Welcome to Gaia! ::

Background
((This section is to provide some cultural background and to give you an idea of the world that existed prior to the Cataclysm. It will be expanded as players contribute, so contribute! I love discussing this stuff when I have time.))

Pokémon Training:
At age ten, most children are given a pokémon as a pet, as the residue of an ancient custom that once revered those who could tame and control pokémon, becoming, in a way, masters of the mysterious forces of ether. Based on the interaction between the two (and, in this more modern society, the child’s choice), the child may begin a path towards being a veterinarian, a competitor, a breeder, a caretaker, or a number of other pokémon-related career paths. However, they may also simply take classes in pokémon training while otherwise pursuing another career.
Entertainment:
Pokémon competitions tend to draw roughly the same crowds as American soccer: it was respected, but due to the undercurrent of tension between those who took paths towards pokémon training and those who did not, it failed to generate completely unified enthusiasm.
Theater and other forms of performance have also made great use of pokémon as actors, effects artists, dancers, etc.
Education:
Beginning in 1987, such children were encouraged more and more to attend schools set aside for their career paths, because American, European, and some East Asian societies had decided the two groups of children did not get along well: they fought, and those who knew how to better control their pokémon won more often than not.
There are training schools for the pokémon themselves, to teach them techniques and other skills or simply to teach them obedience.
Law:
In cases in which a domestic pokémon damages property, kills a person, or otherwise commits a “crime,” its trainer is held wholly responsible. Pokémon are put down for more serious crimes and the trainer is expected to pay damages, or even in some cases serve time in prison; this is in effect to balance the greater damage that a person in indirect control of ether can do.
In the exceedingly rare case of a pokémon organizing a crime, they are put into rehabilitation programs, or sometimes simply put down.
Custom:
It is something of a taboo to strike another person’s pokémon, somewhat more so than it is to strike another person’s mundane pet.
Psychic pokémon have always been held in somewhat high esteem among pokémon, much as monkeys among mundane animals. They are also rarer, in general, than others.

Characters

((Please ask questions in our wondrous OoC.))

Available Roles

(#accepted/#needed/#max capacity)
One rule I impose here is that no two people of the same class may start with any of the same pokémon, or those pokémon's evolutions. I like variety. The only exception is eevee, because of the variety of eeveelutions. Some are reserved for players from the original RP. Depending on the popularity of this RP, we will need the following:

3 to 9 young'ns, aged 14-23: no starting pokémon; first pokémon receives combat bonus, but starts in lowest stage of evolution; first characters to be brought into the RP. All young'ns start with an empty pokéball and maybe a small weapon like a knife, BB gun, or slingshot, but it'll cost AP to upgrade to a gun
(6/3/9) Juno Galedeigh, Lexi Hale, Toby Lawson, Stetson Schraeder, Alyssa Dido, Tsuki
Reserved: psyduck, larvitar, spearow, houndour, chikorita, cubone, cyndaquil

2 to 6 veterans, aged 24-55: start with up to two pokémon of an average of average strength/skill; these are the most physically able characters available; brought in slightly later than the young-uns. All veterans start with a sidearm or some medieval-type weapon, if your char's quirky like that, a slightly heavier weapon if they so wish, and two potions (or a potion and an antidote, you get the picture). Vehicles will have to be strongly argued for via writing history into it.
(4/2/6) Paul McCulloch, Ian Kimball, Mikhail Wang, Jeremiah Hosborn
Reserved: charmander, abra, pikachu, dratini, staryu, geodude, murkrow, unown

1 to 3 geezers, aged 56-92: pokémon may be fully evolved; allowed up to three pokémon; must actually be old (geezers with physical advantages as opposed to disadvantages will have to have really good reasons for having them); brought in slightly later than the young-uns. All geezers start with a sidearm, two hi-potions (or equivalent), a great ball, and much easier access to a vehicle.
(1/1/3) Ulysses Shonevsky
Reserved: abra, vulpix, ghastly

Character Submission

This is how you will submit your character to me for consideration:
Rather than have you flesh out a skeleton, I ask that you paint me a picture of your character, with his or her pokémon. No, an actual picture is not allowed. Using imagery and the intricacies of the English language, show me who your character is by depicting a tableau of that character. A tableau is a frozen scene in which all aspects of the included characters are evident. As parts of this literary tableau, you should include the following: personality (including any necessary background details), physical description (both character and pokémon), age, particular hobbies/interests/skills, family members (brief descriptions, if any), and why they are in that situation. This “scene” does not have to ever happen, nor does it have to have ever happened; it should be anything that fully describes the characteristics of the character in question (note the similarities in roots for those two words). Even if your character does not start with a pokémon, the pokémon should be in the description. Please make it clear whether or not this scene has actually happened. Obviously, it cannot have for young'ns, who start without pokémon.
Title the PM “A Cinder Ready to Burn” and have the first line be your character’s first and last names and your pokémon’s name; send it to me (iD bracerS). I will reply either with an approval, suggested edits, or a request that you resubmit entirely, whether because I need the characters or pokémon to be different (hopefully never the case, and I will strive to avoid that) or because I feel you should try again. A sample is provided below.

Note: Unless you provide good reasons for your character to start with certain items, I will be assigning items based on the role and the profile. Usually, I will accept suggestions for that with which your character begins the RP.
Note: I also have room for "temp" characters, if that's something that might interest you. For people with "full-time" roles, these are only available upon amazing, amazing writing skills. If anyone wants to "part-time" a character, I am open to that.

((This is a decidedly brief intro; yours can definitely be longer, but I would appreciate not being any shorter.))

Locations

((This will be updated as necessary as the game progresses.))

Main locations as they are currently known and relevant:



GLENVILLE

Glenville was not a metropolis by any means. It had the prestige of its hospital and university and was therefore set for a huge expansion, but in an odd twist of luck, had not experienced it by the time the Cataclysm struck. Beyond fires in many of the office buildings and the deaths of most of the older patients in the hospital, it was left relatively intact. The people organized swiftly under the guidance of the two Drs. Oak and Olive Brown, one of the leading liberal candidates for mayor. The three of them swept up Jacob Thatcher, an experienced and well-liked militant on leave, and formed a triumvirate, with Dr. Skye Oak happily backing out of an authoritative position, despite how it disappointed those who knew of him. The three acted quickly, efficiently, and ruthlessly to turn the city into a vibrant commune that, what with the liberal application of etheric technology, was largely self-sufficient.

Thatcher controls the actual execution of Glenville’s defense, serves as the military branch within the city and the final word for the Protectors, and coordinates acquisition of supplies via scouting parties and trade with Cliffshire and a few small towns near the Pennsylvania border. Oak finds and interprets incoming communications (mostly through his brother and an assistant), runs the hospital, and designs the defense programs for the city. Brown maintains proper order within the city, maintains the small network of communications outside of it, oversees distribution of supplies, and publicizes scientific progress alongside Skye.

The Protectors

Glenville has combined its various service forces into a single team, following the advice of some of the more experienced surviving leaders. This team is called the Protectors and functions in three units, though any member can provide any of the services: fire brigade, police force, and emergency service. Jacob Thatcher serves as its overall coordinator, and under him are the Fire Chief, Chief of Police, and Director of Emergency Services. The Chief of Police also oversees the workings of Glenville’s prison, which is generally pretty empty, but is kept to punish the occasional miscreant.

University of Virginia: Glenville

The University is only in operation at all because of its close ties to Glenville Hospital and Clinic (GHC). Most researchers with any clinical ability have been recruited as doctors, although the professors Oak retained a few for projects to aid the city. The University consists primarily of two fused buildings. The University is nineteen stories tall and the hospital is one higher to allow for helicopter landings. Between the two of them and their associated administrative buildings, assorted other academic buildings, athletic fields, parking lots, etc., they cover roughly seven acres.

Government

Olive Brown appointed a School Superintendent, a Chief Justice (who appointed his ten judges), the Head Chef, and the Chief of Medicine (who performs the medical side of running the hospital, while Rufus fulfills the bureaucratic side). She is the final word if a case cannot be decided and was a powerful force in making the populace realize how inconsequential most cases were. Thieves are imprisoned, then exiled on their second offense with enough food to travel a week. Murderers are exiled immediately and given no food or weaponry; Jacob often has gone behind her back to ensure they are also executed.

Professor Oak’s house

Doctor Beatrice Oak only lived here with her family for three years, but still managed to leave a powerful mark on it and the area around it. The house resides in the northern portion of the city and has two floors, plus a basement and an attic. Two oak trees keep the small backyard darkly shaded and the ground covered in acorns and leaves in the fall. The front is generally well-kept, although the Oak sons generally choose to live in the university laboratories.

Hydroponics Reservoir

This is the key to Glenville’s continued survival, and as such, entrances to it are kept as secret as possible (which is still not very secret). The reservoir is of filtered water and feeds Glenville’s sprawling underground agriculture, which produces potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, onions, radishes, peas, lettuce, cabbage, rice, and some asparagus, bell peppers, green beans, black-eyed peas, and tomatoes. There are a few, bedraggled attempts to grow fruit trees (apples, pears, figs, and plums) and berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and grapes), but these have not been very successful except for the strawberries. Pigs, cattle, and chicken are also kept down here during the night and brought out a few miles north of Glenville each dawn. A division of the Protectors, playfully dubbed “The Biodome,” guards it carefully.

Other Agriculture

Grain, including a small project for corn, is farmed in a five square-mile farm that surrounds the livestock's feeding grounds on three sides. It had existed as a smaller operation prior to the Cataclysm, then had rock, ground, grass, poison, water, and bug pokémon (among others) put to the task of acting as pesticides, sprinklers, fertilizers, plows, and harvesters. The people of Glenville eat well and are not forced to live without grits.

They also drink well. No fewer than ten microbreweries stayed in operation, levying heavily to have plots of land devoted to growing hops. They were resisted at first, but then pointed out that a lot of people in hard times without a source of alcohol would result in regular riots. A few small groups of industrious individuals are also hard at work to continue distilling whisky, though vodka has become very scarce.

CLIFFSHIRE

A town of seven thousand three hundred that had lived so far past the Cataclysm would under most circumstances be assumed to be well-organized and successful. However, Cliffshire defies both of these assumptions, and not even its own citizenry has much of an answer beyond, “Well, yeah, we’re not that great, but… I mean, we made it this far, right?” On the cliff that gives them their name, which is about two hundred meters high and hangs over the northeastern edge after rising out of the earth like a great wave, there are a number of plateaus devoted to the crops that keep the city alive. More directly east, as the slope evens down to ground level, is the pastureland for cattle and pigs, as well as hutches and other livestock necessities. The land is arguably the most naturally fertile in the area, although the application of modern science would likely increase production tenfold if the government could wrap their heads around it. These food sources, as well as the water tower in the southeastern suburbs, are guarded by the Denizens.

The Denizens (and their Legend)

Cliffshire is the only town that has failed to put together a continually reliable defense force. The Denizens are named after something that is enough folklore to be silly, but backed up in enough of reality to require thinking twice before completely disregarding it.

Cliffshire was originally settled by Native Americans, and as happened with most of those groups, was destroyed and rebuilt as an English settlement. However, it proved to be a difficult matter. After sending word of having successfully pulverized the locals (with guns) and discovering how incredibly fertile the ground was, likely due to the huge population of aerating and nutritive oddish, moles, digletts, sandshrew, armadillos, and seed-dispersing mankeys and deer, the original settlers broke off contact. A small troop of explorers was sent in to check on them and found extremely fertile ground, a few houses, a few tents and old cooking pits, and no signs of living human beings except for a little girl and her pale, wasting, but iron-strong mother. The little girl was playing with a doll and the mother, though weak, refused to do anything except point out to a small field of playfully doddering oddish and say, “These are the original denizens. These. We respect them.” The search group shrugged its collective shoulders and sent word to send in a new colonization party with more soldiers, because the first ones had been killed and dragged off by Indians. Roughly three months later, after no word had been heard from this new group, another, more heavily-armed group went in search of the colony, only to find a similar story: the same woman was still there, and with her her daughter, but they had gained a group of ten men, women, and children – less than a tenth of the colonizing force sent out, and all of whom silent on the matter of the missing scores of settlers. The adults were a little detached from reality, but the children were healthy and thrilled. One was screaming with delight and being playfully tossed about in the strange, crumbling pools of dry dirt the local digletts and dugtrios liked to make, two seemed to have invented the game of “toss the oddish,” and the fourth was attempting to fit a peasant dress on a decidedly placid sandshrew.

The legend goes that the missive to send even more settlers was received through a pidgeotto with two broken talons and a festering, ugly gash along its breast. The parchment was ripped in half and bloodied and read only, “Most settlers dead and vanished; few survive; land fertile; recolonization adv.” A third settlement party was not sent. Outlaws and escaped “witches” flocked to Cliffshire. It grew and became recognized as a successful town, even as rumors of its strange beginnings became steeped in ever greater legend and mystery, most suggesting the at-the-time quite reasonable intervention of evil spirits, which led to more than one spree of arson, usually quickly cooled by the locals. Eventually, they were brought under proper control, but the authority figures assigned to oversee them always seemed to send either confused or nervous reports. Despite this, they continued to trade unbeatable grain, potatoes, and other produce, and so were never sanctioned against or invaded. The local fauna never showed hostility towards visitors, and were in fact uncommonly friendly towards them, as were the people, at least with time. The legends went the way of ghost tales, and are retained only by historians and children’s stories.

The Denizens, therefore, are named in honor of that first woman’s words, and are determined to protect the town from unwanted change in whatever form it may present itself. They number about 500 total, roughly two-thirds of which hold some sort of official position, most of which mean nothing once the power has been diluted that far. Their sentries are as often drinking, eating, or gossiping as watching and most are untrained, though almost every single one has either a combat-ready pokémon or a trained dog.

Government

If you really want to know, we can make it happen. Otherwise, grab some nitrous oxide and a copy of the UN Charter and it will amount to the same experience. Cliffshire government is useless and hog-nosed to the point of driving those tracing its works to nihilism. It is, in a word, Lilliputian.

WOODMOUNT

Woodmount is a town built to both physically and metaphysically shadow a military base at the bottom of its titular mound. Surrounded by forest on all sides save the northeast, the town crowns a ten to thirty-five degree incline that reaches no more than two hundred meters; some geographers (all of whom live far from Woodmount) have described it as a zit beside the blunt teeth of the Appalachians. Said military base was primarily a training ground, although it did house a little material for military research, including the rail guns that had required clearing a four square kilometer space in the valley that was its home.

The Cataclysm destroyed the base’s living quarters more effectively than was expected and the vast majority of the surviving soldiers apprehended supplies from the town and immediately marched north, on the pretense of finding the Great Lakes but more likely because Canada was now a safer place to live. Word arrived via pidgey some months later that almost half had been killed by roving packs of wild pokémon and mundane animals, which surged out of the woodlands, out of the sky, and out of the ground itself when they saw a group with food supplies. The Cataclysm left Woodmount with the remains of a military base and a large group of semi-trained soldiers commanding a total of 3,200 people. Subsequently, they are now under martial law and are the best-armed on a per capita basis of the four major surviving cities. For the first three or four years, while other towns were struggling to survive, Woodmount quite happily preyed upon them, confiscating goods by force under the harsh and brutal command of Sergeant Major Scott Herzstein. Barricades constructed of debris and concrete blocks encircle the city proper; the majority of the suburbs have been abandoned.

Woodmount lives. It lives strictly, and the “government” imposes a ten o’clock bedtime, but it lives.

Guardians

The disproportionately populous group (about seven hundred in total) of militants, dubbed the Guardians, is run by Sergeant Major Scott Herzstein, who at sixty-five could turn any of his underlings on their heads both physically and verbally and was willing to do so at any time. They operate under Army procedure, although due to the rationing of food, are not put through as much physical strain as can normally be expected at an Army base. A hundred Guardians act as scouts and raiders and four hundred are split among running ten- to forty-man patrols in a twenty-kilometer perimeter; at any given time, a quarter of them protect the military base and its rail gun. A final fifty are effectively the police force. Among them, they possess four rail guns and “enough” small weaponry to create the following facts: There have been hundreds of individual or otherwise insignificant attacks on Woodmount due to its small size and perceived weakness. There have been roughly fifty bands of raiders that thought the same and attacked in groups of ten to a hundred. No Woodmount civilian has ever been killed by one of these attacks. Exactly twenty-one Guardians have died in combat since the Cataclysm.

Water Tower

There is a water tower that works extremely well, but water must still be rationed appropriately. It is located just barely northeast of the city proper and is heavily guarded. It provides enough water for cooking, drinking, and some cleaning; that is, the necessities.

Windmills

A number of Guardians patrol the forty windmills that dot the southeast edge of the suburbs. Six have broken down completely and three are undergoing repair, but they provide enough power to cook for the citizenry and are sufficient for the needed light and construction/repair equipment.

Agriculture

Agriculture is still floundering, but it exists in the form of potatoes, lettuce, carrots, onions, and a few score apple and pear trees, in addition to blackberries and currant. This is all supplemented by the cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens that are raised on the northwest side of town in the second forested area; the nine square kilometer area is guarded at all times and surrounded with barbed wire. Grain is difficult to come by, but two years after the Cataclysm, Herzstein was convinced to allow a group of roughly five hundred individuals (sixty of the Guardians) to venture westward through the mountain range to find and cultivate the land on the other side. They were lucky enough to find a valley of about four square miles that provides a struggling crop each year.

GROVE

The 600-odd people of Grove survived the blast and prefer not to think about it, or talk about it. They have been able to grow healthy plants in their gardens since the Cataclysm and have no qualms staying as they are. Rumors speak of haunting, and not just by ghost pokémon - even grown, military-trained men refuse to approach Grove because of the sheer number of disappearances of those who have attempted contact.

Silph Tower

The headquarters of Silph Company, primary producer of all pokéballs in the U.S. and much of the world at large, stands tall and abandoned, towering over the tiny town of Grove. Visible from very far away, deep green and brown vines thicker than cars descend from the obliterated top three floors of the once fifty-story building. Overhead flights are attacked and/or shot down. Reconnaissance teams do not return. No contact has been successfully made with any members who were on site for the Cataclysm. It is a place that for six years has remained shrouded completely in mystery.

Affiliates

((At this moment, I don't know which of my affiliates are currently running what RPs; school, among other things, dictated my retreat from the realm of RP for a while.))

Awesome Points

Before I start, the credit for this concept goes to Venom3001, who runs 27.

The way this works is as follows: awesome RP-ing and awesome pseudoscience lead to awesome points. AP can be spent on the rewards as described above. This is a rather fluid system, so here are some loose normalizing costs:

1 AP: "magically" find a potion or basic pokéball
2 AP: do something kinda cool and a little unrealistic
2-5 AP: discover a TM
4-7 AP: first-stage pokémon capture
6-12 AP: first-stage pokémon evolution
8-15 AP: second-stage or single-stage pokémon capture

Not all of them have to do with your pokémons' states, but those are really easy examples to give. Everyone starts with 5 AP (except for people who have already done cool things). When you want to use them, highlight the section you wanted to use them for in red and I will step in and Hand-of-God-ish-ly "approve," and also leave a record of how you spent it so the other players know what's going on. Below are listed AP quantities thus far.

Devath: 7
Isa-sama: 12
Jay Acumora: 7
Jikial: 12
Jokerman-EXE: 7
Mr. Blackbird Lore: 12
NativeForeigner: 7
Shaula Al Nair: 12
SirBayer: 9
StrykerZero7: 8
Venom3001: 10

((If I forget to update this page, please, please, please PM me and remind me.))

Temp Characters

((This will also be updated when these guys are actually introduced. I like the idea of temps; they let someone break out of their character and take another for a short time. Hopefully y'all will, too!))

((Hey, all! This is just an introduction; I don't have time today to put together the first active post. No, not every one will be this long, but this should give you an idea for style, quality, etc. By the way: keep OoC to the OoC thread as much as possible. Cool? Cool! Here we go; I hope it intrigues ^.^ ))


Thin, long, wispy threads of silver tossed the sunlight back up to the scorched heavens, which at dawn now shared a brilliance that a pre-apocalyptic world could never experience. An old, wrinkled face regarded those clouds with a furrowed brow, the lines of age etching a story through hard features only belied by the sparkle in its brown eyes.

Today was a good day. Today, things were beginning, for many people. Things were beginning for this person, that was certain; all the sources who had managed to report had said as much. The body holding the face aloft stretched and stood as though it were not nearly as brittle as the decades dictated. It was time to challenge destiny, even at the risk of breaking the world.

It was time to light some fires.

---

“Hi!”

Dr. Rufus Oak, Glenville’s Minister of Science and the elder son of the late Dr. Beatrice Oak, nearly barked an order of silence as he was startled out of his work by an unfamiliar, almost alto chirping of a man’s voice. “I goddamn told Skye not to let anyone in h- you.” His dark brown, wide-set eyes, speckled with gold, narrowed dangerously behind their black-rimmed glasses. His features were his father’s for the most part, save a narrowing of his chin and a dimple if he deemed a smile necessary; they were broad, square, and severe. His auburn hair was in a half-combed mop on top of his head, as though he had attempted to groom it, but really had no concept of how to. If he didn’t insist on wearing square-framed glasses, he would be intimidating, but as it was, a lot was lost to this one decision. Regardless, he had a voice that asked for respect, and a reputation that demanded it.

Facing him was a creature who had built up more recognition through infamy than Rufus ever believed he could achieve through the regular sort of fame. Dr. Alex Terrian grinned a boyish grin that, like Rufus’ glare, would have achieved something completely pure if not nearly reversed by his eyes. Terrian’s eyes were robin’s egg blue under sweeping, pitch-black bangs, and even set deep over nearly-black circles that pooled under his eyelids, they sparkled with an uncomfortable light. Despite being four years Rufus’ senior, Terrian managed to look younger by far, simply in the way he carried himself. He was a boy in a man’s body, and moved with a half-awkward grace normally seen in semi-professional musicals. He swept a bow with that grace now and moved forward as he came out of it, his unforgettable, sable, fedora-style hat held lightly in one hand and a stuffed envelope in the other.

“Yeah, Skye doesn’t exactly have a means of stopping me. But here! A letter from your mom.”

“My mother has been dead for six years,” Rufus answered in clipped tones, even as his hand reached for the envelope.

Alex’s eyes widened comically. “So?”

“So, why didn’t I have this six years ago?” he seethed. Once he had it, he pulled away as though Alex was going to bite him, and started working at the seal.

“Because you weren’t supposed to.”

“She’s MY mother!" he roared, his voice cracking briefly. Clearly, he had a history with the man. "I have more of a right to-!” He cut himself off furiously as a third figure poked his head around the doorframe to the small, cluttered office.

“Alex? What are you doing here? We thought you were dead,” a light tenor wavered.

“Hey, Skye!” Dr. Terrian swept this brother a nearly imperceptibly deeper bow, but a smirk somehow became evident on the beak of the thin, imperious bird perched on Skye’s shoulder. Charlesworth, in his emerald splendor and with his always-observant eyes, had noticed. Such as a xatu is prone to do.

Dr. Skye Oak regarded Terrian with both reverence and distrust. This younger brother’s eyes were also brown, but did not have the gold flecks in his brother’s. His features were softer, thinner, and paler, but his eyes spoke a great deal more about his wit. Submissive to a fault, Skye was a fragile figure in many senses of the word, but he was beloved of tens of thousands. Unlike Rufus, Skye had a face that the public wanted to see in someone who provided them with so much: at present, his long, chestnut hair fell almost to his shoulders with a wave befitting a movie star, silver, thin spectacles rested on his nose, and a sapphire stud (set in wood and lacquered, to avoid radiation poisoning) sparkled in his right ear. It was clear that none of his looks were intentional; he had simply been blessed.

“Hi… Alex. There’s a… letter from Mom?”

Rufus had been dumping the contents onto his desk as Skye spoke. Two letters, two CDs, a handful of flash drives, and a pair of acorns. “Alex, what the HELL do you think you’re-?” Once again, Rufus stopped himself, his face the color of his name, when he realized Dr. Terrian was nowhere to be seen. The two brothers looked at one another in silence until Skye began fidgeting with the hem of his lab coat.

“Um… Charlesworth says he couldn’t figure out how he got in…”

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s just find out what the hell all of this is.”

“Where’s Grimstrip?” Skye asked as he took a seat facing his brother, on his half of the office. Rufus’ haunter had a calming effect on him; the exact opposite of what it did to almost anyone else.

“Who knows?” Abruptly, his face turned purple and devilish and he shivered slightly. “Dammit, Grim!” The thirty-three-year-old giggled as he said it. Harsh points loosely defining a translucent, triangular body of a purple that was nearly black came bouncing away from his face as the haunter cackled obnoxiously, holding its "chest" with a three-clawed hand.

“HAU, HAU, HAU!” The mood in the room immediately brightened as Skye laughed in return and Charlesworth condescended to telepathically chuckle, until twenty minutes later, when not even the ghost could muster more than a dry, breathless cough.

Rufus cleared his throat as though it were dusty. “We… we need to make some phone calls. Grim… start on the protocols. Charlesworth, you help him. Skye… did you… know?”

Skye just shook his head, his face ashen. He was paralyzed.

“Skye!” Rufus barked. His brother jumped, then self-consciously tapped his earring. “Take these.” He slid the pile of CD’s and flash drives over. “Find out what they mean and what they do. I’ll make the calls. For Christ’s sake, Skye. Grow some balls.” Wiping the thick sheen of sweat from his own forehead, Rufus picked up his landline phone, which had of course escaped the Cataclysm, and began punching in numbers. Today was a bad day.