not james, but no one else yet either (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
atramentum) wrote2025-03-21 05:09 pm
atramentum) wrote2025-03-21 05:09 pm
(no subject)
James almost misses the last ferry, that's how rattling-chains unsettled he is by everything that's happened to him in the last 12 hours. The mission, the kid, the sweaty fistful of cash he'd pushed at the boy's mother before bundling them off on a Greyhound to Kentucky...he doesn't even know if the group Theo pointed him to will take them in, but he knows for the good of everyone from a single child to the world at least to his own wounded heart, if Stephen wants that kid they should never been in so much as the same timezone.
The bus's tail lights vanish onto the highway; four seconds he counts in suspended animation, and then it hurts him so abruptly he has to sit down on the curb. He looks at the toes of his boots, long legs out in front of him on the asphalt, and thinks about how he just ripped off his own arm. Not just disappointing Stephen, nor merely failing him--this time James defied him, and there's no coming back from that. Not with his father, not to the lab; he should have started running five minutes ago. Just picked a direction and set out, gone as far as as fast as he could until his legs or lungs refused to carry him another inch.
That's what he should have done, yes. And should be doing.
But that was yesterday, and now it's a miserable, drizzly grey early morning, still dark here at the edge of the country where there's little enough sunlight as is, and the ferry he miraculously didn't miss is plodding through the fog back to the last place he should ever, ever be. This single good thing won't make up for all the bad, for 15 years of mowing through the already small and damaged populace of abhumans like a combine with blood on its teeth, and frankly given how selfish his motivation really is, it's disengenous to even think of it as a start. Not a clean one, anyway. if it were he'd be trying to figure out how to free more Subjects, but the ferry docks and James thinks about breaking no one's cage but hers.
He's not leaving her here; he promised. Even if he could live outside without her.
Black boots hit gravel; he reaches gently out for "where" Roza's ability to merge their minds like two drops of water often begins, a thing he knows more by timing than location. The capacity to make contact comes from her; on good days he thinks she could find him on the seafloor or the deepest reaches of space, the touch of her mental presence, her spirit sunlight through brilliant green blades of grass. A comfort to come back to no matter their surroundings.
She always finds him, and while James he loves her for that already now it's his turn to do the seeking. Broken bars and massive shiny keys fill his head, birds in flight, a wide wide, starry sky blurred by auroras of a dozen colors; everything he can dredge up from memory or otherwise that says no more waiting. No more biding their time. If they're going to go it has to be now, has to be today; today marks the first he's worked up this kind of determination, and there is a terror deeper than the mere existential around what will happen if the sand in that hourglass runs out.
Knowing that Roza is not telepathic, that she doesn't hear thoughts no matter how loudly he tries to project them doesn't matter; he can't help the unspooling typewriter ribbon winding from behind his eyes: Malen'kaya vorona, I'm taking you away from here like I promised..
James, who is supposed to have a small, captive child with him, enters the facility alone, walks straight at the first lab worker he meets and rips out his throat with his fucking teeth. Blood gouts down his chin spattering his clothes and the tech's formerly white coat; the surprise is still on his face when James drops his body and moves on to the next person in his way. He knows where to move so he's always off camera; as long as no one he encounters lives long enough to sound an alarm he has all the time he needs.
That would be more comforting if he knew he wasn't already too late, but he cannot stop to think about that. He drags the body behind the drafting table the still freely bleeding corpse was probably working at, reaches out a flat hand to press to the wall, and closes his eyes. Open means too much disorienting white light, low latent inhibition finding as many ways to work against him as it can--but he's figured a way around that. Just because if he makes even a single mistake they are both fucked beyond recognition doesn't matter. James takes a second, just one, to center himself, and moves, flying through featureless passages and their windows like empty eye sockets crammed with coins, stopping a moment--
--when he realizes he can hear someone talking on a cell phone not far ahead. He crouches below the line of sight of the closest camera and waits just where the L-shaped bend in the hallway hides him; as soon as the toe of a shiny patent leather shoe emerges past the inner wall he springs, a sharp blow to the back of the head that brings another body down to ground level at once. James does not have to use his elbow to cave in this man's face, and wouldn't take the time if he hadn't seen him more than once in what Roza shares with him. She holds some things back, he knows, and what those might be make the bloody soup that was formerly a face very, lucky James is in a hurry.
Almost there. Another two minute of uninterrupted movement as fast and as sure as he can go, and--here it is. The door he's seen in her head a probable hundred times. He's covered in blood, eyes twin black tornados wild and whirling as he puts all that adrenaline to use and bashes the door down with his shoulder. Something cracks, his rotator cuff exploding into fireworks of white hot pain, but that's such a triviality it's healed before the gives all the way.
This is where this part of the plan ends; he's never been inside, not in all his stealthy mapping and routing and rerouting over and over in his head. Nothing for it but to start looking. No calling out yet, not until he knows that's not going to bring the whole facility down on their heads.
The bus's tail lights vanish onto the highway; four seconds he counts in suspended animation, and then it hurts him so abruptly he has to sit down on the curb. He looks at the toes of his boots, long legs out in front of him on the asphalt, and thinks about how he just ripped off his own arm. Not just disappointing Stephen, nor merely failing him--this time James defied him, and there's no coming back from that. Not with his father, not to the lab; he should have started running five minutes ago. Just picked a direction and set out, gone as far as as fast as he could until his legs or lungs refused to carry him another inch.
That's what he should have done, yes. And should be doing.
But that was yesterday, and now it's a miserable, drizzly grey early morning, still dark here at the edge of the country where there's little enough sunlight as is, and the ferry he miraculously didn't miss is plodding through the fog back to the last place he should ever, ever be. This single good thing won't make up for all the bad, for 15 years of mowing through the already small and damaged populace of abhumans like a combine with blood on its teeth, and frankly given how selfish his motivation really is, it's disengenous to even think of it as a start. Not a clean one, anyway. if it were he'd be trying to figure out how to free more Subjects, but the ferry docks and James thinks about breaking no one's cage but hers.
He's not leaving her here; he promised. Even if he could live outside without her.
Black boots hit gravel; he reaches gently out for "where" Roza's ability to merge their minds like two drops of water often begins, a thing he knows more by timing than location. The capacity to make contact comes from her; on good days he thinks she could find him on the seafloor or the deepest reaches of space, the touch of her mental presence, her spirit sunlight through brilliant green blades of grass. A comfort to come back to no matter their surroundings.
She always finds him, and while James he loves her for that already now it's his turn to do the seeking. Broken bars and massive shiny keys fill his head, birds in flight, a wide wide, starry sky blurred by auroras of a dozen colors; everything he can dredge up from memory or otherwise that says no more waiting. No more biding their time. If they're going to go it has to be now, has to be today; today marks the first he's worked up this kind of determination, and there is a terror deeper than the mere existential around what will happen if the sand in that hourglass runs out.
Knowing that Roza is not telepathic, that she doesn't hear thoughts no matter how loudly he tries to project them doesn't matter; he can't help the unspooling typewriter ribbon winding from behind his eyes: Malen'kaya vorona, I'm taking you away from here like I promised..
James, who is supposed to have a small, captive child with him, enters the facility alone, walks straight at the first lab worker he meets and rips out his throat with his fucking teeth. Blood gouts down his chin spattering his clothes and the tech's formerly white coat; the surprise is still on his face when James drops his body and moves on to the next person in his way. He knows where to move so he's always off camera; as long as no one he encounters lives long enough to sound an alarm he has all the time he needs.
That would be more comforting if he knew he wasn't already too late, but he cannot stop to think about that. He drags the body behind the drafting table the still freely bleeding corpse was probably working at, reaches out a flat hand to press to the wall, and closes his eyes. Open means too much disorienting white light, low latent inhibition finding as many ways to work against him as it can--but he's figured a way around that. Just because if he makes even a single mistake they are both fucked beyond recognition doesn't matter. James takes a second, just one, to center himself, and moves, flying through featureless passages and their windows like empty eye sockets crammed with coins, stopping a moment--
--when he realizes he can hear someone talking on a cell phone not far ahead. He crouches below the line of sight of the closest camera and waits just where the L-shaped bend in the hallway hides him; as soon as the toe of a shiny patent leather shoe emerges past the inner wall he springs, a sharp blow to the back of the head that brings another body down to ground level at once. James does not have to use his elbow to cave in this man's face, and wouldn't take the time if he hadn't seen him more than once in what Roza shares with him. She holds some things back, he knows, and what those might be make the bloody soup that was formerly a face very, lucky James is in a hurry.
Almost there. Another two minute of uninterrupted movement as fast and as sure as he can go, and--here it is. The door he's seen in her head a probable hundred times. He's covered in blood, eyes twin black tornados wild and whirling as he puts all that adrenaline to use and bashes the door down with his shoulder. Something cracks, his rotator cuff exploding into fireworks of white hot pain, but that's such a triviality it's healed before the gives all the way.
This is where this part of the plan ends; he's never been inside, not in all his stealthy mapping and routing and rerouting over and over in his head. Nothing for it but to start looking. No calling out yet, not until he knows that's not going to bring the whole facility down on their heads.