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 Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 6:04 pm
When Writ first heard of the CAT, he snorted at the mental image of people going to and from work on the backs of giant cats. It might have been a nightmare scenario to the canine god, but nonetheless a funny image.
As expected, the CAT didn't turn out to be nothing like that. The public transportation system consisted of colorful maps, letters, and numbers that formed a circular rainbow around the city.
The maps didn't help Writ figure out which line went where. All he knew was he had to take a bunch of buses and ride a bunch of trains to get back to his home, and he didn't feel like trying to make sense of the whole thing.
So he went down the first subway station he saw and decided to wing it. When he descended into the pits of the subway platform, he held his nose in disgust. The whole place had a smell of pee so strong that Writ swore that it was solid in certain areas. It was just his own nose overreacting, but how anyone could stand the smell of the subway was beyond him.
He concentrated at the subway map, trying not to breath in too deep.
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Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 6:33 pm
Sally had gone a long way out into the boondocks today chasing a scoop. Much to her dismay, it had turned out to be the rough equivalent of a wild goose chase and hadn't yielded anything successful. She needed to catch a train back to campus, so she headed for the nearest CAT subway stop, but once there was faced with another problem:
She wasn't even quite sure where she was.
Sally parked herself in front of the subway map, tried very hard not to breathe in through her nose, and looked intently at the board in front of her. And then her eyes gradually drifted over to the hulking man standing beside her.
"Woah," said Sally, pulling herself up to all of her rather-impressive-for-a-Chinese-girl five-foot-four-inches. "You're really tall."
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Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 6:50 pm
Writ looked next to him, then he looked down to see a small Chinese girl looking up at him. He looked back at the map and said, "Yeah, tall, and really lost." He traced his fingers along the lines on the map, but he couldn't make heads or tails of where exactly this train was going. He looked back down at the girl.
"Hey, you live around here, right?" Writ asked, "You know how I can get somewhere-" He pointed somewhere northeast of the city, "Around here? I've been trying to get back since this morning, and I keep ending up on the wrong side of town..."
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Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 7:08 pm
"Actually, I don't live around here," said Sally with a shrug. "I live, uh..." she gestured vaguely to the city center, not quite eager to let the sketchy gene modder on the subway platform that smelled like pee know where she lived.
"But yeah," she added. "I can point you in the right way."
She leaned in to the map and hopped up on her tiptoes, squinting at the rainbow lines criss-crossing across the city. "Take... um... the blue express to nineteenth street north, switch to a northbound orange bus?"
She tilted her head to look up at the man again. "That's a pretty sweet gene mod you've got. Did you do the height, too, or is that natural?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 9:32 am
"But what about taking the green local at Obsidian, and the red local, then the orange bus?" Writ traced his finger at the lines that seemed to be going the same way. It was one thing to get across the city, it was another to get across the city quickly- a concept that Writ didn't quite grasp yet.
Writ looked down at Sally, "Me and my ears were like this for as long as I can remember." He smiled, "Well, me anyway."
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 9:48 am
Sally clicked her tongue and shook her head. "No, no, that'll take literally for-ev-er. I mean, it'll get you there," she said, "But it'll be, like, midnight. Trust me, the blue express."
She hopped up on her tiptoes, trying to get a better look at his ears, and asked, "So your parents modded you? Woah. How'd they ever get permission for that?"
"Hey, let's go catch a train, I've got to take the blue express, too."
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 10:37 am
"Well I wouldn't say that" Writ scratched behind his left ear, thinking up a decent lie, "I just got poked with the wrong needles as a kid. Hospitals and all that. Though I wouldn't put the idea past my mom and dad, they're kinda..." He twirled his finger around his ear to make the point, "You know."
"I don't really care though, looking down on the rest of you is pretty fun." He chuckled, "The stares are kind of new." Writ looked back as he caught the stares of a couple passerbys.
"Sure." Writ said to Sally's offer, "Because gods know I got no idea what I'm doing."
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 11:48 am
"Well, we go down those stairs. Over there," said Sally very seriously. "This station is kind of huge, it's terrible. I hear people get lost down here for years." Rumors of tunnel people were rampant in Central, but deep down you knew that the Blacksuits would never allow something like that.
"Woah," she continued as they walked. "So you think it was in the vaccinations or something? They used you as an experiment and didn't even ask you?"
Conspiracy theories were Sally's specialty. She dug in her bag for a notepad and whipped it open. "Sorry, can I get some quotes?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 1:36 pm
"Maybe? I don't know." Writ shrugged and took the lie further, "I mean, if it was an experiment, I think I got gipped. They could have at least tried for some superpowers or something." He craned his head past the edge of the subway platform. His ears twitched, listening for the sounds of an incoming train. After a moment of nothing, he pulled back and looked down at Sally again.
"Quotes?" Writ didn't have experience in the realm of journalism. He didn't realize that there was a way to get in the papers that didn't involve starting fights, triggering explosions, or inciting riots.
Apparently being a very interesting person worked just as well.
He tilted his head, "Quotes for what?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 7:24 pm
Sally blinked at him like he'd just sprouted a second head as she took the stairs two at a time. "Quotes," she repeated. "For an article. I'm a reporter for the Central Inquirer. You know, the Independent Alternative Weekly?"
"Anyway," she continued as they stepped out onto the platform, "what you've said is really interesting to me. You think the government used you for drug testing as a baby, really?"
She looked curiously at him. "I mean," she emphasized, "I'm sure that our readers would be fascinated to know all about this. So can I get some quotes? I can keep you mostly anonymous if you want."
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 9:35 pm
Central Inquirer? Independent Alternative Weekly? Whatever she was saying was all Greek to Writ, but it all sounded respectable enough.
As for the whole drug testing shtick, he figured it was something to get his foot in the door. He remembered what Seth said about being subtle, and scoffed. Gods weren't subtle creatures, and he wasn't going to be an exception.
The train arrived, and Writ went in, spinning his story.
"All I know is what my mom and dad told me. They just said what I said to you, they just stuck me with the wrong needles is all. Maybe it was by accident, or maybe on purpose, they don't really know. Point is, I trust these government folks as far as I can throw their buildings." He couldn't think of a good metaphor at the end, but he tried to make up for it, "And those buildings are pretty big."
As for anonymity...
"Anonymous? Don't worry about it. People oughta know who they're reading about." He offered a hand, "Name's Writ. Writ Campbell."
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 7:05 am
Sally scribbled down the quotes as fast as he could give them, hesitating a bit over the spelling of his name. "I'm Sally Linkletter," she said over the din as they stepped onto the train. She left it up to him to puzzle out how someone so obviously Asian had wound up with such a painfully Anglo name.
"I can already tell," she said, grabbing hold of a hanging bar for balance as the train lurched into motion, "That this is going to be a big hit. Do you know..."
She bit her lip. Was it too much to ask? Maybe. But she was going to do it anyway.
"Is there anyone else I could ask about this? Anyone else like you?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:06 am
"Hm?" Writ looked out the window thoughtfully, "Hmm..." His first thought was Vale, but he wasn't quite sure how comfortable he was sending an absolute stranger towards a known cannibal.
Well, she didn't know that. Besides, Vale could use someone else to talk to. Preferably a girl. Quinn can only keep good company for so long.
"Well, there's this one guy who lives close to where I live, I could point you in the right direction, if you want."
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 5:35 pm
"Really?" asked Sally, jabbing excitedly at the notepad with the pen. She grinned up at Writ. "Oh, I'd love it if you could - here, I'll write down the address, who should I ask for?"
Oh, she was going to turn in the best article! If there was anything Sally loved more than uncovering a conspiracy, it was finding out that a conspiracy went further than she could have previously anticipated. This was just way too awesome.
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Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 11:05 am
Writ gave her the address, and then gave her his address in case she needed a follow up on her story. They were both pretty close to one another.
He smiled, "They're the only two places I can find in this damned city." He plopped down on an empty seat, "I don't know how you people can find your way around here."
Writ leaned his head against the back of the seat, "Ask for Vale, I don' know what he's up to nowadays, but he should be around, and it's important to tell him that I sent you, we've all been a little paranoid since..."
Writ caught himself.
"Just tell him I said that talking to you is good for him."
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