day was a constant reminder of just how stupid she’d been letting the bitch get so close to her.
“Remind me why I don’t hate you again?”
Doug fished an energy drink out of the mini-fridge built into his very extensively customized desk/workstation/display combination that dominated his office space and tossed it to Jubilee to ease the grossness of dry swallowing. "Huh. One month," he noted, seeing a post-it note tacked to the inside of the fridge. "Yoink," he declared, fishing another out and popping it open, making a satisfied noise as the first sip hit the back of his throat. "Because I stock the good shit and I share it with you," he answered her at last.
“You’re not wrong, I think I still owe you and Marie-Ange pie for that save.”
Jubilee cracked her can of drink and took a long gulp, closing her eyes at the coolness of the liquid against her throat as it went down. Given what could have been, she’d owe them any number of pies that they liked.
“So you ready to teach me the wonders of hacking in the digital age? I’d have brought coloured pens for notes but I think Kevin and Marie-Ange would murder me if I wrote any of this down, so like, mental archive it is.”
"Mm. Pie." An almost hidden flash of pain and regret passed behind Doug's eyes. He was well schooled in keeping his reactions private, but he and Jubilee had known each other for more than a decade, and in the Biblical sense. And there were days when missing Wade was just a little too much to completely hide.
"Sure, yeah, Hacking 201," he announced. "I mean, you already know the 101 stuff just from working with me for so long."
“I’m sorry” It was immediate, and softly regretful that she’d hit that spot when she knew what it felt like to miss people who you didn’t have a choice in letting go.
She pulled the wheelie chair closer in a careful fashion and gestured to the bank of screens in front of him. Better to just get back on track then to bring too much attention to wounds only partially healed.
“201 then. Give to me your wisdom oh Wizard of the keys.”
At least Jubilee had moved past that tendency of hers to just double down every time she encountered something awkward. It was almost like they were both getting older and mature or something. "Here, let's start with this, what are you looking to do, and what do you already know?"
“Be you, basically.”
Jubilee leaned to look over his shoulder, being careful about not getting in his bubble of personal space. She may have learnt just a few things over the years, after all.
“But since there’s like, no way in hell to copy your power I’d like to like, concentrate on ‘things that can be used for crime’. How to hack security, how to know when someone is watching me watching them in a computer. How to write apps for this shit so I can do it all via scripts so I’m not playing Crash Override in the middle of a fucking tits up situation. Like, all the good shit.”
There was a time that Doug would have taken that 'be you' as a threat, like if he were to be made redundant, the older wiser heads with the flashier powers would kick him to the curb. Sometimes the hesitance and insecurity of the teenager he'd been still shone through. But these days, with a bunch of therapy, he knew better. Even if he stopped doing this job, it wasn't as though people would just abandon him. "Okay, get ready for a bunch of reading material, then," he told Jubilee.
“Can I listen to it on podcast?”
Jubilee knew her strengths, reading manuals weren’t one of them despite the fact she could and did read situation and agent reports daily. Remy had gotten her into the habit, mostly via blunt force trauma but what you learnt via muscle memory you didn’t soon forget.
“Although like, I suppose I could read instead of crocheting but dude, expect like a hundred questions in the first few weeks because I totally do not learn that way. I’m like, a kinetic learner.”
"Believe me, I know." It wasn't like Doug hadn't had plenty of time to observe Jubilee while they'd dated. And one of the worst things you could do to her was to keep her completely still. That wasn't to say she couldn't be patient. You just had to put crochet hooks in her hands or something silent to occupy her fingers while she stayed in an air duct for three hours. "And there'll be plenty of practicum. But programming is learning a new language. Or five. You gotta learn the grammar first."
“Tell me it’s not like Castilian Spanish?”
Jubilee’s voice would have had a slight whine to it if she hadn’t been trained extensively to not give that sort of thing away. As it was, she was sure Doug would be able to read it in her body language.
“What’s the first language then?”
"Do I -look- like la cucaracha castellano?" Doug delivered the phrase with his best supercilious lisp. Hold grudges past the end of the universe? Doug would never.
"Python. It's the go-to. Sometimes you'll need other stuff, especially if you're up against someone's proprietary bullshit, but Python's where you start."
“Do not do that unless you want like, Vegemite in your cornflakes again. I totally still have a supply of that, you know” Jubilee replied with a shudder. She did not need reminders of that particular individual. “What is up with tech people and animals? I mean, Penguins, Snakes? What’s next, hippos?”
Doug cast an eye over at his bookshelf of programming books. "I mean, computer languages tend to go one of three ways. Animals, famous dead scientists, or throw a bunch of random letters at the wall."
“Alright, well, load me up and I’ll get out of your hair. Not like I’m not stuck behind a desk till someone decides I’m not about to completely fall apart out there. Be ready to hear me bitch if programming has gendered language though, because French can bite my shiny metal ass.”
"I'm going to tell Angie you said that."
Emma and Jean bond unexpectedly while looking for psychic residue, but their plans for a girls’ night are violently interrupted.
Jean buttoned her green peacoat as she scanned the park. The sun was starting to set, and the lamp lights had already turned on. The trees were losing most of their leaves but there were enough of them to blanket the area, rising high above their heads. One of the few forests left in NYC. Joggers occasionally used the winding trails to feel closer to nature. It was the perfect place to get lost.
"I haven't been out here in forever. Sad to come back under these circumstances."
Emma shuddered slightly. “I doubt I’ve ever been here,” she said. “I tend not to go places that invoke the words ‘slightly dank’. Yes, I am a terrible snob and, yes, I freely admit it.” She glanced around her. “Do you have any idea where we should be looking or should we be,” she made a gesture towards her temple, her hand casting outwards, “’looking’?”
"Probably a little bit of both," Jean said grimly, pulling a flashlight out of her purse. "I figure we could check the places near where the bodies were found before for clues."
“I really did choose the most enticing career,” said Emma dryly, gesturing to allow Jean to precede her. “I could have been swanning around being rich and beautiful and eating delicious young movie stars for breakfast, figuratively speaking, and instead I find myself tramping through deserted woodlands, looking for corpse goo, with one too few flashlights. I feel like I made a wrong turn somewhere. Possibly just past Van Cleef and Arpels.”
"Being rich and beautiful is overrated anyway," Jean said with a smirk. "Me, I never pass up a chance to look for corpse goo in the middle of the night instead of being home watching Netflix with a glass of wine. Really gives me something to look forward to."
She rounded the corner to find more trails and more trees surrounding them. It was like a maze that seemed to stretch on forever. Dead leaves crunched under their feet as they walked.
"But I'm not quite familiar with the Van Cleef and Arpels ref---" she sputtered to a stop, letting out a shaky breath as a stab of terror washed over her.
"Oh God. What the hell."
“That is... unpleasant,” said Emma, shaking her head. “And unusual. It’s not exactly surprising a murder site would be a place of terror, but it doesn’t normally linger so strongly. Unless you’re Adrienne and I do not have my sister’s talents.”
"I--I don't see anything physical," Jean said, trying to get a hold of herself as she searched the area. "I'm not sure what would leave this much of a trace either. It's...like the air is soaked in it."
She let out a breath. "As much as I hate to say it we should probably see if there are other traces."
“And you think being rich and beautiful is over-rated,” said Emma, dryly. “When you offer me such exciting enticements as corpse goo and psychic terror traces to track down.” She glanced around her and then cast her mind out. “Over to the right. I think,” she said. “It’s not clear but it’s like... a...” She shook her head and walked to where she had felt something. “Well, there we are again,” Emma said, feeling like she walked into a spider’s web of fright, the emotion feeling like it washed over her skin and then broke apart around her.
Jean followed to where Emma was, steeling herself for the emotions that seemed to radiate through the area. "Yep, wouldn't miss this," she muttered, letting out a breath, then shook her head.
"It's almost like---what happened in Topaz and Meggan's minds. In the Astral Plane it manifested into a visible form like water or....other things, but here...obviously it doesn't work that way since we're not there."
She frowned. "Maybe it's....something similar in the way it manifests?" she said.
"It could be," said Emma cautiously, feeling her way along the edges of the emotion that shivered in the psychic air around her. "It could be all sorts of things. We have dead bodies and a truly frustrating lack of anything that could link them together. Other than suddenly being many years older than they should be." And the other thing, which Emma was not going to mention.
"If whatever this is is enough to leave this much psionic residue it's hard to say. Let's break it down to options...magic, mutant, machine, and miscellaneous," Jean said.
"With this many bodies, it feels like more than just a coincidence. It's almost as if whatever this is steals their youth because it needs it."
“Which is not outside the realm of possibilities. There’s mutant, magical, mechanical, mysterious or malignant.” Emma shook her head as she added to Jean’s list. Because aliens or some weird disease weren’t entirely out of the bounds of possibility. “I feel like I’m in the worst Gilbert and Sullivan musical of all time,” she said lightly. She frowned as she felt along the span of the emotional residue that hung in the air around them. “Do you mind if I borrow a little of your power?” she asked Jean.
Jean tensed a little at the thought, but finally nodded after a moment. They were on the same team and she had good intentions. "...Okay," she said.
“Shall we hold hands like schoolgirls, or are you alright if I just do a psychic link?” Emma asked. She always liked to be courteous when requesting assistance from another telepath. Particularly one with the raw power of Jean. She smiled. “I’ve been told I have very gentle hands. When I want them to be.”
"A psychic link is fine," Jean said, then gave a light smirk. "Unless you were wanting to hold my hand."
Emma flashed her most dazzling smile at Jean. “Who wouldn’t, darling?” she purred. “Who wouldn’t? But just in case this is some kind of contagious… something, maybe just do it this way.” Emma sent out a psychic feeler, gave Jean’s telepathy the equivalent of a polite knock, announcing her presence.
Jean could feel the power behind Emma's psi-presence practically radiating through her walls. It'd been a long time since she'd let anyone into her mind willingly. Glancing Emma over, she slowly relaxed her walls to allow Emma access. Not wide open, mind you, but enough to get done what needed to get done.
“Thank you, darling,” said Emma softly as Jean’s natural defensiveness relaxed. “I promise I will be gentle,” she added as she shaped the massive raw power of even the limited access that Jean allowed, into the precise shape and structure that she needed, using it to bolster and strengthen the carefully placed struts and joists of the psychic probe she constructed. Then Emma nodded at Jean to let her know what was coming and, drawing back her mind for a moment, lashed her psychic power into the structure she had built, like a mallet hitting a gong. Power swept out through the woods around them and lit up the psychic landscape like a map – cracks in the world, in the shape of reality, that matched exactly the terror traces that lingered. Emma’s second layer, the one she had hidden from Jean, came into play then, sending Jean’s consciousness down narrow channels taking her away from the cracks, letting only Emma’s mind pierce through for a moment, feeling the shape of their lost world on the other side of the cracks, the psychic residue of the Jean that lingered there, the Phoenix, a mirror Emma could look into for just a second to see what was on the other side.
Another mind. Another one who could see the cracks and… fed on them.
Before it could see her Emma shut down the probe completely, cut the link to Jean’s mind.
“Well,” she said and then staggered slightly. “Jean, darling, if I swoon, would you be kind enough to catch me?”
Jean immediately closed the distance, ready to grab her. "What was that?" she said. She couldn't quite understand all of it since there were a lot of layers and walls beyond Emma's journey, but she knew enough to sense that something significant had happened. Enough to yank her out of her mind like snapping a cord.
“That,” said Emma and gave a shaky laugh. “Was a somebody. A somebody who is killing people. I think we should go back, tell the others.” She shook her head. “If it is okay, I really would like to hold your hand,” she said softly. “That… took a lot more out of me than I was expecting.”
Jean arched a brow but nodded. "Uh...sure," she said. She tilted her head curiously. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Emma shrugged lightly and gripped Jean’s hand, leaning her weight on the younger woman’s shoulder as they started to walk back out of the wooded area. “I will be,” she said. “Champagne and fresh strawberries should restore me to my usual dazzling self. Once I’ve reported in, it might be time for indulging. Tell me, Jean, did you have any other plans for tonight than Netflix and wine? Because there could be champagne, strawberries and a personal after-hours introduction to Maison Van Cleef and Arpels and their fabulous diamond collection in your immediate future, if you would prefer.” Emma reached out lightly, let Jean feel the brush of Emma’s gratitude for letting her into Jean’s mind, for assisting her now.
Letting out a surprised laugh, Jean squinted. "Champagne, strawberries, AND staring at shiny rocks? Well...it was going to be more like...Hulu and ice cream but your idea sounds better, I guess," she said with a smirk. She was admittedly curious and she hadn't hung out with Emma well....ever so a girls night might have been fun.
"Oh duckies. So much fun. So much... mmm, sexual tension? I see it. I ship it. Ooh, I'm going to use that to hurt you so much but maybe in the end she rescues you. Like a play, where they almost escape then then... well... don't." The woman that suddenly materialized in front of them was attractive, darker, and entirely too in control of the situation. "And the connections you have. Oh my... what wonderful pain you have. What wonderful pain you connect to. This feels like art, doesn't it. Tell me it does."
Startled by the woman who had appeared in their path, Jean took a step back. "Wow. Okay. Do you have a maniacal laugh and kill puppies too?" she said.
Tightening her mental walls, Jean narrowed her eyes at the woman. "Who is 'she?'" she said.
“Someone very dangerous,” snapped Emma and lashed out with her psychic power, angry that she could feel the shaking in her limbs grow worse at the exertion. With one part of her mind she tried to hit the woman in front of her hard, with the other she reached out desperately, trying to find Doug, Kevin, anyone to let them know what was happening.
And then the cracks in the world broke open and it felt like the universe fell in.
"I am Roma." The woman said. It was like time stopped, and the telepathic connections from Emma were visible, racing out in icy blue, chased by fractaling fractured lines of mirrors. As each blue spark found a mind, even separated by miles, they were wrapped in the glassy cocoon. "I am your new God. And how lovely are the friends you have brought me? How delicious their pain... I am ready to enjoy the games that they are going to play in my honour."
The body dump site — or, as he had cynically referred to it at least twice to varying reactions, the corpse drop-off — was not exactly what Gabriel had expected.
Not that he was sure what to expect, exactly. Though Gabriel's time with X-Force had certainly been bizarre and had often bordered on macabre, he had never been on a mission involving this many cadavers.
So Gabriel felt fortunate that he was with Natasha, whose extensive field experience and general ass-kickery would be something of an asset here.
"At the risk of making myself look like a total amateur," he said, as he crouched over a patch of dirt that had clearly been recently disturbed, "I'm not entirely sure what we're looking for. Though, I guess this is a know-it-when-you-see-it situation?"
The amount of dead bodies dropping without regard to the attention they were drawing was unusual for this type of crime. The players involved likely thought they were invincible but that's where X-Force and Natasha's former employers came in.
She walked to a corner of the displaced dirt, eyeing the kinds of sightlines visible from the surrounding buildings and trees. "Yes, unfortunately. That gut feeling where something's off and pulling on that one thread leads you to the 'oh shit' moment."
She glanced down at the dirt unsure if it was another body they were going to unearth or something more tangible. The bodies had been devoid of anything useful to be analyzed back at the lab. Just once vibrantly alive people now dead. "Whoever this is playing hard to get. No cameras with a good line of sight. Either they're paying for this expertise or doing it themselves."
Gabriel, still feeling at a loss, kicked the dirt somewhat idly at his feet. "Would stand to reason that someone draining corpses doesn't like getting their physical hands dirty." Even with his training, he felt out-of-his-depth. And there was a growing pit in his stomach as he surveyed the area. How did you know when the corpse repository, already a bizarre place, had something off about it?
"You know, I—" His speech stopped suddenly, as out of nowhere, his skin started crawling. There was something — well, he wasn't sure what it was exactly, but this feeling (or a sensation, maybe, not really a feeling, but something more concrete than the anxiety he'd already been feeling) washed over him and even though he was standing there, he was in that spot with Natasha, he felt that he was somewhere else, and somewhere beyond that, and yet all those places where all very much him and very much in the spot.
"Do you — are you hearing something?" Gabriel looked at Natasha, wondering if he appeared as ashen as he imagined he felt. It wasn't voices, it wasn't whispers, but something was resonating in a way he couldn't quite his finger on, and he swore he heard someone saying Where've you been? but it wasn't Natasha (and it couldn't have been who he thought it was, that possibility he had let go of), and Natasha was looking at him strangely, and all he could do was look at her and shake his head.
Her attention snapped to Gabriel when he stopped mid-sentence. It wasn't like him. There'd been some initial tension when she'd joined the team but that had smoothed out as time had worn on. Natasha had worn professionalism like a shield in those early days, unsure of her welcome, and her place, but that had eased. She stepped closer to him, scanning him and the ground around him for any clues. "What's going on, Gabriel? You okay?"
They were too exposed here though there was nothing physically wrong with Gabriel that she could see. Nothing recently introduced to have brought about this change. She felt her pulse begin to slow as her adrenaline kicked in and everything around her went into hyper clarity. "Let's grab a couple dirt samples and circle the next couple streets over. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a camera or someone that caught some suspicious activity."
She shook her head no in response to his question. What was going on? Some days she wondered why she couldn't have been blessed with some psionic abilities of her own. Clearly that's what was going on and they were both operating out of their depth.
"Yeah, okay," Gabriel replied, clearly not convinced as he looked down at the ground. He was feeling less wobbly, he supposed, but he couldn't shake this feeling that something was humming or echoing, some voice, some something. He'd never been here before, and yet he felt like he had. Maybe he was going insane. It would have been a longtime coming, given, well, everything. "Dirt samples," he repeated, trying to steady himself in the world and ignoring this feeling that reality was collapsing in on him. "Let's do that."
Kevin and Clea go seek out information among the magical underground.
"Not what I expected, but looks can be deceiving." Clea looked up at the house and then back down at the piece of paper that had a name and address on it. Getting out of the car and checking her surroundings, immediately she saw the wards around the house, cleverly placed. "This is the right place."
"Of course your contact would be out on goddamn Long Island. I hate Long Island." Kevin muttered, adjusting his gun in its holster. His job was mostly to make sure Clea didn't get herself killed. His contacts in this kind of area were thin at best, forcing him to rely on Amanda and her team. "So what's the play? Briefcase full of money? Threaten them with a blow torch? I have both in the trunk."
"Probably why they picked a place. From what I heard, no one likes Long Island." Clea looked over at Kevin with a devilish smirk, "Of course you would. Alas, a blow torch would be overkilling it. Even if it is tempting. But money does loosen lips." Turning back to the house and taking a step forward, the wards were heavy for those who were sentestive to magic. "Paranoid much?" She whispered but continued up the walkway to the front door. She pressed the doorbell to let them know that their guests had arrived.
"No such thing as too paranoid." Kevin said, looking at the peeling paint on the cheap door and wondering what this contact could possibly have.
The woman that opened the door was, charitably, a walking junk pile. The stacks of books and papers that bracketed the door screamed 'hoarder', and her two hats, three sweaters and multiple dresses made her look like a garage sale formed into a rough cone.
"Hello. I'm looking for Robin." Clea said trying her best not to stare at the stack of books and a paper, she had heard of hoarders, but never really seen them in person. She saw the women looking behind her at Kevin and then back at Clea.
"You Clea?" The woman asked to which Clea nodded. The woman opened the door widely to allow them entrance, "Follow the books to the stairs, take it down." Clea looked over at Kevin before entering the house.
"I doubt it's a trap. I'm sure the piles of magazines and papers that crush us to death will be entirely accidental." Kevin muttered, nudging Clea to take the lead into the woman's home. The stairs were where she said, piled with candle ends and headless doll bodies to the point that they could only go down one at a time.
"That would be terrifying." Clea said and took the lead and poked one of the headless doll bodies. She didn't sense any magic coming from them, but further down the stairs with a door at the bottom. Clea opened it and stepped through, it was almost like they had stepped into a different house. It was completely opposite of the state of the upstairs, open, organized, and clean. There were several bookshelves with books and a few items that Clea suspected had a magical purpose.
"Welcome. To what do I owe the pleasure of such a visit?" A body moved into a line of sight shortly after.
Kevin, to his credit, didn't go for his gun immediately. Afterall, he'd seen enough weird shit that the woman with stark white skin, white hair and a fog of cold air puffing out of her mouth didn't immediately scream danger.
"Is this Astriel, Clea?
Clea nodded, "It's them. So we have come for some information." The witch moved forward, careful not to enter the circle that was etched on the ground. "Regarding recent events of the magical kind."
"You will need to be more specific, my dear. After all, omens, potents and the games the gifted play are always around us. Even I can't keep track of everything." She reached for a glass of water, the sides frosting around the touch of her hand. "Perhaps where and when could speed your inquiry?"
"Weird anomalies. There have been youtube videos of odd things happening, snowing over someone's home but no one else, objects appearing where they aren't supposed to be. I know that the magical community would be aware of these and I...we are here to find out what you know." Clea finally found her voice. She was still getting used to the field work and this should be a piece of cake.
"Very well. There is the question of payment, of course." She gave Kevin a long look before shaking her head. "Not you. There's something not right about you."
"I thought you reminded me of my ex-wife."
"But you will do." She turned back to Clea. "A single tear, freely given."
Clea clicked her tongue at the request, but knew it was coming. She reached into her inner pocket and pulled out a vial and held it up, "Freely given." She placed it near a nearby side table.
"So refreshing to find someone who understands the transactional side of our world. A moment." The woman's eyes rolled up in her head for a moment, a nimbus of blue energy crackling around her as she wove whatever spell she'd chosen to completion. Kevin fidgeted behind Clea, always distrustful of magic. Finally, the energy stopped and Astriel's stare met Clea's.
"I'm afraid you wasted a trip, my dear. Your random incidents are not so random, but they also are not connected. If there is a connection you seek, it lies not in the magical world. Or, at least, as I can see."
Clea sighed and rubbed her forehead, she hated when witches spoke like this. "Fine. If you hear anything, let me know." She pulled out a card and set it down next to the vial. "Let's go."
Amanda and Wanda meet over books and discuss that they both feel something ‘off’ but can’t pinpoint it.
"Tea's up," came Amanda's voice and a mug appeared in Wanda's peripheral vision before being placed on the boardroom table in front of her. There was barely space for it between the books and papers strewn everywhere. "I figured any more coffee and you'd turn into one giant ulcer, so, tea." The witch sat down at the table, clearing a space for her own mug. "Are we getting anywhere?"
Wanda waggled her hand back and forth before shrugging. "If you're talking about something concrete, then no, we have not been getting anywhere. And cheers." She accepted the tea gratefully, picking it up in the hand she'd been gesturing with while pulling another tome closer to her. "Gut feeling on the other hand? It seems we have plenty of that to go off of."
"Yeah, there's tonnes of that going around," agreed Amanda with a sigh. "But gut feelings don't always give you your bad guy." She reached for a legal pad and scanned her notes. "What we have established is that Satana, or whatever she calls herself, is still in Limbo. So there's one less magical boogeyman. Only another dozen to go."
"Such a small number when you're buying, say, books or bottles of wine and yet a much larger number in this case," Wanda said, shaking her head, flipping through her own notepad as she took another sip of tea. "I've checked on any rumblings with the Chthon cult - they've been suspiciously quiet as of late. And, as our luck would have it, continue to be so. This doesn't have their fingerprints on it as far as I can tell."
"I'm heading out with Artie to see what I can find on the ground, but I haven't had any warnings from the network OR the city. Clea's going to check out a contact she's made in the magical underground with Kevin, just to be sure, but..." Amanda looked at the spread of books and papers a little helplessly. "I don't think this is one of ours, to be honest."
Wanda blew a chunk of hair out of her eyes and sighed. "At least not one we're familiar with," she agreed. "So either someone so new that our extensive network has no information on them or someone who kept themselves so far off the grid that they aren't known. I don't like either scenario, honestly. New and powerful or older, powerful and good at hiding..."
Amanda stuck out her tongue at the last suggestion. "Please not old, powerful and good at hiding. That gets way too messy and end-of-world-y."
That got a laugh and a bit of a wince out of Wanda, a mix of lingering healing rib pain and the mental image. "No thank you, my calendar is far too full to deal with end-of-world-y anytime soon." Her smile dropped as she thought on the issue at hand. She didn't enjoy not coming up with a plan of action but with so little to go on... "I'll keep reaching out to my contacts to see if there's been any rumors, no matter how slight. There has to be something out there."
"Let's hope so." Amanda glanced at her watch. “Shite, I need to meet Artie. You all right here?”
Wanda waved a hand. "Oh, I'm sure I'll manage."
Marie-Ange takes Topaz under her wing, showing her the basics of information gathering.
"Investigative field work is not quite my speciality." Marie-Ange explained, as she and Topaz took what looked exactly like a office coffee walk past a food truck and around a corner. "But you and I perhaps have a similar reaction to our powers registering something we cannot perceive with our eyes." She tapped her eyepatch - today it was a warm autumn amber that complemented the brown of her coat. "That, how would you say it in English, not quite something but something, that for me indicates a significant moment and for you means a great deal of emotional drama, yes?"
She sipped at her coffee, consulted her phone and before Topaz could answer, added. "And one block that way, I think. Must get all our steps in."
"Bit of a sixth sense thing," Topaz summed up. "But less ghosts." She paused, then added, "Or maybe not if we're dealing with weird, supernatural murders." Death did leave an imprint. Topaz had felt it several times, but it was usually immediately after a person died.
"Ghosts might be more welcome than alternatives. If this is Selene, we are well and truly out of our depth." Marie-Ange said.
Selene was long before Topaz' time at the mansion, but she knew stories. Not exactly flattering stories, either. "Look on the bright side. Maybe it's another life-draining witch."
"Why." Marie-Ange started. "Why is that particular bit of magic so common?" She did not at all expect an answer. "Perhaps we could start with signs of a fight. Blood is obvious, but trash out of place, road gravel or glass where it is not usually found..." She glanced around, pointing with her phone to a discolored patch against a dumpster. "Could be someone using the alley as a bathroom, could be where one of the bodies were left. I think my power is less useful here, but yours perhaps?"
Topaz raised a hand, letting a bit of magic swirl around her fingers before releasing it into the alley. "Probably because it's the easiest, technically speaking." Marie-Ange got an answer anyway while the magic inspected the spot. "Drawing off of artifacts, out of places, that gets complicated. But there's always another person around to pull off of." The spell popped. She tilted her head. "And the winner is body."
Of course it was a body. Marie-Ange huffed, shook off a moment of feeling as though she had something stuck in her eyelid - in the eye that was not there, and then snapped a few pictures discreetly. "Any sense of magic, particularly that kind? I am not... I am not not having anything itch my brain but, it is like, imagine a phantom eyelash in your eye."
"There's... something." Topaz frowned, stepping further into the alley. She couldn't tell if it was pinging her magic senses or her psi senses and that was irritating. "It almost feels like a liminal space. A real one, not a three a.m. in a Target one."
"That would explain the phantom eye pain." Now Marie-Ange did rub her face, avoiding the eyepatch entirely but pressing her fingertips into her cheekbones. "Now we see if anyone else has learned anything. I am going to guess that the other body dump sites have the same feeling."
"Brilliant." Topaz took a moment to focus on the Weird feeling, trying to imprint it in her mind so she could figure out words for it when the time came. "At least it's easy to connect the dots. I doubt many murder scenes feel like this."
"Not the ones I have been to." Marie-Ange answered. "Or caused... "
Artie and Amanda use their respective street-level resources - personal contacts and talking to the city itself - to find more information.
Artie sat down on a stoop that had been thoughtfully swept clean of snow and cracked a can of coke, taking a long drink before resting it on the ground beside him. He unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite before pausing, fishing around inside to pull out the onion and tossed it into the gutter.
There was a flicker of movement in a shadowed area where some garbage cans sat and then Amanda came out, awkwardly making her way around the cans and slush and piled up trash. "Gee, thanks for the obstacle course," she grumbled as she made her way to Artie's stoop and leaned against the pillar at the bottom. "Well, New York's not particularly chatty today. Too much going on with things in general for it to pay much attention." She reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. "Mind if I light up?
He shook his head and waved go ahead. "Things are pretty quiet. Nothing coming up, no real chatter. Everyone is just getting on with things, you know?"
Amanda lit her cigarette and took a deep drag before replying. "And that makes it even stranger. You'd think with someone draining life energy out of random people on the street, there'd be a lot more fear. Which means that it's going unnoticed, which doesn't mesh with where bodies are being found. They're just off the beaten path, so to speak. Someone has to have seen something."
Artie sighed. "My people do mutant seperatist movements and street level operatives. They haven't seen anything, and they're tuned in to any shift in power that might be happening." He fished another piece of onion out of the sandwich and tossed it into the gutter, too. "What if they can't see it? I mean, ley lines, fucked up physics, weak places in the world. Why the fuck does it have to be something from here and not magic weird shit from amother dimension?" The idea was stupid and Artie let the text he was projecting to Amanda fade, shaking his head. "No, that's crazy."
"Not as crazy as you think," she responded thoughtfully, taking another drag as she considered things. "New York doesn't know anything. Your people don't know anything. No witnesses, no rumors, no actual crime scenes, just these bodies turning up. And they're turning up at the weak points of this dimension. So why can't it be happening somewhere else? Nab the victim from here, do whatever, then dump the body back where you got it.”
Artie turned to face Amanda more directly, signing in a sort of resigned way "You know, next time, all I want are some nice mutant separatists on a neo nazi murdering spree. The sort of shit we can ignore. Interdimensional serial killers are above my pay grade."
Amanda grinned. "Welcome to my world."
The two walking wounded set about searching the Web.
“Dude, okay so like, I’m finally here long enough for training and I’m not gonna have to run off to Russia to back North up against people in tracksuits. So, where do we start, Oh Sensei of the technical world?”
Jubilee threw her backpack in a corner and slid into one of the spare roller chairs Doug kept for visitors, cracking each of her knuckles with a shit-eating grin as she placed a decidedly fake look of hero worship on her face. She knew Doug would see through it, which was why she did it. The day she could fool his powers was the day she knew she’d successfully mastered a facial expression. Of course, the fun was also in the twitch it gave him when she didn’t as well.
She was a petty bitch sometimes, she knew it. But he was the one who’d gotten fucking weird and distant on her after everything, so whatever.
Doug gave her the one twitch, and only because he knew Jubilee was expecting it. She'd get even more abrasive and pushy about it if he didn't. His industrial heating pad was wedged behind his back, his cane was off to one side in easy arm's reach if needed, and one of those foul iron supplement shakes that Clea had taken upon herself to keep him topped up on was by his left hand.
Jubilee's phone beeped a particularly strident noise, and displayed a cartoonish little figure who informed her 'time to take your goddamn pain meds'. The corners of Doug's eyes crinkled. Two could play at the game of causing the other to twitch, after all.
She wrinkled her nose at him but popped a bottle of the aforementioned meds from her other pocket (Cargo pants, whoever invented them was a genius) and dry swallowed two. She was used to it by now, and the neck brace she had to wear every day was a constant reminder of just how stupid she’d been letting the bitch get so close to her.
“Remind me why I don’t hate you again?”
Doug fished an energy drink out of the mini-fridge built into his very extensively customized desk/workstation/display combination that dominated his office space and tossed it to Jubilee to ease the grossness of dry swallowing. "Huh. One month," he noted, seeing a post-it note tacked to the inside of the fridge. "Yoink," he declared, fishing another out and popping it open, making a satisfied noise as the first sip hit the back of his throat. "Because I stock the good shit and I share it with you," he answered her at last.
“You’re not wrong, I think I still owe you and Marie-Ange pie for that save.”
Jubilee cracked her can of drink and took a long gulp, closing her eyes at the coolness of the liquid against her throat as it went down. Given what could have been, she’d owe them any number of pies that they liked.
“So you ready to teach me the wonders of hacking in the digital age? I’d have brought coloured pens for notes but I think Kevin and Marie-Ange would murder me if I wrote any of this down, so like, mental archive it is.”
"Mm. Pie." An almost hidden flash of pain and regret passed behind Doug's eyes. He was well schooled in keeping his reactions private, but he and Jubilee had known each other for more than a decade, and in the Biblical sense. And there were days when missing Wade was just a little too much to completely hide.
"Sure, yeah, Hacking 201," he announced. "I mean, you already know the 101 stuff just from working with me for so long."
“I’m sorry” It was immediate, and softly regretful that she’d hit that spot when she knew what it felt like to miss people who you didn’t have a choice in letting go.
She pulled the wheelie chair closer in a careful fashion and gestured to the bank of screens in front of him. Better to just get back on track then to bring too much attention to wounds only partially healed.
“201 then. Give to me your wisdom oh Wizard of the keys.”
At least Jubilee had moved past that tendency of hers to just double down every time she encountered something awkward. It was almost like they were both getting older and mature or something. "Here, let's start with this, what are you looking to do, and what do you already know?"
“Be you, basically.”
Jubilee leaned to look over his shoulder, being careful about not getting in his bubble of personal space. She may have learnt just a few things over the years, after all.
“But since there’s like, no way in hell to copy your power I’d like to like, concentrate on ‘things that can be used for crime’. How to hack security, how to know when someone is watching me watching them in a computer. How to write apps for this shit so I can do it all via scripts so I’m not playing Crash Override in the middle of a fucking tits up situation. Like, all the good shit.”
There was a time that Doug would have taken that 'be you' as a threat, like if he were to be made redundant, the older wiser heads with the flashier powers would kick him to the curb. Sometimes the hesitance and insecurity of the teenager he'd been still shone through. But these days, with a bunch of therapy, he knew better. Even if he stopped doing this job, it wasn't as though people would just abandon him. "Okay, get ready for a bunch of reading material, then," he told Jubilee.
“Can I listen to it on podcast?”
Jubilee knew her strengths, reading manuals weren’t one of them despite the fact she could and did read situation and agent reports daily. Remy had gotten her into the habit, mostly via blunt force trauma but what you learnt via muscle memory you didn’t soon forget.
“Although like, I suppose I could read instead of crocheting but dude, expect like a hundred questions in the first few weeks because I totally do not learn that way. I’m like, a kinetic learner.”
"Believe me, I know." It wasn't like Doug hadn't had plenty of time to observe Jubilee while they'd dated. And one of the worst things you could do to her was to keep her completely still. That wasn't to say she couldn't be patient. You just had to put crochet hooks in her hands or something silent to occupy her fingers while she stayed in an air duct for three hours. "And there'll be plenty of practicum. But programming is learning a new language. Or five. You gotta learn the grammar first."
“Tell me it’s not like Castilian Spanish?”
Jubilee’s voice would have had a slight whine to it if she hadn’t been trained extensively to not give that sort of thing away. As it was, she was sure Doug would be able to read it in her body language.
“What’s the first language then?”
"Do I -look- like la cucaracha castellano?" Doug delivered the phrase with his best supercilious lisp. Hold grudges past the end of the universe? Doug would never.
"Python. It's the go-to. Sometimes you'll need other stuff, especially if you're up against someone's proprietary bullshit, but Python's where you start."
“Do not do that unless you want like, Vegemite in your cornflakes again. I totally still have a supply of that, you know” Jubilee replied with a shudder. She did not need reminders of that particular individual. “What is up with tech people and animals? I mean, Penguins, Snakes? What’s next, hippos?”
Doug cast an eye over at his bookshelf of programming books. "I mean, computer languages tend to go one of three ways. Animals, famous dead scientists, or throw a bunch of random letters at the wall."
“Alright, well, load me up and I’ll get out of your hair. Not like I’m not stuck behind a desk till someone decides I’m not about to completely fall apart out there. Be ready to hear me bitch if programming has gendered language though, because French can bite my shiny metal ass.”
"I'm going to tell Angie you said that."
Emma and Jean bond unexpectedly while looking for psychic residue, but their plans for a girls’ night are violently interrupted.
Jean buttoned her green peacoat as she scanned the park. The sun was starting to set, and the lamp lights had already turned on. The trees were losing most of their leaves but there were enough of them to blanket the area, rising high above their heads. One of the few forests left in NYC. Joggers occasionally used the winding trails to feel closer to nature. It was the perfect place to get lost.
"I haven't been out here in forever. Sad to come back under these circumstances."
Emma shuddered slightly. “I doubt I’ve ever been here,” she said. “I tend not to go places that invoke the words ‘slightly dank’. Yes, I am a terrible snob and, yes, I freely admit it.” She glanced around her. “Do you have any idea where we should be looking or should we be,” she made a gesture towards her temple, her hand casting outwards, “’looking’?”
"Probably a little bit of both," Jean said grimly, pulling a flashlight out of her purse. "I figure we could check the places near where the bodies were found before for clues."
“I really did choose the most enticing career,” said Emma dryly, gesturing to allow Jean to precede her. “I could have been swanning around being rich and beautiful and eating delicious young movie stars for breakfast, figuratively speaking, and instead I find myself tramping through deserted woodlands, looking for corpse goo, with one too few flashlights. I feel like I made a wrong turn somewhere. Possibly just past Van Cleef and Arpels.”
"Being rich and beautiful is overrated anyway," Jean said with a smirk. "Me, I never pass up a chance to look for corpse goo in the middle of the night instead of being home watching Netflix with a glass of wine. Really gives me something to look forward to."
She rounded the corner to find more trails and more trees surrounding them. It was like a maze that seemed to stretch on forever. Dead leaves crunched under their feet as they walked.
"But I'm not quite familiar with the Van Cleef and Arpels ref---" she sputtered to a stop, letting out a shaky breath as a stab of terror washed over her.
"Oh God. What the hell."
“That is... unpleasant,” said Emma, shaking her head. “And unusual. It’s not exactly surprising a murder site would be a place of terror, but it doesn’t normally linger so strongly. Unless you’re Adrienne and I do not have my sister’s talents.”
"I--I don't see anything physical," Jean said, trying to get a hold of herself as she searched the area. "I'm not sure what would leave this much of a trace either. It's...like the air is soaked in it."
She let out a breath. "As much as I hate to say it we should probably see if there are other traces."
“And you think being rich and beautiful is over-rated,” said Emma, dryly. “When you offer me such exciting enticements as corpse goo and psychic terror traces to track down.” She glanced around her and then cast her mind out. “Over to the right. I think,” she said. “It’s not clear but it’s like... a...” She shook her head and walked to where she had felt something. “Well, there we are again,” Emma said, feeling like she walked into a spider’s web of fright, the emotion feeling like it washed over her skin and then broke apart around her.
Jean followed to where Emma was, steeling herself for the emotions that seemed to radiate through the area. "Yep, wouldn't miss this," she muttered, letting out a breath, then shook her head.
"It's almost like---what happened in Topaz and Meggan's minds. In the Astral Plane it manifested into a visible form like water or....other things, but here...obviously it doesn't work that way since we're not there."
She frowned. "Maybe it's....something similar in the way it manifests?" she said.
"It could be," said Emma cautiously, feeling her way along the edges of the emotion that shivered in the psychic air around her. "It could be all sorts of things. We have dead bodies and a truly frustrating lack of anything that could link them together. Other than suddenly being many years older than they should be." And the other thing, which Emma was not going to mention.
"If whatever this is is enough to leave this much psionic residue it's hard to say. Let's break it down to options...magic, mutant, machine, and miscellaneous," Jean said.
"With this many bodies, it feels like more than just a coincidence. It's almost as if whatever this is steals their youth because it needs it."
“Which is not outside the realm of possibilities. There’s mutant, magical, mechanical, mysterious or malignant.” Emma shook her head as she added to Jean’s list. Because aliens or some weird disease weren’t entirely out of the bounds of possibility. “I feel like I’m in the worst Gilbert and Sullivan musical of all time,” she said lightly. She frowned as she felt along the span of the emotional residue that hung in the air around them. “Do you mind if I borrow a little of your power?” she asked Jean.
Jean tensed a little at the thought, but finally nodded after a moment. They were on the same team and she had good intentions. "...Okay," she said.
“Shall we hold hands like schoolgirls, or are you alright if I just do a psychic link?” Emma asked. She always liked to be courteous when requesting assistance from another telepath. Particularly one with the raw power of Jean. She smiled. “I’ve been told I have very gentle hands. When I want them to be.”
"A psychic link is fine," Jean said, then gave a light smirk. "Unless you were wanting to hold my hand."
Emma flashed her most dazzling smile at Jean. “Who wouldn’t, darling?” she purred. “Who wouldn’t? But just in case this is some kind of contagious… something, maybe just do it this way.” Emma sent out a psychic feeler, gave Jean’s telepathy the equivalent of a polite knock, announcing her presence.
Jean could feel the power behind Emma's psi-presence practically radiating through her walls. It'd been a long time since she'd let anyone into her mind willingly. Glancing Emma over, she slowly relaxed her walls to allow Emma access. Not wide open, mind you, but enough to get done what needed to get done.
“Thank you, darling,” said Emma softly as Jean’s natural defensiveness relaxed. “I promise I will be gentle,” she added as she shaped the massive raw power of even the limited access that Jean allowed, into the precise shape and structure that she needed, using it to bolster and strengthen the carefully placed struts and joists of the psychic probe she constructed. Then Emma nodded at Jean to let her know what was coming and, drawing back her mind for a moment, lashed her psychic power into the structure she had built, like a mallet hitting a gong. Power swept out through the woods around them and lit up the psychic landscape like a map – cracks in the world, in the shape of reality, that matched exactly the terror traces that lingered. Emma’s second layer, the one she had hidden from Jean, came into play then, sending Jean’s consciousness down narrow channels taking her away from the cracks, letting only Emma’s mind pierce through for a moment, feeling the shape of their lost world on the other side of the cracks, the psychic residue of the Jean that lingered there, the Phoenix, a mirror Emma could look into for just a second to see what was on the other side.
Another mind. Another one who could see the cracks and… fed on them.
Before it could see her Emma shut down the probe completely, cut the link to Jean’s mind.
“Well,” she said and then staggered slightly. “Jean, darling, if I swoon, would you be kind enough to catch me?”
Jean immediately closed the distance, ready to grab her. "What was that?" she said. She couldn't quite understand all of it since there were a lot of layers and walls beyond Emma's journey, but she knew enough to sense that something significant had happened. Enough to yank her out of her mind like snapping a cord.
“That,” said Emma and gave a shaky laugh. “Was a somebody. A somebody who is killing people. I think we should go back, tell the others.” She shook her head. “If it is okay, I really would like to hold your hand,” she said softly. “That… took a lot more out of me than I was expecting.”
Jean arched a brow but nodded. "Uh...sure," she said. She tilted her head curiously. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Emma shrugged lightly and gripped Jean’s hand, leaning her weight on the younger woman’s shoulder as they started to walk back out of the wooded area. “I will be,” she said. “Champagne and fresh strawberries should restore me to my usual dazzling self. Once I’ve reported in, it might be time for indulging. Tell me, Jean, did you have any other plans for tonight than Netflix and wine? Because there could be champagne, strawberries and a personal after-hours introduction to Maison Van Cleef and Arpels and their fabulous diamond collection in your immediate future, if you would prefer.” Emma reached out lightly, let Jean feel the brush of Emma’s gratitude for letting her into Jean’s mind, for assisting her now.
Letting out a surprised laugh, Jean squinted. "Champagne, strawberries, AND staring at shiny rocks? Well...it was going to be more like...Hulu and ice cream but your idea sounds better, I guess," she said with a smirk. She was admittedly curious and she hadn't hung out with Emma well....ever so a girls night might have been fun.
"Oh duckies. So much fun. So much... mmm, sexual tension? I see it. I ship it. Ooh, I'm going to use that to hurt you so much but maybe in the end she rescues you. Like a play, where they almost escape then then... well... don't." The woman that suddenly materialized in front of them was attractive, darker, and entirely too in control of the situation. "And the connections you have. Oh my... what wonderful pain you have. What wonderful pain you connect to. This feels like art, doesn't it. Tell me it does."
Startled by the woman who had appeared in their path, Jean took a step back. "Wow. Okay. Do you have a maniacal laugh and kill puppies too?" she said.
Tightening her mental walls, Jean narrowed her eyes at the woman. "Who is 'she?'" she said.
“Someone very dangerous,” snapped Emma and lashed out with her psychic power, angry that she could feel the shaking in her limbs grow worse at the exertion. With one part of her mind she tried to hit the woman in front of her hard, with the other she reached out desperately, trying to find Doug, Kevin, anyone to let them know what was happening.
And then the cracks in the world broke open and it felt like the universe fell in.
"I am Roma." The woman said. It was like time stopped, and the telepathic connections from Emma were visible, racing out in icy blue, chased by fractaling fractured lines of mirrors. As each blue spark found a mind, even separated by miles, they were wrapped in the glassy cocoon. "I am your new God. And how lovely are the friends you have brought me? How delicious their pain... I am ready to enjoy the games that they are going to play in my honour."
