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Thread: Ashes

  1. #1

    Closed Roleplay [X-Men] Ashes

    "Blue flames consumed a warehouse in a five alarm blaze in Los Santos tonight, and authorities suspect mutant involvement..." The eleven o'clock news was on quietly in the living room, but Anna reached for the remote and turned it up. Jen looked up from the book she was reading and frowned.

    "Blue fire. Hey isn't Aidan -"

    "Be quiet," Anna snapped, and the teen closed her mouth with a click. Anna looked over and shook her head. "I'm sorry."

    "S'okay," Jen closed the book and sat up while the talking head on the news droned on, the images switching to a warehouse that was still smoldering, the only flames left a ruddy orange.

    Oh Dios, por favor dime que Aidan no estaba involucrado. Anna pressed her hands to her lips, unable to look away from the screen.

    ice, ice, baby

  2. #2
    TheHolo.Net Poster
    Has been a member for 5 years or longer Alex Kaine's Avatar
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    "Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system--"

    Alex slammed the cordless phone back into its cradle and just as quickly picked it back up again to dial in the next number. Then he listened through another agonizingly slow four rings.

    "Your call has been forwarded--"

    Slam. Dial. Ring.

    "Your call--"

    SLAM.

    He'd been punching the same four numbers in sequence every half hour since they cleared away dinner and realized Jake had disappeared without a word. It was past midnight now, and he'd given up leaving voicemails after the second round. Alex wouldn't put it past Aimee to just forget to leave her phone on, but Jim was meticulous about these things. Even carried a spare battery for his cell phone, and kept it charged.

    Not a word. And all the police dispatch lines were jammed with some fire over in West Carson.

    Alex backed away from the phone, took a few deep breaths, and hoped against all reason that he was worried over nothing. He buried his hands in his pockets to keep them from fidgeting and trudged down the hallway from the kitchen to the family room.

    "Nothing yet," he said. "You think maybe--"

    The news station was now displaying dramatic aerial footage of a gigantic brick building engulfed in towering blue flames. Alex stepped up to the sofa and gripped the backboard until his knuckles turned white. "Holy shit. Is that... What's going on?"

    It was a rare occasion that Anna didn't rebuke him for that kind of language. A closer shot showed a half-dozen or so ragged-looking men fleeing the inferno into the waiting arms of police and paramedics. It took Alex a moment to dial in to what the newscasters were saying.

    "...police say some of these survivors are members of a street gang who were using the building as a meeting place. If, indeed, mutants were involved, are we looking at an act of mutant gang violence?"

    Alex didn't even hear what the field correspondent had to say. "Holy shit," he muttered again.

  3. #3
    Anna tore her eyes away from the television and hurried wiped at the emotion welling up in her eyes. "Did you get ahold of..." Her voice trailed off, Alex's face telling her what she needed to know.

    She closed her eyes for a moment, praying, and then opened them. "Jen, can you go upstairs and make sure Jamie is still in bed?" The girl nodded and got up without complaint, her usual smirk replaced by a look of concern.

    Anna dropped her face into her hands, her mind racing. Jake, Aidan, Aimee, and Jim - all missing since dinner. Hours without communication. Gang activity linked to blue fires... all coincidence? She pressed herself up from couch, unable to stay sitting any longer. The baby moved around, kicking fiercely inside, and she put her hand on her belly to push back gently. Quiet, Eva.

    Her daughter kicked again, and Anna half-smiled. Then she looked at Alex. "I don't know what to think." She looked somehow small and vulnerable standing there, and a stark contrast to how he was used to seeing her.

  4. #4
    Aimee huddled in the backseat of the police car, her arms wrapped around herself. The two police officers in the front were talking quietly to each other. Part of the Mutant Task Force or something. She hadn't really been paying attention.

    Jim was sitting next to her, his knee going up and down like a sewing machine on crack. She put out a hand and placed it on his leg, which made him jump with surprise. "You're driving me crazy," she said, softening her words with a tired grin.

    The driver looked at her in the rear view mirror. "So, have you thought of anything more to add to your statement yet?"

    "We just want to go home," Aimee said sourly. "Kidnapped by fucking gang members, got away when everything started filling with smoke. I'm pretty sure I'd remember if anything else even more exciting happened." She leaned forward and pressed her hands on the plexiglass separating the front and back seats. "I think they were going to sell us to some scientists."

    is purple your favorite color?

  5. #5
    It was the second time Jim had been in a squad car. His virgin trip was an experienced shared with Polly and José, and that felt worlds away. In summary, the circumstances which led to his police ride home differed little from his present situation: a life-threatening run-in with Los Santos gangbangers from which he was saved, then questioned, and then pardoned. This time, however, Jim was not bouncing giddily in his seat like some sugar-loaded ten year old; he was not asking questions, he was not spewing facts, he did not care about the technology, or the extra leg room, and, as for the police officers, they were window dressing. Aimee was keeping them admirably occupied with lines of practiced waffle. They were innocent of everything except lying, and it took Jim but a heartbeat of contemplation to realise it was a crime with which he was perfectly content.

    There were, on the other hand, a great many peripheral issues on the matter of which he was far, far from content. Their time in police custody, for example, had been extensive and debilitating enough to be considered a breach of basic human rights. Hour upon hour, he'd sat hugging himself like an enfeebled old woman in the back of an ambulance, visited by strangers with the same questions. When he and Aimee were allowed to sit together, often he found himself being nudged awake by his purple counterpart, who, upon such occassions, was doubling up as a human pillow. His heavy eyes crept open only to be penetrated by searing lights and to have his senses baffled by a bombardment of voices, and sirens, and radios, and engines, and even the occassional crash or explosion - these were the sort of enhanced interrogation techniques deployed in Guantanamo Bay. It had been torture.

    But, where he was once drunk with fatigue, Jim was now sober. The effects of the Nectar gas had subsided and his senses, resharpened, percieved every pinprick of pain in astonishing high definition. In the rear-view mirror, he caught a surprising glimpse of himself; he sported a raccoon face blossom of bruising which was obscured, in part, by a square of white qauze upon the bridge of his nose. Tell-tale flecks of blood had crusted black on his upper lip and his skewed spectacles shone like headlamps in the dark. Outside, the streets were empty. It was as if the entire population of Los Santos had sensed the black mood in the air and had taken refuge inside their homes to huddle around televisions. There was no way the warehouse inferno was not on every local news channel right now, Jim knew that, and he imagined Anna, sat watching the reports, uttering religious oaths because that was all she could do. That was all anyone could do, that is, if they were so inclined. And it was why Jim, in kinship with the dogs that trailed tongues from car windows, ached to be free of his cage.
    Last edited by Jim Lewinski; Mar 23rd, 2013 at 05:09:39 PM.

  6. #6
    TheHolo.Net Poster
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    Alex wished he could have said this sort of gut-clenching helplessness was rare. But he'd been feeling it more and more frequently lately. The Tres Once attack. The incident with Apollos. The blow-up at the rally, with Lana collapsing in his arms. Andrea, tormented by phantoms only she could see and hear. When the phone rang, it brought with it a new surge of hope and fear, but at least it wasn't more helplessness. He charged down the hallway and grabbed the handset before it had finished its second ring.

    "Hello? Yes... Yes! Well, are they okay?"

    He rushed back into the family room with the phone still in hand. "Anna! It's the police. They found Jim and Aimee, and they're okay, they're bringing them back here right now."

    Alex lifted the receiver to his head again. "We've been trying to call all night. We're trying to track down two more people - Aidan Fox and Jake Foley. Have you heard anything about them? Okay... Okay, thank you. But... okay."

    He lowered the phone again with a sigh and met Anna's eyes. "She didn't know anything about Aidan or Jake."
    Last edited by Alex Kaine; Mar 23rd, 2013 at 08:14:08 PM.

  7. #7
    "That should reassure me, but it doesn't," Anna said, her fingers separating the beads on her rosary one by one but her brain was refusing to form any coherent prayers. El Espíritu de Dios intercede por nosotros con gemidos indecibles ...

    "What on earth were Jim and Aimee doing that they got picked up by the police?" She paced the floor, looking up briefly as someone on the second floor walked across their room, and then at Alex. He looked like a kid desperately trying to be an grown-up, and the worry behind his eyes helped snap her out of her funk.

    She couldn't lean on Alex. She was the adult here. Anna tried on a reassuring smile, and hoped the intent got through to Alex. "They will be here soon and there will be more answers."

    A car drove by outside and her head snapped around, but it continued on down the street. Just a few more minutes... Her fingers passed another bead between them and reached for the next.

  8. #8
    Shield
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    At long last the cruiser swung into a familiar neighborhood of looping streets and tightly packed houses, and within a minute it had glided to a stop on Banyon Street in front of Redención House. The porch lights were on, and the first floor was conspicuously bright, which was rare this late on a weeknight.

    The driver of the car was tall and thin, with a generous sprinkling of silver in his hair and his mustache. He looked for the kids' eyes in his rear-view mirror and announced, "Looks like our stop. I know you two are probably exhausted, but we'll need to have a word with you and Miss Fernandez before we leave."

    The officer pulled a notebook and pen from the center console and led the way up to the front door with Aimee and Jim trailing meekly behind. He pressed the doorbell, found it didn't work, and knocked solidly on the door.

  9. #9
    Aimee hugged her arms around her body as they walked up to the door, her bravado slipping as facing Anna Fernandez and her disappointment came closer and closer. The officer in front knocked, and the door opened almost immediately, Anna standing there with worry lines in her forehead.

    "Oh thank God," she said in her accented English, stepping out onto the porch. "Jim, Aimee - I'm so glad you're safe." Anna looked like she wanted to sweep both of them up in a hug, but instead she pulled her light cardigan tight around her huge belly. She turned from them toward the two officers. "What on earth happened? They weren't very forthcoming on the phone."

    "We picked up these two outside the warehouse fire -" Anna's face got pale, Aimee noticed, but the woman held herself together and the officer kept talking, outlining how they'd been found and the story that they had told. Aimee shuffled her feet a bit.

  10. #10
    In the dim light that spilled out onto the porch, Jim waited. The dialogue unfolding between Anna and the policeman was of small interest to him; he had already considered her wrath, and its myriad consequences; whereupon he took the precaution to deliberate his next potential port of call, in the event of him being banished outright from the house. His finances were limited, but not so short to prevent him returning to the east coast. He was consequently unconcerned with the logistics of his immediate future. What bothered him was the conflict of feelings that swelled up inside of him at the sight of the mutant matriarch. The flicker of relief with which she greeted their appearance was buried swiftly beneath a hard white mask cracked with worry. It troubled him to consider that he and Aimee had it within them to lay to bed at least some of her fears, but for what? To give rise to whole new fears? Or worse, to betray their rescuers? No, that was inconceivable.

    "-and, given their story, it sounds like the warehouse and those arrested may be connected to the recent reports of mutant disappearances in the area. Your kids were very lucky, ma'am."

    The moustachioed officer was, whether consciously or not, making a solid case for their innocence in the matter. When he got to the part about how they had been snatched cycling to Dairy Queen, a masochistic fabrication of Aimee's design, Jim wilted. Sour thoughts surfaced from the murky depths of anxiety and guilt. Once again, he was at the mercy of police protocol. Anna talked while the officer took notes, and Jim, incapable of disguising his irritation a moment longer, started to furiously twitch. The wait was agonising.

  11. #11
    "Thank you for bringing them home," Anna said quietly.

    "You're welcome ma'am." The policeman, Officer Bell, seemed almost apologetic as he added, "Because of what happened, and the fact that these kids are homeless teens, we had to call Child Protective Services. Standard procedure."

    "I understand," she said, inwardly cringing.

    "Their case officer will be by in the morning," Bell said. "I'm sorry to keep you up so late, Miss Fernandez. We'll have a patrol car swing through the neighborhood, just in case."

    "Thank you, that is reassuring." Anna reached for the screen door, ready to go inside and be done with this conversation. "I thank you again -"

    "I'm sorry," said the second officer, "Just one more question. Dispatch mentioned that you asked about two other people when they called to tell you we were bringing Aimee and Jim home." He looked down at a piece of paper in his hand. "Aidan Fox and Jacob Foley?"

    He looked up. "Are they still missing? If you can give us a description of them we'll be sure to keep an eye out."

    "Oh," she said, suddenly feeling that the officer's friendly and helpful interest was anything but. A woman's sixth sense, her mother had often told her, was like a mutant power on it's own. Anna got a bit of mental vertigo, as though she was standing on the edge if a cliff she didn't quite know existed. "Ah, that was one of the teens who live here who answered the phone. I'm sure they are fine, I think Aidan was working late tonight and Jake is picking him up. His schedule changes all the time."

    The words came out as though someone else was saying them. Why was she lying? Anna turned to Aimee and Jim, and opened the screen door. "These kids need showers and a good night sleep, I thank you for bringing them back home, officers." The purple girl darted inside, Jim not far behind, his jitters making him almost look blurry.
    Last edited by Anna Fernandez; Mar 26th, 2013 at 11:12:35 AM.

  12. #12
    TheHolo.Net Poster
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    Alex lingered as close to the door as he dared while Anna dealt with the cops, not wanting to risk betraying anything, or anyone, in a situation he didn't understand. The fact that the cops didn't know anything about Aidan or Jake told him a lot. Mainly, that Aimee and Jim hadn't said anything about them.

    His mind's eye went back to the swirling blue flames engulfing the factory, and he felt his head spinning. He pressed back against the bay window as Aimee and Jim slipped in through the front door. He didn't need to say a word - they could see the news footage on the TV screen behind him.

    "We're just glad they're safe," Officer Bell replied. "If they remember any more details about tonight, we'd be much obliged if you could share them. Chances are we'll be back this way again to ask some more questions once we're further with our investigation. Do you have any more questions for us?"

    Anna didn't. Not for the police, anyway, and Alex guessed they knew that as well as he did. It wasn't too hard to read between the lines: the cops weren't satisfied with the story they'd gotten, and they believed Aimee and Jim would be more forthcoming with Anna. As far as Alex was concerned, the two officers couldn't leave fast enough.

    But when they did, and when the door latched shut against the boiling night air, the cloud of tension suffusing the house hadn't budged one bit. Jen leaned over the back of the couch, doe-eyes darting between Aimee and Anna, while Alex smoldered over by the bay window, staring holes into Jim. Finally he could stand it no longer.

    "What happened?"

  13. #13
    Jim advanced into the living room, leaving Aimee to await her judgement like an obedient pup. He had not the patience for it. First, he had eyes only for the television, the light from which at times blazed bright enough to scorch the wallpaper. It was surreal to see the warehouse burning safely within the confines of the screen, and the roar of flames reduced to a murmured backdrop to the newscaster's drone. On the periphery of his thoughts, he noted a question and the sound of approaching footsteps; Alex was no fool and to Anna he owed a tremendous debt of gratitude – he faced a minefield of moral ambiguity. One last time, he considered his options; they took shape, branching off into multitudinous possibilities, like the map of some convoluted subway network, which he unfurled and studied in search of the most agreeable route. But, no matter the destination, his findings were always the same: there were no black or white consequences anymore.

    “It's exactly as it looks.”

    His words, coupled with the steely glance he had just fired his roommate's way, were loaded with subtext. The facts were already there; four people missing, two rescued from a burning warehouse along with a number of known gangbangers, the warehouse burned blue, and the remaining two were still conspicuously absent. Anyone with half a brain could parse the meaning between the words and the look, hence Jim was unconcerned that it had also been witnessed by Jen. Not missing a beat, he spun, arms outstreched like a falling sycamore seed, to face Anna, who had by that time closed in.

    “We were snatched by Three Eleven scumbags, and taken to the warehouse. There was a fire, we got out, and no, before you ask, we ain't got no clue where you'll find Aidan or Jake.”

    The question, that had already taken shape on Anna's lips, was swiftly deflated. She looked troubled and, while he didn't like it, Jim was spared feeling completely wretched for what he'd said was, afterall, the truth.

  14. #14
    Aimee was suddenly exhausted, and she would have collapsed onto the couch if she hadn't been so grimy from smoke. "Can we do this later, Alex? I just want to go take a shower." She looked at Anna, who's forehead was creased with worry lines, and the pregnant woman nodded.

    "Thanks," she managed, turning and heading for the stairs before she could think too hard about the replay of the blue warehouse fire playing on the TV, and the moment of looking back at Jake and Aidan in the midst of the burning building. She dashed the tears from her eyes as she ran up the stairs, headed for the sanctuary of the bathroom.

  15. #15
    Aimee disappeared to the second floor, and Anna met Jim's eyes. He was completely defensive, his body language more than a little aggressive, and she knew she wasn't going to get to the bottom of this tonight. "I believe you," she said softly. "You should get cleaned up, too. Use my shower, there's should be enough hot water." She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently beforehand releasing him.

    She sighed then, remembering something. "Your parents will probably not be notified, Jim, since you weren't arrested, but if you want to call them...?"

  16. #16
    "No," Jim was quick to respond, "Nothin' they need to know."

    He hesitated at the foot of the staircase, took one glance back at Anna, who drifted like a ghost into the living room, and then, steeling himself, he retreated upstairs. It was far from over.

  17. #17
    Anna sighed as the two teens disappeared upstairs, and walked into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of pink lemonade. After a moment she added three ice cubes to the glass, and sat down at the table. She took a sip, then folded her arms on the table and rested her forehead on it, her mind full of worry for Jake, and Aidan.

    She sat there in silence, praying without ceasing, not even knowing what she should ask for.

  18. #18
    Jennifer Cho
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    In the living room Jen mouthed to Alex, should we go talk to her? pointing toward the kitchen, or them? jabbing a hand at the ceiling. Or... she shrugged, not sure if she was expected to simply go to bed with such exciting things happening. Being a mimic was hardly a useful ability when people were missing, unless one needed to pretend to be someone else on the phone in order to find them.

    Which seemed...unlikely. She gave up on Alex, who seemed to be lost somewhere in Un-Fun-Furrowed-Brow-Land, and flopped onto the couch.

  19. #19
    TheHolo.Net Poster
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    The iron-hard look that Jim had sent him left Alex rooted with his hand knuckling the back of the couch. There had been wavelengths there that were so far outside his experience with Jim that he had difficulty classifying them, like spectral lines of a mysterious element, reactive and unpredictable. Aimee was behaving to type, defensive and cagey after a brush with the law. But Jim hadn't stammered, hadn't panicked, hadn't prevaricated. It was like something had burned away in the factory fire. Or maybe something new had been forged.

    Alex glanced over toward Jen on the couch, then started for the stairs. "Stay with Anna. I'm going to try to talk to Jim."

  20. #20
    Aidan had lost track of the time. He knew it was somewhere north of midnight and south of morning, but the Angelino sky was a frozen brown fog shocked by billboard lamps and street lights, unchanging from dusk til dawn, and he wasn't thinking in terms of hours and minutes. He was counting blocks and alleyways, marking the street signs and scanning the tags scrawled on concrete walls and dumpsters, all the while charting their course like a GPS and calculating the minimum safe distance from the scene of the crime, from police routes, from gang nests. It was immediate and tactical, and it helped keep his mind off of less comfortable things.

    He and Jake had barely spoken five words to each other since since they'd left the factory in West Carson. The silence between them was enormous and menacing, like a beast stalking them from the slanted shadows of the back alleys, a creature made of primal, unreasoning fear just like the one they'd slain together on the factory floor, but this one couldn't be sealed away, couldn't be eluded. They would need to stop walking soon, and then they would need to confront the insanity of the last few hours.

    They passed in front of the entrance to a sad, sagging two-story motel with a parking lot full of minced pavement and empty of cars. Aidan knew La Raza maintained the room at the end of the first floor as an emergency safehouse, which was scarcely more illicit than what the other rooms were used for. "This'll do," he rasped. "Just need to get off our feet for a couple minutes."

    He had no key, but the latch on the door gave way after some creative leveraging with a credit card, admitting them into a dark space of peeling wallpaper and furniture shored up with duct tape. Aidan stepped in, turned on a small desk lamp, and carefully eased himself into a decrepit armchair, pale and haggard in the dull yellow light. His eyes closed immediately, and his head lolled to the side.

    He shook himself and looked in Jake's general vicinity. "We ought to give Anna a call," he mumbled. "Let her know how we're doing."

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