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 Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 2:10 pm
There had been dreams, dreams where he was led around a facility which was like nowhere he'd ever seen, surrounded by unfamiliar faces and white coats. What had been most upsetting however had been the more familiar faces, faces he recognized from photos his mother kept as much out of his reach as she could manage. When everything faded away, unreal, insubstantial, he'd been relieved and then the darkness had returned.
When he resurfaced from the quiet peacefulness of sleep it was deja vu. Once again he heard the beeping of the pod, felt the grogginess ebb back and leave him stranded on an island of wakefulness. He wanted to roll over and go back to sleep but the beeping wouldn't let him. And somewhere there was a tug, a dream unlike the other ones, forests, icy mountains and a sky that went on for ever.
He stirred and the pod opened to facilitate him.
"Is it real this time?" he asked, without opening his eyes. "If its not I want to go back to sleep."
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 2:36 pm
Harrison liked pod duty. At first, it had (privately) been because he was waiting on E-8, but he'd known the guy a week and he'd given up on it. He didn't have relatives in there, as far as he knew, and while it was one of the sort of basic first-year type duties, it gave him time to read s**t and get paid for it.
He mostly read magazines, occasionally pulp whatever, and war s**t. History, tactics, naval, aerial. Some was boring as ******** - ethical doctrine and socioeconomic impact, but he liked the stories from the trenches best, even if some of it was whiny.
He wasn't so absorbed not to notice one of the nearby doors sliding open. Somebody talked.
Harrison lowered the book, looking around him, maybe for cameras.
"Uh," he started, "is anyone getting this."
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 2:47 pm
The last time there'd been lots of people waking up around him, this time it seemed quiet, at least until someone else spoke and he finally opened his eyes. At this point it didn't seem like going back to sleep was going to be an option at all. He stood up shakily.
"Um." and because in his confusion, politeness very easily overwhelmed his conscious thought and need to make sense. "Excuse me." he said, peering in Harrison's direction.
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 3:09 pm
This was it. The lottery of pod duty. You could go months or years of doing ********, and suddenly you have a FOP stumbling wide-eyed and newborn into the sun needing to know the history of everything.
Usually Rep was the one with s**t luck where this was concerned.
"Uh," Harrison repeated. Maybe he was just some guy who'd been podded for too many mission ******** ups, "Hi."
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 4:39 pm
Mikael looked uncertain where to go from Hi, there were a hundred thousand questions he wanted to ask and he had no idea where to even begin.
"So. I'm guessing this isn't witness relocation or whatever." he said. "Is it an island? I had a dream. A dream where I woke up like this and then it was only a dream." he felt woozy and still very decidedly dazed, but something still tugged at him. "If it's a dream, I would like to go back to sleep."
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 5:29 pm
Great. He wasn't even somebody who had volunteered for saving the world s**t. Harrison had signed the dotted line on that one, at least. "You've been relocated. That's for damn sure. And if you're in trouble with the mob or some s**t, you don't have to worry about that kind of trouble anymore neither."
He was surprised that Mikael knew it was an island at first, but...he guessed he was talking about the trials.
"Right, well. If in your dream you got killed, and it felt real, but everything was A-OK after, that's because you weren't in your real, regular body. But you are now. So don't do anything stupid. ...You got a name?"
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 5:43 pm
"Um." The blonde boy hesitated. "Shouldn't you be giving me a name?" In his experience someone told him he was called something new and he tried his best to remember what it was until something ultimately went wrong and he had to change it again.
He looked rather horrified at the idea of being killed. There was a vague feeling that his dreams had at some point contained something close to that, but he couldn't remember it properly either.
"I mean people always did before?" He squinted, uncertain if he was being tested or tricked.
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 7:54 pm
Harrison looked at the kid blankly.
"I mean. If you want I can. We can call you Pebbles. Or Dipshit. Or Willy Wonka. But you can use your own ******** name. You've earned it. You're here."
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 8:19 pm
Mik didn't really look offended at the names he was offered, instead there was a slowly spreading veil of confusion which got worse the more he tried to sort it out. So he wasn't to be given a false name, and apparently here he was safe from any harm that might come to him. That had to mean his dad wasn't here, they were finally totally safe!
"Oh! Great! I'm Mikael then." he said brightly. "Where's morsa then?" he asked, before clarifying a little further. "My mother, she has to be here too right?"
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 8:42 pm
Harrison looked uncomfortable at that question.
"Couldn't say. I mean. I don't know anybody on the island that does. Have their mom here. My mom isn't ******** here."
Mother's Day had been this past Sunday, and nobody wanted cards from their fake-dead sons and daughters. None of them could be mothers either, on account of the weapon bonding. He hoped it wasn't something the kid was going to get hung up on.
He stood to give the pod a once over. Was anybody else going to hop out of their pods? The lights all seemed to be acting normal. As far as he could tell.
"I'm Hughes. Might as well go get your room set up."
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 8:52 pm
The smile froze on the boy's face. He'd never been without his mother, they'd been together through almost everything, through various homes, even a few different countries, always pursued by the ever-present specter of his father. The authorities said he was gone, but sometimes he'd find them, sometimes they'd get a card or a postcard that would upset his mother all over again. He'd told her they'd stick together no matter what happened and in a moment of not thinking through his choices it was very possible that he might not see her again. It didn't help that it was a really scary guy telling him all of this, his tone was friendly for a given value of friendly but he looked like he'd lost a fight with something nasty. It felt dangerous.
He tried to stand up tall and act older than he felt as he went on. "H..Hughes." as if the name would make the other man change what he'd just said. "Where is she?"
And because he wasn't as tough as he wanted to be, the panic seemed to spill over and the tears quavered on the edge of showing themselves in his very tone. "I'm not going anywhere till I find out where morsa is!"
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 9:18 pm
Harrison held up his hands.
What the ********. Was he going to cry? How did he deal with somebody crying for their mom? How ******** old was this guy.
"How the hell should I know. Do I look like a guy they tell s**t to? Look, okay, this isn't witness protection. I mean. Look at this ******** room. It is filled with scifi people suspended in magic and s**t. Okay. Maybe your life had like. A mostly normal s**t meter," Harrison put his hands over to his left side for emphasis. "But now," he shifted them. "You're over here. You're over here in really Weirdshitville."
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 9:24 pm
And now the guy was calling him stupid, that was what he meant about the pod people right? How was he supposed to know what witness protection did? They'd all done different things, some of them had made him move school, some had made him dress differently, this could just have been a step up from that. "I don't know!" he said - or rather didn't say so much as blubbered as he lost the semblance of maturity he'd been trying to maintain and descended into near-hysteria.
"And if I'm not there, where am I? What do you people want from me?!" he buried his head in his hands and whimpered pitifully. "I just want to go home, what do you want?" he looked up. "I'll give you anything." and he frantically started rummaging in his pockets for his wallet which had been there before but which was now completely gone. This somehow made everything worse and he just descended into incoherent sobs and intermittent Swedish.
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 9:34 pm
"Now...hold on, don't- aw, s**t. s**t."
Harrison had no idea what to do about a blubbering kid. This was a job for someone else. Anyone else.
He paused when the kid started rifling through his clothes.
"Why? ...How much do you have on you?"
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Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 9:40 pm
Mikael managed to stem the waterworks long enough to give Harrison a desperate and hopeful look. Apparently if he had money he might have some glimmer of hope, some way out of this terrible situation. "Um. Um. I had like er." he looked away. "Like a couple thousand dollars in there." He figured dollars were the best currency to mention here given that the scary man sounded very American. "I'm not sure where it went but like." A long belaboured sniff. "I could get you it maybe? If you can get me out of here. I don't want to stay here, I want to go home to my morsa. You can have all of it if you'll help me!"
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