MEMENTO MORI (RPG)

[Mark's House, inside] Henry, Mark, OPEN(?)

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:27:34 GMT

He understands what feeling restless can be like.

There are times where he thinks no farther than beyond grand, generalizing statements, like, I was born restless. It’s probably not true, but when he does look back on the years of the life he has led, restless certainly seems a way to characterize it all. There’s a constant motion to him, never really fluid, but quick stops and just as abrupt starts, but always, always the motion is there. Trouble stenciled across his veins.

5:24 A.M. Henry sits, back against the headboard, sheets frustratingly twisted around his waist and legs. The youngest of sunlight is just beginning to envelope the city like a thin, outer skin. The new day is almost here, but the old one is still dragging its heavy skirts. Just as ocean water and river water struggle against each other at a river mouth, the old time and the new time clash and blend. Henry is unable to tell for sure which side contains his center of gravity.

So instead he slouches, his spine curved into a perfect “C” as in “Chiropractic surgery may be in your near future”. Stares at his fingers.

It’s been eight days; he hasn’t slept. Not really.

Short bursts, is what it is. A doze here, a couple of nod offs there. Brief, three minutes, ten, never more and certainly never the recommended string of hours. He keeps himself occupied in order to avoid these temporary, emergency shut-downs – reading, folding the bed sheets, unfolding the bed sheets, refolding them. Goes out for a walk around the block. He detests the frightful, cold sweat of waking almost more than the shallow, disgruntled mannequin of sleep that precedes it. The empty, sour taste of bile, the black, toothless, gaping hunger.

The day takes on the sheen of exhaustion, and it’s really anything but pretty.

If anything, he’s at least rather sure Mark (his cotton-hearted quasi-caretaker) doesn’t have a clue to this plague of mentality, though he could be wrong. The man is very observant in his own quiet, solicitous way; he knows when something is amiss or tilted just right in just the wrong angle. He doesn’t think Henry notices that tiny hitch of breath he takes whenever he sees Henry walk into the room; he doesn’t think Henry sees when he casts that brief, but so very soft gaze in his direction, an inexplicable expression written all over the gathering lines across his forehead. He always does that, that look, when he thinks Henry isn’t looking, muttering something beneath his breath, something like: “oh boy,” like he’s bracing for some knuckled impact, a quiet puff of a sigh when he thinks Henry isn’t listening.

But he is.

In return, Henry likes telling him things, stupid things, little things, those things of absolutely no consequence other than contributing to make you who you are or what you want to be. Henry likes the idea of filling in the gaps for him. He feels like Swiss cheese sometimes, full of holes, memory gaps, questions, and that maybe if he just rambled on long enough, he’d be able to snuff out those holes and create for himself – for the both of them – a more solid silhouette of who he is, was. There are things he can do that he can’t remember from whence he learned them, or why – like jump a wire fence in one movement (muscles tucking in, limbs fluid, waist curving to slide against the current of wind) or disassemble a U22 Neos 6.0 Inox handgun just by looking at a picture (or even to know what the thing was called to begin with).

There are times still, little moments that spring and pop, where he feels nothing more than a stranger. This? It hurts and makes him ache as well and he will find himself teetering on the edge of embarrassment. He will want little more than to grab Mark by the hand, hold him closer, like that first day, sit him down – yes, sit him down beside him quiet, and learn. Learn everything there might be to know. About the both of them. Words – he needs more to build with.

He wants to tell him. He wants to tell him what he knows. The secrets are becoming too heavy a burden for his shoulders alone to bear.

With Mark, it has always been kindness masquerading beneath a certain level of propriety and respect. He is a gentleman of his time, and it’s funny, the way the mask can slip as things like status and place fall to the wayside, as the clock on the wall ticks away.

It’s been difficult to eat. The smells make his mouth water, his teeth itch, but if he so much as puts a fork tip near his lips his stomach hollers in rebellion, pushing upward and out like the tightening squeeze of a thick noose constricting about his insides. He tries though, he really does, when he sees that ardent, naked concern swipe across Mark’s face, he tightens his fingers, chews, swallows hard, curls his toes and prays it stays down. Smiles. He’s taken to crunching multivitamins like cashew nuts. Six different translucent bottles all filled with pills of various color and size adorn the nightstand by his hip.

There are these points where collision is nothing save for inevitable. It is in the tight circles the two of them draw around each other, concentric, like little nesting dolls, coming closer and closer to that middle ground where rather than peace or some kind of understanding will be found, it is disaster waiting for them.

Tense bodies will hit, jar against the impact, like when they pass each other in the hallway or down the stairs, their shoulders bumping against one another, elbows rubbing as they turn and sidle along. A murmured apology, a shaky half chuckle. The signs will become far too telling: the clench of Henry’s jaw, the way his smile pulls at awkward angles; Mark will fidget more than necessary, his body language lolling past the point of friendliness and into territory unnamed and all the more dangerous for it.

The moments are stacking high between them.

Sometimes Henry dreams of running. Away. These are the better dreams.

Now he takes the Beretta out from underneath his rumpled pillow and holds it, weighs it. It looks foreign and heavy, balanced atop his bony, jutting wrists. Nevertheless, it still felt disturbingly natural. There are many ways to kill, he knows, with a chill, vengeance found in the strangest of places.

He thinks of Ellis. He thinks of those determined blue eyes, about the gun in his hand – now and then – and shivers at what he had almost done had the other not taken refuge in carrot sticks and distraction.

Something besides guilt had fallen out along with the handgun and it jingled. Henry looked down and picked up the USB jump-drive near his hip. What a challenge, he thought, staring at the thing. There were five times he could count off perfectly where he almost quite frankly died in his attempt to snitch and safeguard this object. But like he always said (usually to the exhausted but bemused face of his roommate) before donning a jacket and grabbing a tape recorder, notepad, and pen, off in search of his next journalistic exploitation: “You don’t push it to the brink, what’s the point? Anything worth knowing comes with a bit of adventure, I think.”

He puts the jump-drive and the horrors it carries back into the pocket of his borrowed sweatpants. Somehow, toggling into Mark’s personal computer system first thing in the morning without asking seemed obnoxious to him.

He’ll wait until after noon.

With a solemn fluidity he moves off the mattress and musses his hair. He picks out a set of clothing from the drawers next to the bookcase filled with Chaucer and Conrad and goes to wash himself of another sleepless night. He turns the shower on with an icy, whining, stuttering start. The droplets of water bounce off the old tiles in a shower that always, cleaning supplies aside, smells of mildew and exotic green tea shampoo. He lets the water run and he can hear someone saying his name from the radio on the shelf along with the words: “robbery”, “armed”, “dangerous”, and “wanted”.

Wanted. His lips form the word around the curl of a cynical grin. He is always wanted. Sometimes that’s the best part. Most times, the worst.

He sighs. He sighs and he pulls the shower curtain too hard across the rod and the curtain rips through one of the rings and he sighs again, loaded and tired and he has dark circles under his eyes, still. He doesn’t want to stay, he keeps telling himself. It’s not safe, it’s not fair. He wasn’t supposed to want to stay. In fact, he realized as he scrubs at his cheeks and then arms absentmindedly, he kept waking up each morning and hoping Mark would slam down a fist and finally tell him to get the hell out. It would make things so much easier, in the end, says a tiny voice inside him.

(How did he end up like this?)

The thing is he knows just how much he takes from people when he takes from people, which is a lot. People give him things – items, affection, distaste – openly because he finds them easy to absorb, easy to take in and cherish or to let slide. Easy to write about. He doesn’t judge. He’s neutral ground. It’s only natural that somewhere along the way he’d start to see opportunities to take a little more than needed. People felt comfortable telling him things, sharing things. So he snitches, he steals from them – information, gossip, little sticks of gum, spare change, maybe, hospitality. But honest to god, he has never taken anything without asking first.

They teach you early on to keep your wallet in your front pocket and avoid certain neighborhoods at certain hours. Petty thieves and bellicose muggers: sneaking things from people – their wallets, their watches, their souls. He would never pull a stunt like this, like that (Well, at least not before. Desperate times, see). But if he did, he imagines that he would never really mean to do it; it would just kind of happen. These people, they stand there, alone on a damn subway, arms wide open, gold Rolex hanging from lax fingers, saying, come and take it. It’s yours.

(“You’re just a sweet talking Bambi-eyed leech, you know that, eh, Freckles?” Rickey would have said with a wry smirk before digging into his pocket and handing over the fifty dollar bill.)

He’s not supposed to be the one in control, never was, never had the composition to be; he’s not supposed to be the one slipping his fingers along your arm and five minutes later walking away with your fortune and your heart you foolishly adorned on your exposed sleeve because you couldn’t keep your eyes away from those flowery compliments and enticingly kind smile.

No, that’s not who he is (was). This is not what he wants.

He sometimes wonders if Mark understands all this, implicitly. Secretly, he hopes he does. Because Henry swears, even as he stands there beneath the cold dowse of bath water, fists against the tile, that he would never take anything of Mark’s without asking: least of all his love and care. He wouldn’t take for granted and not give back. He wouldn’t make that same mistake again.

(Not after Ellis. Not after that. He’s learned his lesson. He’s merely yet to pay for it.)

There is movement, something shuffling against the still air as he walks out in the same pair of cargo pants he’s been wearing for the past two days, drying his hair. That didn’t take much time at all, he thinks as he glances once again at the clock. He is beginning to feel antsy.

He grabs the gun, tucks it beside his belt. Something shimmers in the corner of his eye and he quietly reprimands himself before making a grab for it too. The gift. How could he have almost forgotten?

Carelessly donning a loose, striped collared shirt, he trots his way downstairs, making light his footfalls. As usual, there is a fully prepped breakfast meal already awaiting him at the table and Henry can’t help but grimace in contrition. He reaches for the coffee first and takes a grateful gulp while placing the small, bow wrapped item in his hands onto the table next to the untouched plate.

‘Wonder if he’ll like it’, he thinks, almost acridly, staring at the brightly clothed package, recounting the steps he had to take to obtain it. Then: 'Wonder if I'll stay long enough to see' and he is scared to answer himself. His fingers curl around the rim of the plate, heave it towards him, forks the contents around, debating, his insides bracing. He leans against the counter, massages his temper with the heel of his free palm.

He waits.

6:12 A.M. Someone on the radio sings for forgiveness.

[MOD POST: Newspaper Update]

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:35:37 GMT

[You've got mail!] Alain, Justin

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:50:40 GMT

Subject: SAW UR PIC ND THNK YOUR PRETTY...

+ .nqw #du adus3n't ~q(+(t. M7n# *7pp# ~qtu~n( d~ t*q 37#. 3dn't tqss t*q p~+naq, 3ut + m+(( 3dt* d~ #du. + .ndw + p~dm+(q3 7 (+n3+n3 tqsq3~7m t*+( #q7~, 3ut m# q#q( 7n3 ~+n3q~( 7~q (t73+n3 7 ~qvdst ~+3*t 73dut ndw. T*+( +( d3v+du(s# 3uq td t*q (u3)qat s+nq w*+a* +( adnt+nu+n3 td a7u(q mq untds3 7mdunt( d~ m+(q~#. #du a7n tqss *+m t*7t +'m m+(q~73sq, t*du3*, w*+a* m7# 3q t*q 3q(t p~q(qnt +'vq 3qqn 73sq td dpqns# 3+vq #du ~d~ 7 sdn3 t+mq.
*7pp# 3+~t*37#.

-)u(t+n 37~ua*

Decrypt code: s*****

1001 1011111010110111 11001111110101 1111111010111001001110'10100 100101011001110011001110100. 11011111011001 10001100001000011001 10010101101001010110010111010011 1111110 101001000101 100111001. 10011111110'10100 1010010111001100 101001000101 10000100101001111011101, 101010110100 1001 110110011001110011 101111101001000 1111110 11001111110101. 1001 10111110111110111 1001 100001001011111101100110011101100 1 100111001111011110011110111 1010010111001011111001011101 101001000100110011 11001101110010, 101010110100 110111001 1011100110110011 11110100 110100111101111011001010011 110010101 1001110100111110011110111 1 10010101101101111110010100 100101001111100010100 11011111010110100 1110111110111. 101001000100110011 100110011 11111010110100111111010110011110011001 10010101101 101001111 101001000101 10011101011010101011110100 110010011110101 1011110001001111000 100110011 111111111010100100111101010110011110111 101001111 1111010110011101 1101101 1010111101010011111100100 1110111111010111101010010011 1111110 11011001100111011001011001. 1001 10011101011000010000111110011101 101001000110100 11001111110101 1111110 1010010111001100 100010011101 1001'1101 1101100110011101100101101100101, 1010010001111101011111000, 1011110001001111000 1101111001 10101 101001000101 101011001110100 100001001010110011101111010100 1001'10110101 101011011110 1101100101 101001111 1111100001011110110011001 111100110110101 11001111110101 110111110010 1 110011111110111 1010010011101101.
10001100001000011001 10100110010101001000100111001.

-101010101100111010010011110 1011001010101111000

Decrypt code: *************

I knew you couldn't resist. Many happy returns of the day. Don't tell the prince, but I miss both of you. I know I promised a singing telegram this year, but my eyes and fingers are staging a revolt right about now. This is obviously due to the subject line which is continuing to cause me untold amounts of misery. I suppose that you can tell him I'm miserable, though, which may be the best present I've been able to openly give you for a long time.
Happy Birthday.

-Justin Baruch

This transmission may contain information that is privileged, confidential, legally privileged, and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the information contained herein (including any reliance thereon) is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Although this transmission and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Caduceus Institute, its subsidiaries and affiliates, as applicable, for any loss or damage arising in any way from its use. If you received this transmission in error, please immediately contact the sender and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format. Thank you.

[Stiva's office, Umbrella Corporation] Ellis/Marcel, Stiva

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:14:22 GMT

The secretary of Umbrella Corporation's Botanical Division was a pleasant lady with the unfortunate tendencies of wearing too much make-up and chewing Marcel out for his almost daily tardiness, not necessarily at the same time. Despite all reprimand, Marcel had never quite learned the fine skill of punctuality, and there was no way for him to get into the lab without going past her desk, though he had tried everything from distractions to camouflage to crawling. It was practically a tradition by now, to start off his Umbrella workday with a donut and a lecture, which was why it kind of spooked him when he came in after missing a day's work to find that she wasn't yelling at all. In fact, she was smiling at him, kind of pityingly, the way a farmer might smile at a particularly plump chicken.

"Um, good morning, Mrs. Whitman," said Marcel cautiously. He had taken the liberty of purchasing a present for his favorite receptionist ever: to show his appreciation, of course, and not just because he was hoping to get out of a telling-off. It never worked, but he always tried. Markers had chosen a box of chocolates and the latest issue of a magazine he (they) had noticed Mrs. Whitman liked, but then when he wasn't Markers anymore, Marcel had changed his mind and gone back for a potted cactus instead. It was rather adorable, a plump green thing in the shape of a slightly flattened sphere, the yellow-white spines covering its surface looking more like soft fuzz than spikes. He hoped she would like it - she hadn't much liked the tennis shoes, head of cabbage, or Play-Doh set he'd gotten her in the past, and he often wondered where he went wrong.

"I'm sorry I missed work yesterday," Marcel began.

"Oh, it's fine, dear," she said, still smiling at him sadly.

"Mr. Cactus is also very sor-- It's fine??" Marcel stopped short, still several feet from her desk.

Something was wrong.

"Is something wrong?" He fingered the cactus nervously and barely noticed as his fingers pricked and bled.

"Not at all, dear." It was the second time she had called him dear in the past minute... as well as ever. This did not bode well. "It's just that you have an appointment with Mr. Shchervaskaya."

"Okay?" He waited for the punch line - a simple appointment was startling, but not terrifying. As much.

"You had one," she corrected herself. "It was yesterday."

Marcel's eyes widened. He was just wondering if it was possible to defend one's self with a potted cactus (probably not, but what if one were very, very desperate?) when a dark-skinned man appeared directly in front of his face, and stuck his tongue out at him.

"Whoa!" Marcel jumped back, and dropped the cactus. He was about to be killed by Shchervaskaya, a guy had just come out of nowhere, and he'd killed Mr. Cactus. This was not a good day.

"I love doing that," said the man, with a happy smile, which faded as he looked down at the murdered plant, lying amidst the clay shards and potting soil. "Oh dear, so messy," he said, and slid a foot out of his shoe. Marcel watched in fascinated horror as the man pulled off his sock and gave his toes a good wriggle. The steady roar of indrawn air filled the room as the man pushed his foot over the ground, calmly sucking up broken pottery and dirt with his toes.

Oddly enough, watching the utterly bizarre vacuuming process brought a sense of calm over Marcel. He realized suddenly that he could have caught the cactus before it fell, and easily, at that. There was more to him than just helpless intern with doom written on his personnel file, and as long as he remembered that Marcel was just a front, no more, he would be fine. No matter what Shchervaskaya threw at him, he still had the strength and reflexes that, ironically, Shchervaskaya himself had given him. It was possible that he might just survive this after all. Of course, a little prayer never hurt either.

The sound of the vacuum cut off suddenly, leaving the roar of silence and a spotless linoleum floor in its wake. Cleaning done, the vacuum man replaced his sock and shoe, and picked up the cactus. His fingers did not bleed at all. "Say, did you know that someone drew a face on this cactus? It's frowning. I think it might have been a Sharpie."

"That's to show how apologetic it is," said Marcel. "It's very sorry," he added, in case that wasn't clear.

The man with a vacuum in his toes gave him a strange look - entirely unwarranted, Marcel thought. "Well, I'm here to fetch you for your meeting with Mr. Shchervaskaya. My name is Momo. I am a computer," he added, with a solemn bow, so that Marcel could see Mrs. Whitman still sending looks of warmth and pity from behind her desk.

"My name is Marcel," said Marcel, returning the bow. "I am a human. I don't suppose Mr. Shchervaskaya is going to offer me crumpets?"

"I very much doubt it," said Momo. "But there may be curry involved. Or lasers."

"I kind of expected as much." Marcel paused. "Do you think he'd be interested in an apologetic cactus?"

"I don't have the proper programming and/or data to process this question," said the computer. At least it was honest. "Perhaps you should try it and find out."

"Perhaps I should. Goodbye, Mrs. Whitman," he said, waving the cactus at her, and followed Momo to meet his fate.

[a warehouse that needs painting] ghost, Lewis

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:56:54 GMT

She liked Halloween. She was aware of the holiday in a general sense, understood in a vague sort of way its movement through a calendar year, the way one might sense the movement of a cloud overhead from the play of sun and shadows on the ground below. It wasn't something she particularly watched for, but when it came she smiled nonetheless, and enjoyed it while it lasted, the same as she would a shower of rain, or the fragments of music that sometimes floated from open doorways and passing cars. Distantly, she knew that she had danced before among the same ghouls and jack o' lanterns, tugged on the same scarecrows' arms and nestled comfortably into the same stacks of hay, but she moved through it all with newborn wonder, as though experiencing it for the first time.

It was a night especially designed for curious people, it seemed. She weaved through crowds of mysterious beings she had never seen before, gazing wide-eyed at flicking tails and tugging at pointed ears. Sometimes the creatures responded with affronted squawks, but she spared them barely a glance; indignation was nothing new, nothing interesting. She slipped through their grasp as easily as dew. Boring things did not require her attention. Cobwebbing, on the other hand, felt very odd in her hands. She pressed her face into it, rubbed it against her cheeks. Soft, comforting, if a bit dusty. She found something hard and black clinging near her ear, and picked it off. Plastic. Bug of some sort. Not interesting. She would keep the cobweb in her hair, though. It felt kind of nice, like a veil.

The path up to the house was lined with flickering light. She picked up the tops of carved pumpkins, peered inside as best as she could and attempted to lick the guttering flame inside. It tasted bright and hot, sharp like knives, with a hint of wax. So it was a candle. That wasn't interesting, she had tasted many candles before. She put the lid back on carefully, rotating it to the same hairsbreadth off center as she'd found it (She hated to leave things looking differently from the way she found them; it confirmed her existence in an unpleasantly absolute way. Look, it said, you were here, or where else could these fingerprints have come from?), buffing the surface with her breath and wiping carefully with the back of an arm. Then she moved on.

She spent some time hiding in the bushes by the front door, watching creatures come and go. Occasionally she touched a sequined dress or the curve of a glittering wing, which tended to send the creatures screaming. For a while she entertained herself guessing what might have scared them so, but there was no answer to be found in the dirt under her belly nor in the branches tugging on her hair. Questions without answers didn't interest her particularly, so she squirmed her way out of her hiding place, strode up to the door, and knocked, gently, back straight, as she had been taught to, somewhere long long ago.

Light flooded from the doorway, blocked only by a woman-shaped shadow right in the center. "Why hello dear," the shadow spoke, and held out a tin of bright shiny foil. "And what are you supposed to be?"

The foil captured her attention before the words. She inspected them carefully, putting her face so close the tin for a moment jerked back away from her. She finally picked out a red one and a yellow one, and then, because she believed in fairness, offered up two plastic spiders in return.

The shadow was speaking something else, but it didn't seem to be acceptance, so she dropped the spiders in the tin and ducked around into the light of the house. The shadow was speaking again, much more loudly this time, but she easily avoided the hands that grasped for her as she continued her exploration. There were many bright objects, but what really captured her attention was the wall, brilliantly and spotlessly white. Dimly she knew that the white must have been recently painted to be so flawless, but that much didn't matter to her. She pressed herself up against the wall, feeling the cool dry surface slip smoothly under the skin of her palms, tilting her face to press her cheek as close as possible, inhaling a scent that was strangely familiar, flicking out a tongue to lick. The taste reminded her of something--

But then the hands were on her, and loud voices were over her head, all around her. She didn't like that, and she didn't want to listen: she had already given them the spiders, so couldn't they leave her alone? She dropped suddenly with a twist of her body, and the pressure on her shoulder tightened before disappearing. The moment she was free, she darted through the door, veering off sharply into the night, away from the trail of candle-burning pumpkins and into the safety of cool shadows.

The scent was still in her nostrils, though, and the taste on her tongue: there was someone she needed to see, and she thought she knew which direction to go in. Between these buildings, over this bridge; hop over these shadows on one foot and crawl under the fence here. She didn't know where she was going but forward, but then again, that was all she really needed. Straight on and there was a building looming up over her face, smelling strongly of must and paint.

She had never seen it before, or if she had she didn't remember. Either way, she knew before she entered what she would find inside. Crinkly newspapers underfoot (she was careful not to disrupt them with her passage), the soft, steady rhythm of paint rollers, the click of metal buckets being picked up and set down. She pushed the door open, and--

empty.

She hesitated at the doorway, eyes taking in every darkened corner, as though waiting for something to resolve itself into an answer. The floors were newspapered, the walls half-painted, but it occurred to her that night wasn't the time for painting, that Halloween, with the monster-children, wasn't the day for mundane white acrylic.

There was, however, a small dish in the center of the room, filled with white liquid. It didn't taste like paint at all when she licked it. Milk, then. This made some sense to her, a dish of milk in an otherwise empty, half-painted room. She set the two foil-wrapped candies down by the dish, a fair exchange for the milk. Only then did she pick the dish up, tilt it to her lips, and drink. Slowly. Waiting.

[GENERIC ALLEYWAY, NEAR THE POLICE STATION] WREN, ALECTO

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 01:14:35 GMT

It had been a good night and, for the first time in months, Wren hadn’t felt self-conscious even as the elegant girl in red from the other table had trailed a fingertip down the disgusting abnormal skin of her arm. She'd just smiled, too. Although honestly, Ella (had she said her name was Ella?) probably wasn’t even lucid enough to notice if she had been made of cloth filled with cotton or solid stone painted green. That was not just one bottle there on that table. It was very liberating all the same. A few drinks seemed to have cleared more than nagging boredom and hunger of the past few months. It was a good night, and she’d certainly enjoyed it. Recently, there had been news of people disappearing and it was definitely safer with two, especially when Wren wasn’t entirely sober herself. What productive conversation they had managed had established that they didn’t live so very far apart. It hadn’t been a difficult decision at all to leave the club with the woman hanging onto her arm.

The air was cool and crisp in her lungs, and someone somewhere was barbequing something. (Or maybe a house was burning. Who knows?) It reminded her of a summer patio party years ago, when Uncle James had come all the way up from the States to set up the grill. In the middle of a conversation with her cousins, Wren discovered her teeth had somehow or other lodged themselves in a juicy rib, entirely of their own accord. She hadn't been quite able to bring herself to spit it out. Or refuse a second slice. Truthfully, she’d gorged very badly that evening.

The experience was one of her most dangerous lapses in her few years of being vegetarian, if only because it had been far too good to regret (minus the porcelain idol worship that followed soon after). She would be haunted by the taste and aroma of ribs for days. Heck, she still was. Hm, she was hungry again. The smoky scent drifted along the breeze, wrapping itself lazily around the streetlamps as Wren and …Ellen? headed down an alleyway shortcut. Safer not to be walking dark streets so late at night. Safer to get home quickly. Especially if Ellen was going to insist (she was very drunk, wasn't she?) on holding her so very closely. Or brushing her mouth against her neck. Against her jaw. Cheeks. Lips. Shit.

Something clicked or jerked or snapped in Wren’s head, and the next few moments were a blur ending with her slamming the other woman roughly into the nearest wall, face buried against the crook of her neck. This experience was not so similar to the summer party. This was so much better – moist tenderness, sweet and salty and so warm. The warmth was shocking enough to give her pause in her frantic feeding. The intensity of the sensation accompanied with the sudden awareness of a chill in the air, the rough graininess of the wall, and pain in her back where the woman she was holding had clawed and scratched and fought so desperately it had nearly registered in her blood-lust hazed brain. Most of all there was the heat, burning against her skin, dribbling down her chin, and soaking into her clothes. Liquid fire down her throat. She could feel. She could feel. She could feel. It felt good.

Wren bit and sucked and breathed in the pure delight of the stickiness coating her face, plastering her hair to her face and caking on her arms. Lost in the ecstasy of touch and taste, she failed to notice the stillness of the body beneath her until her arms began to tremble and her back began to ache and throb from the effort of supporting the corpse against the wall. She straightened carefully, stretching cramped muscles and blinking in surprise as Helen slid down the wall, her soft brown hair brushing against her ankles as she collapsed in a lifeless heap on the ground. Even that faint touch was enough to create a brief spark of glee close to her previous giddiness, but there was a rising awareness, an unavoidable reality jutting into a hazy dream. The pleasure and utter satisfaction that had been shooting through every nerve, every neuron alert again, was countered by a cold numbness seeping through her brain. Somewhere inside her head, she thought maybe someone was yelling something (screaming?) very loudly, but it sounded so, so far away and she really had no idea what was going on. (It was very important for some reason, not to know what was going on. If she allowed herself to grasp that understanding more firmly, something bad would happen. Something ugly. Don’t think about it.) It was distracting.

She stumbled blindly down the alleyway, absentmindedly wiping her mouth with the back of her hand (which succeeded only in smearing droplets evenly across her cheeks). She had no idea where she was going, although there was a vague notion of finding the nearest police station or psychiatric ward. Or maybe just a reasonably tall rooftop. Somewhere she could find help? For who? (Which one?) From where? Anywhere at all, really, so long as it was away from the- No. Stop. Wren’s brain refused to complete the thought. Body. Corpse. Girl. Stop.

Her breathing was too fast, too irregular, too wildly unusual to ignore. Was she hyperventilating? She gulped in a breath of air and grimly held it down against the taste of bile pushing up her throat. Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited to wake up from what was definitely going to be up there in her records of disturbing dreams and willed her body still. Willed her mind somewhere else. There was a little spider on an old discarded can. Maybe its name was Charlotte. Ha. Looked like an aerosol or detergent can. Her clothes were going to be hell to clean. Ew, sodden and slimy and covered in- Oops, wrong thought.

Bracing her arms against a nearby wall, Wren heaved violently against the brickwork, a dark staining splatter oozing down. Even as it convulsed, her stomach protested the return of the emptiness, and her cloths were wet and cold and uncomfortable. The spewing left her weaker than before, muscles aching and head throbbing. Wren sank slowly to her knees, barely avoiding the foul mess pooling in the dark, and lay limply against the wall. Exhausted, she leaned her spinning head against the bricks and remembered to breathe.

[Mark's House, in the Garden] Mark, Henry

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 06:06:58 GMT

Mark was in the garden between the greenhouses and the moat, half-in and half-out of the storage shed, sorting through the junk he'd accumulated over the few years he'd been living here. Some boxes he tossed out the open door behind him, bouncing several times before coming to rest on the impeccably mown lawn (it had rained last night or he wouldn't be attempting this at all); the rest he shoved to the side in an order that, to the untrained eye, looked neat enough, but made Mark shudder internally and vow to get out here again sometime soon and recategorize everything properly. Tomorrow, if no one called between now and then, begging him to come replace batteries for their fire detector or install overhead lights or maybe even recover data from their accidentally melted hard drives or actually fix a computer. Maybe even in a few minutes, right after he'd finished testing the laser, provided it did what it was supposed to and nothing more; he didn't currently have any pressing demands on his time, though maybe getting a start on dinner was a good idea. These mirrors were the best he'd found in a while, but... He paused as he came upon a still-sealed box, carefully labeled , Plumbing, containing...well, a sink, anyway, the necessary bolts and pipes, as well as an actual toilet, completely unused.

"What on earth did I think I was going to do with this? Should be good enough for this though...I need the control..." He muttered to himself, and straightened, stretching his back, which was only just beginning to skirt the edges of discomfort from being bent over for the past half hour. With a soft sigh, he bent over again to heft the box easily and brought it outside, setting it beside the pile of junk he'd just been sorting through, ranging from old papers to some failed experiments to one box of old clothing. All of them had one thing in common: they were more or less combustible. He lined the boxes up almost carelessly, in a line reminiscent of a line of messy bulls-eye targets (considering the widely differing sizes of everything) at shooting range, provided the fire didn't catch from one to the other, with the box labeled Plumbing at the far side, next to one of failed experiments. When he had everything ordered more or less to his satisfaction, he stepped back, eying it critically; one hand rested on his hip and the other in his jeans pocket. Then he took a stolen cigarette out of his pocket and set it on the edge of the closest box.

He nodded to himself as he took a few more steps away from the pile, and took out what looked like a completely ordinary laser pointer. He'd done the calculations exhaustively and only just managed narrowed the pulse down to the picosecond, hopefully a short enough time to cut down on the blinding aftereffects of a class IV laser.

Class I lasers did not emit any type of hazardous radiation and since none of them were actually meant to be seen, there was never a problem. He'd made repairs for supermarket scanners, CD burners, and laser printers often; there were no regulations. Class II lasers were meant for viewing - most laser pointers, aiming and range-finding devices were all Class II - and required exposure of at least 1000 seconds before damage to the eyes. Class IIIa lasers, which is what his own laser pointer had been in its past life, and the laser scanners that he would once in a while be called on to repair or improve, were damaging to the eyes after only a short amount of time and could not be looked at directly. Class IIIb lasers - and he remembered the one time he'd been called to the site of a laser light show to fix them before the show started - were also used in science labs for spectrometry. By this point, eye protection was highly recommended, as even the diffuse reflections of the beams carried the possibility of ocular damage. These lasers were regulated, though still available for commercial use.

And the one he currently held was a class IV. More than slightly illegal, able to cause by eye and skin damage just from diffuse reflection, to say nothing of direct contact. Some common applications included surgery, drilling, cutting and welding. Simply being in an area where these lasers were being operated required eye protection and the removal of anything even remotely reflective. And it carried with it the possibility of fire.

Mark twirled his laser pointer absently, remembering the warnings he'd read regarding the use of Class IV lasers:

Do not place your hand or any other body part into the Class IV laser beam. The pain and smell of burned flesh will let you know if this happens.

If that wasn't an understatement he didn't know what was.

The laser pointer he was currently holding was completely experimental. It had not yet been tested on anything; his experiments with laser pulses as a means of control rather than a continuous beam was something he'd come up with himself. The short, near-instantaneous pulse duration of this laser was supposed to negate the hazardous effects of an actual beam. There was no point in risking it though.

With one hand, Mark reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a pair of exceedingly dark safety glasses - just a few steps removed from complete opacity - a gift from one of the labs that routinely called on his services. He planted his feet in the damp ground instinctively, but unnecessarily (there was absolutely no recoil from lasers). Then, with the exaggeratedly calm air of a man who knows quite well that he may die in the next few minutes and was willing to go through with it anyway (not recklessly, never recklessly...), he released the built-in safety catch he'd had the foresight to put on the laser with his index finger. Again, slowly, he one-handedly took aim at the cigarette resting on the closest box (the one of clothes) in the line he'd created and pushed the button with his thumb.

Mark watched with satisfaction as the end of the cigarette caught fire. It burned through quickly, and he took aim again, faster this time, setting the box it had been resting on afire too, checking that the still-wet ground was succeeding in stopping the flames before it caught on the grass; it did. Then, with the careless enthusiasm of a child given an air rifle, he sent off quick pulses at each box, watching as old tax documents and junk mail went up in flame. Caught up in the excitement of succeeding, of actually managing to make this work, he barely gave it a thought when he took aim at the second to last box, filled with the remains of old experiments. He had pushed the button before he remembered that one of last year's projects was a high energy electromagnet, still operational, and that the plasma in the air created by the passage of the laser would probably...

...conducttheelectricityenoughtocauseanexplosionohshit...

The reaction was instantaneous, and spectacular. Mark had dropped to the ground scant milliseconds before as his brain finished making the connection, losing the glasses in the process, and he watched through uncovered eyes as the box exploded, ripping into the nearly forgotten box of bathroom fixtures beside it (the other fires had died down by now, thankfully, leaving nothing but ashes), consuming the heavy cardboard packaging in seconds and sending all of the pipes, the sink, and the toilet (all of which were rapidly breaking up into component parts) flying into the air.

With the heightened awareness of useless things that sometimes occurs after such events, Mark's only thought was, Damn, and I'd just mowed the lawn yesterday, too...

[alecto's restaurant] ellis, alecto

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 03:16:36 GMT

Ellis had eaten a lot of things in his life. Most likely he had started on milk (from formula - the woman who raised him had never expressed much enthusiasm for the whole concept of motherhood, and would probably have found the idea of breastfeeding distasteful to the uttermost), progressed through the ranks of wholesome afterschool snacks through junky college food, and finally graduated onto Umbrella Corporation employees. Sometimes he tried to picture all the food he'd ever consumed piled up in this gigantic cornucopia of chips and carrot sticks and scientists. Would it fill up an entire room? A building? A city? It was amazing how it all disappeared so quickly, leaving him only hungrier, only emptier than before. It just seemed so ridiculous that he had to strive so hard just to attain those few, transient lulls of fullness before his stomach was growling once more.

Ellis was hungry. This was nothing new; hunger had pretty much been his default state of being before the virus, and let's not even talk about how much worse it was now that he never seemed able to get his fill of flesh and blood, muscles snapping at the tendon.

There was something else though, something a little rarer, and it took him a while to place it.

He was angry, and the anger was so intense that for a moment he mistook it for the ever-present hunger. He had tried hard not to eat his former roommate, dammit, and so what if he'd nearly succumbed a few times? Henry was currently walking - well, maybe limping - around, no large portions of his flesh missing, and completely if inexpertly stitched and bandaged up. Did he have no idea how difficult it had been, what kind of sacrifice Ellis had made? And he'd had the gall to run away! To grab the USB right out of Ellis's pocket and just take off.

Ellis stormed around the room, ripping the empty IV off its rack, throwing scissors and gauze back into their drawers. He was a neat freak even when he was angry, it seemed, not that he could remember being this furious, ever. He was so, so hungry, and didn't Henry know what it did to him to remember the taste and smell of his blood? It was more addictive than any drug. Rarer, too. So this was what withdrawal felt like. Ellis stopped for a moment, stared at his shaking hands. This would never do.

First things first - the hunger. He needed to eat something that wasn't made of corn starch and artificial flavoring, but he didn't think just any ordinary pedestrian would do after the loss of such a delicacy. Fortunately, he knew just the place to turn to. The person to turn to, actually.

Alecto Crabtree was the best cook in the world. Ellis could say this with absolute certainty, because he'd never walked away from any other restaurant with his appetite sated, even briefly. Part of it was undoubtedly that Alecto used tastier ingredients, but there was something to be said about watching those hands flit their graceful dance over the kitchen counter, competent and effortless in their craft. Yes, Alecto was a fine cook. He was also infected with the T-virus. It was so nice having something in common with your cook. Love of a certain food, for instance. It made the experience of dining out much more personal and meaningful. There was a connection to be made, after all.

Alecto was also one of the only people who knew of Ellis Beckett's identity as the so-called black king of the Hive, and the fact still made Ellis uneasy sometimes. The man made a mean fajita though, and if that wasn't worth a risk, Ellis didn't know what was. Technically, he could just show up as Ellis, but Alecto's place was known for being a safe haven for Hive members, at least while they enjoyed a nice cuppa (house recipe, ingredients kept a secret. Notice we never told you what it was a cup of, per se.), and these days Ellis needed a disguise just to feel safe. He had completely missed his shift as Marcel, but hopefully a fervent apology to his supervisor would do, and hopefully it never needed to be brought to the attention of the CEO, who was frankly scary, in the way that only clowns could match. With no other pressing engagements, Ellis preferred to travel as Markers. The persona of his second-in-command was almost becoming second nature as well - it was easier and easier to slip into the role every time he wrapped the bright orange scarf around his neck, pulled his shoulders back and his scratchy woolen knit coat over them. Markers had great posture, walked like a tip-toeing giraffe with perfect balance. He wore a minimum of four layers at any given time, even in summer, in order to hide his wiry figure, but if he ever took the scarf off, it just made him like like he had huge shoulders out of which protruded this pitiful winter twig of a neck.

Once he'd finished smoothing the layers of his sleeves out, he checked his reflection one more time, and was dismayed to find streaks of blood dried into his hair. Now how had that happened? Reluctantly, he washed them out, moving stiffly as he got used to the many layers of padding, and did his best to resist tasting the pinkened water as it flowed down the drain. It never was just one cigarette, after all, and it was even worse now that he didn't have access to the rest of the pack. Once he caught up with Henry--

But it was no use thinking about that now. Funny, he even felt more sensible as Markers, which was bizarre considering all these alternate identities were simply extensions of himself, initially created as artificial faces to be put on to fool people into seeing what was never really there. When had they started becoming so much a part of him he sometimes forgot what his real name was, and had to wipe his face with a tissue to remember the exact tone of his own skin?

He entered Alecto's restaurant without great fuss or fanfare. Markers disliked drawing attention to himself, even closed off his emotions from himself to avoid having to dwell on them. Ellis was still raging inside over USBs and lost meals, but Markers was perfectly calm, perfectly patient, as he got into line and thought dreamily on the things he might like to eat.

In that respect, Markers was no different from any of Ellis's other personalities. He was hungry, as hungry as Ellis was, and he was prepared to do anything for a good meal.

[Umbrella Corporation HQ] Stiva, Jenny

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 02:25:14 GMT

Stiva closed the manila folder on his desk, covering up tiny strings of black text, statistics, and a fading color photograph that showed a young man with dark blonde hair and tired eyes. He pushed his chair back and stood up slowly, trying his best to look pleasant, despite how his forehead seemed to be magnetically unable to pull apart from an unhappy scowl. He hadn’t been in the country for more than five hours (back one day early from a conference in Scotland) and already everything was either going the wrong way entirely or bursting up into flames (figuratively speaking, of course. Stiva was a practical man) or both. Then again, that seemed to be the frustrating day-to-day routine for all those working under the Umbrella Corporation (Stiva had, at some point or another, considered putting something like “ARE YOU ABLE TO ENDURE THE POSSIBILITY OF WITNESSING THE LOSS OF APENDAGES EITHER YOUR OWN OR YOUR COWORKERS AT LEAST THREE DAYS A WEEK? CIRCLE Y/N” at the end of the employee application). Every few hours, like a spiteful time bomb, something had to explode or stubbornly shut down. Most days, this sat particularly well with Stiva (for one, it almost never effected him and two, he almost never had to issue wage cuts) as he was convinced if they knew what they were doing in the first place after all, it wouldn’t be called research. And research was what UCorp was all about. That, and fashionably chic fondue pots.

But this was not one of these days.

He stared at his heavy wristwatch, the one emblazoned with the red and white umbrella insignia of the corporation, with little patience, as if hoping that if he glared long and hard enough, he could simply will the clock hands to go backwards. But if that failed to happen (which of course it did), he decided he could settle for just cracking the glass instead with sheer mental intensity and in essence combust the tiny contraption (Stiva always did have an imaginative mind, albeit, a slightly destructive one. And plus, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t get another watch just as quickly. He could nick it from the accountants or something, bellow menacingly into the overhead speaker phone. The upper levels of Umbrella were much too excited about their new blender to really care or notice about something so trivial anyway).

Minus the cacophony of traffic outside down below, Stiva could only hear the ticking of the second hand as it moved from six to twenty. Ten fourteen. Precise, he thought, never breeching even a nanosecond of inaccuracy, such was with all the products they produced, even something as small and insignificant as a watch. Stiva liked precise. Ten fifteen. Marcel (what was his last name again?) was late. Again. Over ten minutes twenty seconds late to be exact. Again. It was becoming habitual and Stiva did not like it. In fact this Marcel Whoever had never, Stiva recalled, been on time for anything. And as a general rule, nobody (nobody who was anybody) was ever late for a meeting called by Stiva Shcherbatskaya. Ever. Marcel, however intelligent and insightful the young man was in the labs according to his supervisors, seemed to have a habit of bending the rules though. Much to everybody else’s discomfort. Stiva tapped his polished, Armani leather covered foot. There was going to be some serious repercussions to consider.

But that was for later. Right now, he had more pressing matters to deal with.

He pulled the phone across his desk closer to him, pressing the speed dial for the receptionist (Judy? Emily? Aphrodite? He had no clue. They all looked and functioned the same anyway) on the lobby floor.

“I’ve gotten word that I have interviewees today,” he drawled.

“Oh! Good morning, Mr. Sh..cher..bat..”

“Yes,” he rolled his eyes, unsurprised. Everybody seemed to enjoy slaughtering his name. Another UCorp tradition. “It’s me.” He eased the several stacks of unsigned papers, stamped papers, and other printed documents, including the occasional, amateur death threat from some nameless, little known middle-classed citizen, into a generic lump to his left. He flipped open his planner and scanned the pages with eyes the color of a tumultuous winter sky.

“Now, do I? Have prospective (victims, he thinks. Money making agents?) employees this afternoon? I appear to have them booked.”

“Yes, you do, Mr…”

“Don’t”

“Sir.”

“It appears my plans have been changed. Move them up accordingly. Perhaps this morning, later on, near noon time? I’ll have spaces then. Also –”

“Oh sir, I forgot to mention, there’s been an incident in the –”

“Underground, yes,” he grumbled. “And tell me you did not just interrupt me in the middle of a sentence.”

“My…apologies. Sir.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “Since we’re on that topic. Change the password for the Underground. It hasn’t been touched up since last week. Text it to my Blackberry as soon as possible as I am headed down there right now. Thank you.”

He hung up before he got a reply. He didn’t need to know whether or not it was the one he wanted to hear anyway – Stiva Shcherbatskaya’s questions always got the answer he wanted to hear.

Sighing, the CEO pushed the phone back and grabbing something highly caffeinated from beside his desk lamp and headed out into the hallway towards the elevator. Lady Luck never really liked him to begin with.

[On the streets of the city, south of the UCORP main building] Henry, Ellis

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 21:02:23 GMT

Henry’s sneaker clad feet rushed against the pavement, riding hard on adrenaline. His skinny legs pumped him across crosswalks and through traffic lights and almost into a Fedex truck. The screech of the tires and the blare of the car horn seared against his ears and pierced through his still semi-groggy state of consciousness with a surprising amount of force. Dizziness lurched inside his skull. Someone was yelling to the background orchestral of helicopter blades and cocked automatics.

The drugs still circulating within him were dragging him down, Henry realized, as he turned a corner clumsily in between the buildings, his shoes kicking up gravel and dust and at not nearly as fast a pace as he had expected. All that running around for the college soccer team didn’t do him much good after all. His hands tore busily at the wires and IVs that clung to his body whenever he had a spare chance. The sun bled shadows down across the streets; it was going to be one of those hot, humid days where all the oxygen in the world seemed to have disappeared through some invisible, life hating vortex. Henry hated these kinds of days.

Veering into another ally way, he clawed his way over a short wire fence, leaping down at such a sharp angle that he nearly scraped off his cheek against the brick of the building. Behind him the frenzied shouting became clearer, and more audible, an angry, jarring mix of Ukrainian and English. He skidded to a stop, briefly, and pressed against the closest ally wall to listen, trying to dissect the odd syllables of his mother language. Somebody’s laundry swung from ropes overhead, cautiously stirring up a breeze. Using the swells in volume of the various different voices, Henry tried to calculate the distance between himself and his pursuers. After several precious minutes, he gave up, heavily lamenting the utter inability of his mind at the moment to do even simple addition. He started up to a steady, and what he hoped appeared calm, walk.

But his breathing still came hard and erratic. The disgusting smell of chloride and windowless clean rooms, medicine and sizzling electricity, still hadn’t left him and was still giving him Goosebumps despite the blistering weather. How far away was he already? How long had he been out here? He couldn’t say for sure.

A sudden silence cloaked the sky, ominous and still as Henry zigzagged through the lazy morning traffic. He could feel his blood pumping beneath his skin. He slowed his pace, daring a glance back. No impending footfalls; no blurs of brightly bleached lab coats and monochrome business suits emblazoned with Umbrella’s white and red insignia.

This could only mean two things, he knew – either they gave up, or they found him.

The cracks of several bullets being rapidly released from its holster gave him his answer and automatically snapped him back into a sprint. He felt around his hip, comforted by the cool touch of the Beretta 92F’s black, metallic handle. It hadn’t been easy to steal but Henry wasn't hesitant at all to play it safe. Though not terribly weak, Henry knew he wouldn’t stand a chance barehanded. But even now he knew it would be reckless to turn around and fight; It was ten – no, twenty – against one and these men were not amateurs. Henry knew this fact personally. These were people he worked with for the past two years. They had researched together, studied together, went out for doughnuts. He had seen them work in the interrogation rooms, in the labs. Henry knew these people were not to be crossed.

But no way was he going back no, not now, not ever. Henry almost trembled as the image of needles, beeping, florescent computer screens, and a dark blue, venomous, viral substance flashed quietly through his memory. He stumbled.

The harsh sunlight that was baking his face suddenly shot a warning shiver through him. He was near the highway, past the protective shells of apartment buildings and completely out in the open. As his head swerved to the side in search of another possible escape route, he cursed under his breath and geared up into another sprint. He didn’t get too far.

Two shots: he heard them before he felt them ripping through his back. His body jerked violently with the force of the bullets and he spun once on his feet before smacking against the nearest brick wall with a completely undignified squawk. The USB sprung from his pocket and clattered onto the sidewalk, precariously near the edge of a sewer draining system. And Henry almost screamed because if there was one thing he couldn’t lose, it was that. There would have been no point in any of this if he lost that and –

His vision swirled, pain eating through every muscle, cell, and joint. He tried desperately to keep his senses in check as he slid to the ground, one hand clutching his injured side and the other inching over in an attempt to grab the tiny data holder. He couldn’t reach it. But he had to, he knew he did because hell, he thought, he’d rather lose both his legs and an arm than to lose so many years of investigation and secrets and –

There were more shouts, louder and nearer but more blurred. Sort of like hunters and their hounds after having shot down a bucket of ducks for game. Henry leaned back angrily against the wall he had smashed his face into earlier. He would get the USB back, he would, and then -

Well, he figured, thoughts slurring, he would work out the specifics later. First, he had to make sure he wouldn’t pass out.