|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 6:26 pm
The first call Kent made after leaving the apartment was to Tara's cell phone. Not that he particularly expected her to pick up, but he had to start with the basics. Unsurprisingly, there was no response. It didn't even ring. Instead, it played a message he had never heard before, about the caller being unavailable. Frowning, he hung up and hit redial, only to get the same result.
That was... ominous. But there was no time to dwell on that.
His next call was to Uncle Charles, on the off chance that Tara was just hanging out with Evie or Dana. He tried to stay calm, but suspected that he was doing a bad job. Uncle Charles asked if anything was wrong, and Kent couldn't really deny that. Going into detail would take too long though, and he couldn't explain everything. Instead, he asked if he could spend the night there, and promised to give a full report when he got there. That would have to do.
As he flipped through his phone's contact list, part of him wondered if he was making a big deal over nothing. He and Tara had fought before, and she'd always turned up eventually. But it had never been quite that bad before. Whatever he'd said, it had really shook her. And she'd all but told him that she wasn't coming back. The terrorist who may or may not have been her did say so, in no uncertain terms. And then there was the note.
Even if there was no foul play behind her disappearing act, the fact was that she was gone, and not likely to return anytime soon. Much as he wanted to pretend otherwise, he couldn't. Of the two of them, Tara had always been the more imaginative one, seeing worlds that he couldn't comprehend. It was something he admired about her, when she wasn't withdrawing to one of those imaginary realms, beyond his reach. All he could do was search for her in the world he could see, using the few connections he had left.
Laney’s and Yvette’s phone numbers were in his phone. Not because he was particularly chatty with either of them, but because Tara had spent the night at both places and he felt better having emergency contact information. Before this he’d never had to actually use them. The fact that he did now served to remind him of the urgency of the situation. Yvette hadn’t been by since he’d bumped into her in November, so he brought up Laney’s number first, his finger trembling as it pressed the "talk" button.
The phone rang, and he paced in the lobby of his building until it stopped ringing, when he started to talk before even the initial “hello” exchange. “Hi, is this Laney? It’s Kent- I mean, I’m Kent- Tara’s brother, we’ve met before. Is she with you? Tara, not you- have you seen her today?”
In any other circumstances, he would be embarrassed by tripping over his words so many times in such a short time. But right now, he was too frantic to care.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:55 pm
Laney could sort of feel her blood run cold. She shouldn't have, of course. Logically, someone had to be missing for over 24 hours before the law would do anything because most of the time they were just off somewhere, delayed, or had forgotten to leave a note or would otherwise come back on their own in due course. And Tara was a sailor senshi -- surely if she hadn't come home right away, it just meant she was handling some kind of senshi business and had gotten delayed -- she'd be by soon enough.
But Kent didn't exactly ring Laney's number over just anything. She couldn't remember them every really speaking on the phone, actually. And all day seemed like a bit much. If Tara was hurt somewhere and needed patching up, she'd have called Laney, right? Right?
"Oh, um, hi Kent," Laney stammered into the phone, matching Kent's nervous energy with her own. "No, I haven't seen her today, or heard anything -- that's, uh -- is she missing?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 8:13 pm
Kent liked Laney. He thought she was a good influence on Tara, making her a little more thoughtful, a little less prone to blowing up the kitchen when they were off doing whatever it was they did. But he hadn’t told the police what he really knew, and he wasn’t going to tell anyone else unless he had a damn good reason.
“I don’t know if she’s missing exactly,” he stammered. “We had a fight, and there was a break-in at home, and I can’t reach her. Maybe she’s just ignoring my calls.” Though considering the message he’d heard when he tried, he doubted it. “I just can’t find her, and I’m worried. For all I know she’s sulking at some cafe and has no idea what happened, but I have no idea where to look. Do you know any places she might go if she was… upset?”
There he was, clinging to the last vestige of hope that this was all the normal actions of a disgruntled twenty-something. Maybe he was more like Tara than he’d given himself credit for.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 8:21 pm
Laney winced. 'There was a break-in at home' was definitely a bad sign. Whatever they each got up to in their not-so-spare heroing time, one worrying rule that no one really talked about but everyone knew was that if the job followed you home, that was really, really bad. If something or someone had managed to uncover Tara's identity, had come to attack her where she lived . . .
It took Laney a moment to remember she was still on the phone. She tried to collect herself. She knew Kent probably noticed her lapses in conversation, the way she reacted with slight shiftiness -- but she hoped he might chalk it up to worry for her friend, for now. It was worry for her friend, after all. Just a bigger worry than she thought he knew.
In the end, Laney didn't really know how to answer Kent's question. The problem, she thought dismally, was that Laney didn't really know where Tara might go if she was upset. 'Upset' wasn't a thing Tara ever showed to Laney. To Laney, Tara was always a tower of strength, the bedrock on which Laney had built her life's foundation -- a reminder of the steadfastness of human curiosity and the ability of the human spirit to remain resilient and embrace progress in the face of adversity. Tara was Laney's north star. Laney knew how rare it was for Tara to let her see her facade crack.
Tara had always shouldered her burdens alone.
"You could try, um . . . " She wracked her brain for an answer that wasn't dead in an alley somewhere, felt her panic rising. Carmine would have some things to say about negative thinking, but Carmine only knew so much about her life, anyway. "Oh God, I don't know!" she burst out. "Um, the library, maybe, I guess. She's been on a research kick lately, so -- so maybe. I mean, what -- what kind of break-in? Was there, um, was there a lot of damage? Did it look like there was any kind of, like, an altercation?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 8:28 pm
The pause was definitely noticeable. Kent had to restrain himself from filling the silence with his own babbling. It wouldn’t be helpful, and he didn’t want to interrupt any forthcoming explanations. He knew that Tara was open with very few people these days. Laney was quite possibly his one chance to learn what was going on, to get a head start before she got too far-
Except that the only things she suggested were the usual suspects. The library was a good idea, but considering their argument, Kent rather doubted that Tara was hiding there. It would close and kick her out. Wherever she was, he suspected it was someplace she planned on holing up for a while. Hopefully just as long as necessary to teach him a lesson. Possibly a whole lot longer than that.
And then Laney was asking for more details and he didn’t know how to respond. He couldn’t leave her hanging- she would worry, and he might not get any more sense out of her- but he couldn’t be fully honest either. “The police said there wasn’t much evidence of a struggle.” Probably because the only real altercation had been entirely verbal, and he had lost. Badly. “It’s mostly just a mess. Stuff turned upside-down, or broken. The lock on the door’s busted pretty bad. Some things missing. Lots of food for some reason, some of her equipment, some of mine. Nothing worth breaking in for if you ask me.” And some of that hadn’t really been stolen to begin with.
Kent took a deep breath and began pacing, back and forth, up and down the stretch of the lobby. He needed more than this to go on, and Laney had to know something. If she didn’t, nobody did, and that was unacceptable. “The police think she’s just still out and everything’s fine, but I really don’t think so. When we were arguing, she said-” No, he couldn’t reveal that Tara might have run off on her own. But she had said something else of importance. Something it might be okay to reveal to Laney. Or maybe she knew already.
“She told me that she was in some kind of trouble. Something she didn’t want me involved in.” An opinion the terrorist had shared. Or expressed again, if that really had been Tara. Which he still wasn’t sure about, because that made no sense. “Do you know what she meant? I just wanted to help, but I pushed too hard, and now I don’t know- I just want to make sure she’s safe, okay? That’s all.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 8:51 pm
Now came the moment. The first time she really, truly had to decide how much she was going to lie.
Laney had never told her parents she was a knight. She'd never told them she went out at night to fight monsters, or that the cuts and bruises she came home with, she'd gotten from keeping monsters from eating people who hadn't been lucky enough to have as much power as she had to fight back. She didn't tell them not to worry about her.
She didn't have to.
They never even asked.
She couldn't imagine what it would be like to have someone who cared about her passionately and didn't know or understand what she was going through. Someone who was hurting for her, who was bearing the weight of her painful, horrific life without even knowing what the sorrow was that he carried, never fully able to help her carry it comfortably.
She had no loved ones to shield in ignorance who might've wanted it some other way. But now, on Tara's behalf, she had to decide.
What should she say?
Tara wouldn't have wanted Kent to know. She didn't want him to know, obviousy; she hadn't told him.
But she hadn't told Laney, either. And Laney knew she hadn't ever planned to. She would've gone to her grave taking her secret with her, she would've --
The phrase gone to her grave stuck in Laney's craw, chilling her bone-deep.
Tara was stubborn. Tara would fall over dead trying not to accept anyone's help. And if Laney let her, she just might.
"She'll kill me for telling you this," she sighed into the phone. "I really don't know where she is, but -- the terrorists you see on TV, they're not . . . There aren't any terrorists. Those are just people trying to fight to protect this city -- " This planet, this universe, she thought, but didn't want to sound more outlandish than she had to. " -- from things most people don't even believe exist. People trying to protect everyone they care about by fighting for them. People like Tara."
She waited to see if Kent was going to hang up and try calling one of Tara's saner friends.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 9:17 pm
“She’ll have to kill me first,” Kent muttered, wondering what the big deal was. Yes, Tara had been in life-or-death situations before. And he supposed Laney had too, if that was where they met. But that was more than five years ago, and anyway, he couldn’t imagine that any situation would be better without as much help as possible. Tara and Laney hadn’t busted their way out of the organ ring; they’d been rescued by the police. Which was the answer, it had to be-
He blinked. And then again, to make sure he was seeing properly, because he sure wasn’t hearing properly. Terrorists protecting the city? It sounded like one of the games that Tara made up when she was younger. And Laney was a sweet girl, but easily led. It was possible that all of this was just a game that got a little too real, taken too seriously by a couple of kids with overactive imaginations.
But what about that one girl? he thought. The only terrorist he’d met had saved him from some sort of clone. She’d been sad, worried. She’d tried to help him, even when he was angry and desperate. That didn’t sound like the M.O. of any terrorist organization.
“Assuming you’re right,” he said slowly, “and I’m not saying I buy this, but let’s pretend for a second. What are these so-called saviors protecting the city from?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 9:28 pm
Kent couldn't see it, but Laney winced. How was she going to answer this one? Monsters? Other, actual guerilla terrorists? The evil Negaverse army misguidedly trying to protect the Earth from aliens because of a misunderstanding that started hundreds and hundreds of years ago and which they'd all been reincarnated into fighting?
"This world isn't what it looks like," she hedged. "There are . . . people creating . . . dangerous beasts . . . that the government doesn't want anyone to know about. And the beasts they create get loose, or they're turned loose, on this city, to, to see what kind of damage they can do, and they don't care who they hurt. They think they're doing something necessary -- and they cover it up -- but people get hurt and die -- and there are other organizations of people trying to put a stop to it, trying to protect all the people who never asked to get involved. People like Tara who can help people, who put themselves out there because they can do amazing things. She's in one of those organizations."
There, she thought. Did that sound legitimate? Had she used enough grown-up-speak to translate the literal reality of their lives into something that was respectable enough to be given any credence? Or wouldn't it have mattered at all if she'd just said there were supernatural monsters eating people's crystallized souls and Tara was using her magic powers to smash them dead?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 9:47 pm
It was hard for Kent to listen. Harder still not to bust out laughing, because this sounded so much like something that Tara would make up. ‘The world isn’t what it looks like’ was practically a catchphrase of hers. For years she’d been talking about how there were really aliens, or monsters, or something else lurking in the shadows. That it was up to her to find the truth and make things right.
Except she’d stopped saying that kind of stuff when she came back from the organ ring. Not right away, but bit by bit. She’d stopped playing around, stopped laughing. Laney was one of the few people she smiled with. Kent wanted to think that it was because this game of theirs let her express emotions she couldn’t do in other circumstances. That was a much more reasonable conclusion than a group of people releasing experimental monsters on the populace.
But it didn’t explain how Tara could disappear from a locked room. Or where her injuries came from. Not just the big ones that resulted in hospital stays, but the little ones she hoped he didn’t notice, and he made sure not to bring up. It didn’t explain the very real fear that had had swallowed her up. Tara could get carried away and take things too far, but if this was a game that had originated in her head, he doubted it would take her down such a dark and lonely path.
“I don’t know if I should be taking this seriously or not,” because even though it explained things, it also made no sense. Tara was a kid, not some kind of magical hero. “But I can tell you do, and I’m sure she does, and I’m not going to insult you by calling you a liar when I know you’re trying to help. We can talk about it more later if you want, but right now I need to start searching. So is there anything else that you think I need to know? Anything that might help me find her?”
If the rest of the story was anything like the prologue, Kent wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. He already had a headache from trying to wrap his head around the situation. But Laney was being honest with him- or at least, she thought she was- and he had to honor that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 10:02 pm
That was a heck of a loaded question. There was so, so very much Kent needed to know if he was planning on going out and looking for Tara -- because, God -- but so much of it wasn't stuff he'd believe. Still, she was utterly cognizant of the fact that he was going to go out looking for Tara whether he believed Laney or not. So what could she tell him that he'd use?
"Listen to me. Please, this is so, so super important. If you're going out -- if you're going to look for her on the streets, which, I wish you wouldn't, but I get it, I do -- " She tried to slow her voice down a bit, get her thoughts in order before saying them. Carmine was always trying to help her with that, and it got worse the more she tended to freak out.
"If you go out, bring something with you. Bring the heaviest, sturdiest thing you can get away with. Like, a set of golf clubs or something -- do you have golf clubs? Do you play golf? Something like that. And if you see anything monstery, keep hitting it till you run out of golf clubs. Or run, okay? Or call me, I can -- I can try to come to where you are.
"And if you see anyone in like, anything that looks like kind of a weird military uniform, dark colors, or people that look like they have holes in their foreheads and are in, like, black sailor outfits -- stay back from them. Keep at least thirty feet between you and them as best you can, and if it looks like they might move, be ready to run. They can move faster, jump higher, and throw a punch stronger than anything you might think humans are supposed to be capable of. They're not good people, and they'd want to hurt Tara if they could. Please, please don't trust them. Don't tell them anything about you or about Tara that they could use to find her. Don't carry your driver's license with you or anything with your name on it.
"If you meet anyone else, though -- people in light-colored sailor outfits or -- uh, let's just leave it at people in light colors -- Tara's in a group called the Zodiac. You can ask for them."
Laney sighed. This was terrible. Tara was missing, and Kent was going out looking for her, and Laney wasn't sure what she could do to protect either of them.
"I'll keep trying her on her phone. I'll call you if I hear anything, okay?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 10:18 pm
That was a lot of detail for a game. Which, Kent supposed, was another hint that it was something much more serious than that. But since he couldn’t imagine how that was possible, he still didn’t know how to proceed, short of making note of Laney’s advice. “I, uh, don’t play golf.” True, he worked at a law firm, but he was a tech guy, not a lawyer with clients to schmooze. “But I’ve got an emergency tool in the car. That should be heavy enough.”
Oh god, listen to him. He was actually taking this seriously. What did it mean that he was worried enough to follow directions that sounded like they were taken from some bad sci-fi movie?
“Look, it’ll be fine, I promise.” It had to be, or he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. He didn’t promise to stay away from the bad guys, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to do that yet, but he still wanted to reassure her. “I’ll keep you posted. And yeah, let me know if you can reach her, okay? And tell her… tell her I’m sorry. She’ll know what it’s about.”
Kent’s thumb hovered over the END button on his phone, but he didn’t press it yet. He was going over everything he’d learned that afternoon in his head, trying to put the pieces together. But if they made a picture, it was one of the most abstract pieces of art he’d ever seen. There was no question he could ask that would clear things up. No clear path to take. He sighed. “Thanks for all the help, Laney. I really appreciate it.” Even if he had no idea what to do with it. Ending the call, he slipped the phone back into his pocket, leaned against the wall, and tried again to understand what the hell was going on.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
