Current
A Perpetual Motion Engine of Anxiety and Self-Loathing
Bio
So there I am, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, looking for one thousand brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night. So, Jeff Beck pops his head 'round the door, and mentions there's a little sweets shop on the edge of town. So - we go. And - it's closed. So there's me, and Keith Moon, and David Crosby, breaking into that little sweets shop, eh. Well, instead of a guard dog, they've got this bloody great big Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shopowner and his son... that's a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really. But, sure enough, I got the M&Ms, and Ozzy went on stage and did a great show.
The jangle of keys, the echoing clatter of sensible heels on hardwood, as the mathematics teacher of Caulfield Grammar picked up her pace for her first class.
A long disorganised line of students stood outside of the classroom, waiting to be let in.
She'd well enjoyed her break, and the second coffee was just starting to hit, as she fit the key in the lock and turned the handle.
As the door opened something seemed off in the darkness. Wrong. But without the light she couldn't tell what. She flicked the light on and gasped.
Behind her the students started to laugh, others began to sigh in frustration, others gaped upwards in wonder.
"So who's ready to get to work on non linear equations, Teach? Negative transformations today, right?" Banjo asked, from his now illuminated desk.
"Get. Down. From there."
"Negative transformations... does something to the parabola. Can't remember. Bah! That's alright, we'll learn it today..."
"Principal's office. Now!"
"Well... now that might be difficult..."
Every desk, every chair, was stuck to the ceiling. The posters that decorated the walls had been turned upside down, even the whiteboard at the front of the room, had somehow been detached and turned upside down in it's place. The markers and duster eraser had been attached upside down to the shelf of the whiteboard, either by glue or tape. Everything in the room had been moved. The attention to detail was impeccable.
"See... I'm wired in up here." He removed his hands from where he sat and remained unmoving, in his chair, at his desk, upside down on the ceiling. His grin widening further.
"OH! Upside down. Negative transformations make the parabola upside down. Write that one down... that'll be in the test, for sure..."
"OUT!"
- - -
A man in a disheveled suit and tie was led around the campus, in conversation by an older, more formal member of the faculty.
"--and as we leave the Science Wing, and pass through the Quadrangle to the otherside, we can now see the new Technical Studies, Electronics, Woodshop and Engineering Wing, which has recently been fleshed out in full."
"Nice. Nice. All above board. Pretty swanky." Banjo's minder said, as he looked around at the recently revamped facilities for the wing they evidently took so much pride in.
"Yes, I'm sure young-- what did you say his name was, Mr Ablett?"
"Errr-- Garry. Junior."
"Hmm..." Came the Principal's skeptical murmur.
"Two 'R's. I know. I hear it all the time. 'Isn't that like--?' No. No relation. Never heard it before we came to Melbourne, now it's all the time. 'Oh! Your name's like that footballer bloke'. 'Wha--! No. Two 'R's. But it's very similar.'"
"Anyway, I'm sure young... Garry. Ablett. Junior. Will make great use of this wing. Appeal to a lot of his fancies, yes?"
The Principal pointedly asked 'Garry Ablett Senior', holding aggressive eye contact until he finally caught the man's attention.
"With his... GREAT INTEREST in personal engineering and construction projects..."
The Butler finally caught the less-than-subtle pointedness of his comments, but was unable to place the why.
"I'm sorry. We'll be unable to accommodate your son at this given time. Please collect him from outside of my office on your way out..."
The rejection was met with bafflement.
- - -
"Wha-- What di-- Hooooooow?" The Butler stammered and stretched out, as the pair sat in the front of his car, presumably in search of a new school for the boy.
"Three day weekend." Banjo replied glibly, reaching up his sleeve, to try and uncoil cabling, before throwing it in the back seat.
"That's not a bloody answer!"
The boy furrowed his brows. "Isn't it?"
"How do you get yourself kicked out when I'm just getting the tour of the school?"
"Hey, it's not my fault you were too busy to do the tour until after I'd already started... I'd been there like a week and a half."
"THAT'S NOT... ...that's not the point I'm makin', mate. And you know it."
"I'm more surprised they kicked me out, rather than had me fix it first... They're gonna wreck that room tryin' to take it apart now. So dumb..." A slight melancholy hint on the statement despite having been there for such a short period of time.
"Need your bloody head read..." The Butler muttered re-doubling his focus on the road with a shake of his head.
Banjo rested his hand on the door handle, reading the name plate of Rory's aunt, Lillian Morse. Holding a beat, before he turned the handle and stepped inside. Closing it behind himself.
He sat down in the chair and turned to look back at the door and saw the bare patch where the hanging clock was missing. He chuckled to himself.
Awkward silence. More of the awkward silence, and trying to use the weight of the social situation to get him to speak.
Seven... Eight... Nine...
"Now, last time you were here, we discussed that I would have a look at the feed from the Trial setting. You didn't decline, which as has been stated here is a tacit agreement to my doing so."
Banjo gave a wide smirk, and his nostrils flared with a single sharp exhalation.
"We also discussed that if you weren't willing to open up and respond, that I would be making enquiries about you outside of this environment, with the purpose of... coming up with enough information, that I might be able to do part of my job here. That being, come up with suggestions, comments, thoughts that might make things easier for you to come to terms with things in your life. Again, without declining this was accepted as tacit agreement."
His eyebrows raised and the smirk didn't budge as he waited for what would surely follow.
"Well, I've since begun to undertake... both of these things."
"And I haven't spoken to Rory, because I felt given the circumstances there may be some form of conflict there, and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. But we'll start with the latter."
"So what I hear is that you--" "So, are we done here?" "--have a longterm girlfriend called Calliope DeLeon." She read off of her notes. "By all outside accounts you're very happy with her, and should be. You're majoring in Law. As is she. A lot of people have... very strong opinions on you." His smirk widened.
He wanted to say "Is that it?" but bit his tongue and just sat and let the words wash over him like a rock before the incessant tides.
"Does that all sound... accurate?"
Another question to draw response. Met with obstinate silence and a mildly amused expression. Lillian let the question hang for an uncomfortably long time.
"And I'm assuming that your decision to come here dressed in that uniform is probably either some kind of statement, or call for attention."
Banjo kept tight-lipped about the fact that he'd seen Rory wearing his own, although he couldn't be certain that in Rory's case he hadn't merely forgotten. He kept tight-lipped just in general.
"Would you like to move on to the events of the Trials?"
Another uncofortably long silence. Eventually punctuated by another singular nostril flared exhalation.
"So, what exactly is your relationship with this Haven Barnes?"
Another uncomfortably long silence. A provocative question. Getting desperate for response now, he felt.
"The two old--" "So, are we done here?" "--er men who appeared..? Were they both teachers of yours?"
Another lengthy pause of awkward, uncomfortable silence.
"How long have you had claustrophobia?"
Banjo's expression went from a cocky smirk, to one of disappointment.
"Really? We both know THAT would be on file."
He rocked his head back and stared at the ceiling. Amusement starting to wane and giving way to disinterest.
"I notice your limp is still there. Is there anything you want to share in regards to that?"
Complete disinterest.
Just pull the file. We both know you could just pull the file.
"Are you harbouring any resentment regarding that? Especially since it appeared to come from someone sharing the appearance of Calliope? Do you feel there was anything subconsious there? Again, do you think there could be any ties to how you view this Haven Barnes person?"
She pepered a few questions in. More provocation. Obvious provocation at that. The interest returned in the form of humoured amusement.
"The people older than you, all seem to take up antagonistic roles in your own Trials and how you see your life. Do you think this rings--?"
His head rocked back with a bored snap and he just stared at the ceiling shaking his head at it all. She interrupted her own question, she was so taken by the dramatic act of boredom, since it was an actual response to what was being said.
"So, are we done here?"
She checked her watch. Thirteen minutes. He'd gone early. What did that mean?
"What exactly are you hoping to gain from any of this?"
More prolonged painful silence.
"There are a few therapeutic methods to dealing with claustrophobia, if you would like us to possibly visit some of the--"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
He cried out. Breaking the silence.
"You know... you never realise how long an hour is, until you just keep repeatedly getting subjected to the same bullshit over... and over... and over... and over again. And then you can see on the horizon, that that same bullshit will be coming around next time as well."
Lillian looked shocked as he finally broke the social surface tension of the wordlessness.
"I get told I talk a lot... and I do. But I can take the awkward, prolonged silences. They're a doddle. I can handle them standing on my head. I can appreciate the provocative bullshit as an effort to get me to say anything, even in anger. It's just the repeated gearshift... crunching... back to the stupid... and tedious... It's bloody brutal." He gestured changing through the stickshift, and double clutching.
"I was actually gonna talk today, and then I got distracted by seeing how this was goin'. I thought there might actually be somethin' reasonable to discuss before I came. So how about I kick off?"
"My leg hurts me. For the most part it's okay. I got given painkillers but I don't much like the thought of taking them because I know what can happen. It doesn't normally start to hurt until I'm about two or three hours overdue for one." He rattled a small pill bottle. "But the pain isn't what's fucking hurting me. This is buggering up m' whole lifestyle. Diet. They've got me on a bullshit exercise and physiotherapy regime... I'm expected to do not only in my own time, but they also want me going for a daily physio session where I'm subjected to fresh Hell, because of the exercises they want me to do and they want some of it supervised so that my solo form isn't doing more harm than good. I hate it. As a general rule, I want to be left the fuck alone. And everything to do with THAT and this." He went from pointing to his leg, to swirling his finger around gesticulating to everything in the therapist's office. "Is not my bloody scene."
Lillian scrawled as fast as she could trying to take it down.
"I feel guilty because I feel I got off light compared with everyone who was stuck in there, and because I figured it out... twice. And then got overconfident and let this happen to me. So now I get to deal with the product of my own stupidity, branding me and screwing me over for three months, possibly longer. I usually am one to get irritated in life from time to time, but right now, I'm mad all the fucking time. Even when I don't show it."
Mad. Feelings of anger. She double underlined.
"I'm madder than a cut fuckin' snake. But I feel I got off light, and everybody else around me, if you've seen them, has clearly had it worse. So I've no right to shove it in any of their faces. I feel I owe it to them to keep things light around all of 'em, and it's worse for everyone else I come across who didn't go through it because 'Fuck 'em. Someone's gotta eat it'. And the worst part is, I'm mad about shit that most people have to deal with on a daily basis. What right do I have to be mad about having to eat right, exercise, and not use powers that most people on the fuckin' planet don't have anyway? So I'm mad. I'm mad about shit that I KNOW is stupid to be mad about, and it's the only thing relating to all of that which is still really bothering me."
"Calli's awesome. But somethin's askew. We're not talkin'. Not really. But again, I know she's been through worse than me, and I'll be damned if I'm going to dump my shit on her when she hasn't had time to process her own yet. To repeat, she's great. And if you say shit about her again, or imply shit with Haven, I'll shut down and get transferred and I don't give a fuck how much stupid I have to eat and keep my mouth shut through."
"And Haven's basically been like a sister to me. We came up through similar shit. Maybe you'd like to ask that question to your nephew instead. Likewise about the uniform. Fuck 'conflict', you want me to talk, you get the good with the bad."
"So, are we fuckin' done here?"
Finally, there was another pregnant pause in the room. But despite how long it hung in the air, it didn't feel nearly as awkward of uncomfortable as any of the previous. Perhaps it was that Lillian filled it with the scratching of a pen, or perhaps it was because it meant there was momentum now. A direction.
Banjo rubbed the palms of his hands into his eyes, working up to easing the bridge of his nose, before running his hands through his hair.
"The medical term is 'Peripheral neuropathy'. Irony of it is, that it could have been caused either by repeated deep shock from the Augmented Reality suits, or by an actual icicle through the leg."
Banjo stared blankly.
"Okay. Too close to it to appreciate the irony." Murmured the doctor to himself. "The next one and a half, to three months are going to be all important in your recovery."
"So you want me to keep off of it for a month and a half..."
"Oh God no! No. No-no-no. That's the worst thing you could do. No, this is going to take rehabilitative work. A lot of exercise. A steady amount of work to keep blood flow to the region..."
"Wait-- You said it's the nerves. So what if I just gave it the full bloody sun clea--" He looked down at his legs and got to his feet.
The doctor held out a hand to stop him. "Well, with what little we've been able to ascertain about your powers that COULD possibly clear your nervous system from this issue, but--" The doctor gave an uncertain wince. Banjo didn't care for the familiarity in his bedside manner.
"But--?"
"Well, it COULD clear your nervous system of the issue, but if it failed at that... the way your powers work, it could also possibly fall short. Not fix the problem, and then your body treats its current state as the new normal. Making the damage more... long term." Banjo scrutinized the doctor deeply. "Possibly permanent."
"So wait-- You're saying, I'm not just going to be expected to rehab and exercise the leg, but you're telling me to lay off my powers altogether until the rehab's done?
"Well, that depends. When you use your powers are you able to isolate them to different body parts, prevent your legs from being used and affected?"
He screwfaced at the question. "Well, I mean, a bit, yeah. I can't just turn it off for one leg though."
"We wouldn't want you to anyway. Your body would be assymetrically developed and more prone to other injury." The doctor turned and started writing on a pad.
"What are you writin' now?"
"Oh, umm... since you won't be able to balance your nutrition with your powers as you normally do, we're going to actually have to put you on a strict diet as well. Anything else we should need to know, where you lean on your powers for?"
"You're saying I shouldn't be smokin' anymore."
The doctor laughed. "Well, as a doctor, I'm NEVER going to tell you that you should be smoking, but for the next three months, don't even think about it."
"Now, I've got a script here for a steroid, but it'll likely take a while for it to make it's way here. We have a hyperhuman here who can create chemical compounds, but he goes off the island in the holidays, just got back and he's working on backlogs. The steroid's not urgent to your rehabilitation anyway, but when it's done we'll call you in. I'm leaving you some literature, follow it, to the letter."
"How about alternative medicine?" Banjo asked dourly, as he read 'Limit blood sugar' and immediately translated it in his own mind to 'Avoid Flavour'.
"What did you have in mind?"
"A bullet? Right between the eyes?"
"Ha! It's not that bad. At most three months." The doctor got to his feet in a not-too-subtle-suggestion that Banjo should get the fuck out of his office.
"You can be a good boy for three months, can't you?"
The last thing Banjo got out before the door closed behind him.
"I really wish you phrased that a different bloody way..."
Banjo's room cracked open. Zimmerman and Big Steve turned to the door with a half gasp, before realising they'd stopped what they were doing and going back to continuing with their early morning preparation.
Banjo stepped out with a subtle limp in a full Strigidae uniform, nodding at the pair and opening the refrigerator, before closing it again, realising he couldn't eat anything in there.
"Coffee?"
"Fun fact: Coffee is a stimulant which can inhibit nerve signals and worsen peripheral neuropathy." A fake broad smile dropping into a dour grimace.
"So that's a... 'No'..?"
"That's a 'No'. But cheers, I would've loved one. So... points for askin' I guess."
Mornings had been difficult of late. The leg was less of an issue by this point for his getting out of bed, than the lack of caffeine had been for keeping him out of it. Similarly, the occasional shooting pains were far less of an intrusion on his life, than the way it affected his diet and lifestyle.
If the joker in the Mess Hall tried to tell him one more time that 'tuna is brain food', he was gonna take old mate's boat out to sea himself, come back and club him with a yellowfin.
Alex had been incredibly excited to grill him after it happened. Mainly because the rest of the student body had been led away and he'd heard the 'Force' were on the scene at the eventual rescue of his team from the Trial. A fact Banjo neither was aware of, nor gave a shit about, and had nothing to tell them about what they were like.
Mornings with him had been like walking on eggshells.
"Oh! They pulled the uniform! You know you... don't have to... wear that anymore, right..?"
Halfway through the question, Alex saw Big Steve shaking his head and making a 'Cut it' gesture with his hand by his neck, but it was too late.
Banjo walked up uncomfortably closely to him. "Zimmerman... I appreciate that you think you're givin' me helpful information. But right now. My life sucks. Fuckin' with these people is pretty much all I have right now. That and my girl. So don't suggest takin' fuckin' with these people away from me again. Cheers, mate."
He turned and walked out the door.
"Yeah, he... he already knew about the uniforms."
Banjo limped around the A.R.C to get to the farm from the backway. Within its heavy structure resided the equipment to create another scenario similar to what they'd all endured, and if it had been used in the few days since, he suspected it was just for a full diagnostics testing run to ensure that the issues within the temporary augmented reality facility they constructed on the plateau hadn't found their way here.
Waiting in their usual spot were the four freshmen in plain clothes. Their houses would have been a mystery if they hadn't chosen to wear corresponding coloured handkerchiefs around their arms, with team armbands on the opposite side.
It hadn't been a schoolwide trend, but he supposed for the first years it probably helped make things clearer, maybe even a conversation starter.
They clammed up as he started to approach with a conspicuous silence, which bothered Banjo more than their usual nattering.
"Alright, what is it?"
The mousey brunette spoke up for the group, after the rest held tight-lipped silence.
"Umm... is your name Banjo?" She asked. He suddenly felt eight eyes glued on him awaiting an answer to confirm things they'd heard. He'd been waiting for this moment. And not with excitement.
The name listed for the supervising person on duty for the farm, in charge of monitoring their Community Contributions was 'Andrew Olyphant', something he was in no hurry to dispel these few freshmen from believing - contrary to his usual behaviour. Because he suspected his treatment would have them complaining or asking about him to older kids, and that name was almost an afterthought for how long-timers thought of him after his five years here.
He stuffed his tongue in his cheek as he considered how to answer it, whether he should lie, and how long he'd get away with it undiscovered of he did.
Finding the juice to not be worth the squeeze he thought better of it.
"Yeah, why?"
The four conferred excitedly in front of him, as if he wasn't standing right there. He sighed loudly. This was going to be a distraction. They were going to do that stupid thing where they stare at him, like he can't realise they're staring at him. Or the worse thing, where they'll whisper to each other right in front of him.
"Alright, there's four of you. One question each. Then we either get to work or you piss off to class, I don--"
"You don't need any of us."
"You're damn right. Lonely Hearts? Wanna kick us off? Or is Next-to-blondie feelin' bold today?"
"Did you punch Hyperion in the face?"
"What? That rumour's like five years old. Lemme guess, it was some pig-faced lookin' senior over in Lutra who told you that one? No. I've never punched Hyperion in the face."
"Her name's Bethany."
"I didn't say a name. Or give a gender. But all of you note that Lonely Hearts immediatiely knew who I was referring to from that description. Who's next?"
"Did Hyperion's ghost stab you in the leg in the Trials the other day?!" 'Hugh' more exploded, than asked.
"That's an even dumber question than Lonely Hearts'... and another Yes or No question to boot. You're not very good at this, are ya?" He said to the group with a laugh.
"So which is it?" He re-directed back to the question.
"Did I get stabbed in the leg by Hyperion's ghost a few days ago..? No." He shook his head in a state of disbelief.
"Is there really a place here where kids can get drunk, and where is it?" Blondie asked.
A wry smirk crossed his face, part in relief that it wasn't just all descending into bullshit they'd heard people say about him.
"Yes. Better question too. See, stick with Blondie, she'll do right by ya. You know that building you were livin' in until they figured out what House to shove ya in? It's in around there. Sound-proofed too. It'd bloody wanna be. Bloody Ryan's caterwaulin' once she gets a skinfull..." He exhaled deeply. Lonely Hearts went tight lipped as if he'd been told some kind of secret, and Next-to-Blondie snickered at the way he was discussing one of the Reps.
"Well, what exactly happened in the Trials? We got told that it was something to do with Hyperion and you and some janitor who worked here." Next-to-Blondie finally asked her question. A re-worked open question that looked into rumours they'd heard which apparently started this whole thing.
"As far as I know..? Someone dicked around with the inner-workings of the thing. Pulled the safeties. Played into the fears of a lot of good people. And also me. But Hyperion? I dunno. When I was younger, and I suspect you lot heard this much, he came on down here with his goon squad about the same time of year, and I told him in no uncertain terms to kindly go fuck himself - with or without the kindness. His response was to tell me he was comin' back for me, and hurl my sorry arse into a hospital bed for a good while. He wasn't a subtle sort, and neither were his followers, best I could tell. I mean, he'd plan. But when he'd make a move the message was big. Big show of force. The way I figure, if they were makin' that kind of move they'd have come at me hard. If it were them trying to make an example of us, I'd have figured they'd have made it their business to get in my face about it."
He looked at the group and they seemed disquietened. It hadn't occurred to him before that the school's line kept things 'neat'. There was a bad guy. The bad guy died. He ad some followers. They were caught and apprehended and the main one blew himself up. Neat bow. Questions and doubts as to whether they were actually the ones behind it all in the first place, muddied up a lot of waters. And left a lot of scared people unsure of how to feel or act. He'd never really considered things like that before. Questions were just questions. The means to find answers. When he was young he never really gave a shit about those questions scaring peole like him and his own age. But now he was five years older, and the people being scared seemed more--
"Or maybe I'm just an idiot and concussed... being on the inside wasn't exactly the best place to see what was goin' on anyway."
--seemed a lot more vulnerable.
"Gotta get stuff fed and milked anyway. So if you're stayin' you're workin', if you're goin' you're goin'. Only have half as many legs worth a damn at the moment, so I gotta make a move."
The four split into their pairs and fed the chickens and milked the cows in relative silence.
Lillian Morse shuffled through her files and paperwork as she planned out her day's sessions. Earlier it had been intended that her nephew Rory Tyler would assist her with this in the mornings, but he'd apparantly been given additional undisclosed duties and had been quite rattled by the events surrounding the Homecoming Trials.
Coincedentally, the first student she'd be seeing today was one he happened to be familiar with.
Probably far more familiar with than she was at this point, despite the fact that this would be his third session.
Lillian was the fifth therapist he'd been moved to at this point, and so far he had said no more than sixty words in a session.
No less than that either.
So far, the two sessions prior had mimicked what notes relating to his last few therapists stated they had taken.
He'd sit in the chair. Uncharacteristically say nothing, even when queried, and every five minutes, just as the second hand swept passed the twelve he'd utter "So are we done now?" whether or not she was talking.
The last session she removed the clocks from the room. He counted the seconds in his head and still did the same.
They'd told him he wouldn't be allowed off the island because of the lack of progress in therapy. He didn't display any visible signs of caring.
Jim had transferred him to Lillian's patientload under the logic that being Rory's aunt and guardian might lead to him seeing her more as a person, and less as an 'other', therapist or faculty.
It wasn't the worst idea, the notes in his file over the years showed an intense distrust for faculty, therapists, reps and basically anyone who would enter the teaching profession.
But it wouldn't be enough. She'd have to find another angle if she was going to make any inroads at all of getting him to be in any way receptive to therapy. He was quite possibly the most stubborn case she'd ever encountered.
Every aspect had complexities to consider, and balance. Even things that would usually be not only straightforward, but mundane. Right down to his name. Should she refer to him as 'Banjo' as he has made it abundantly clear he prefers, or is this ceding too much to him? Also, to call him 'Andrew' could be seen as a breach of trust due to the connection of that name to his past from a former therapist. She'd been open and transparent about not only her own powers, but also the limitations of those powers.
That being, that she was a telepath - an issue for him, because of a previous therapist - but also her limitations, that she could only utilise it through touch. Which seemed to prevent it from becoming a larger issue. He still wasn't receptive, but he didn't seem openly hostile or defensive as the revelation of her telepathy brought out in his expression at first.
It was transparency necessary to bridge trust. But whatever trust that had bought, was so far yet to pay off. Still sixty words a session. Every session. She'd have to try something new, or he'd be transferred again, not that the next person would likely fare any better. They were starting to run out of qualified therapists on staff. More troubling still, he was smart enough to know it, and probably more than a little curious about what they'd do once he'd been through them all with no results. Another thing to work against.
Last session she said that if he wasn't willing to talk about what he'd experienced in the Trial setting, that she would have to view what he'd endured. It had been difficult, and only moreso because it also made her wish she could also be made privvy to what Rory endured as well, but he was not a patient, and there was a conflict of interests there which prevented that from being possible.
She'd also told him that if he wasn't willing to open up and talk in session, she'd have to ask more questions ABOUT him OUTSIDE of this setting.
She'd laid the foundations, made it clear and kept things as transparent as possible, he seemed completely unperturbed by this at the time, but she had made some basic inquiries.
He had a girlfriend, long-term, named Calliope De Leon who was also on his team and been in the same tragic incident. His behavioural records seemed supported by peer comments, if anything they were perhaps underdone in the records. And he divided opinion, although most were overwhelmingly negative in their opinions of him based on interaction.
A few people closest to him suggested his mood had seemed a little darker of late.
The question was now how to use this information.
He walked in the room, closing the door behind him and sat down in the chair.
She noted he was dressed in full Strigidae uniform, despite the dress code having been lifted.
Probably in spite of it.
He looked over the door. The clock was still gone. He chuckled to himself.
Calliope strode forward, looking for any indication the others were nearby. If she got through her room, surely Banjo and Gil did too. Though if it was anything like hers, the torment and trauma was nothing to sneer at.
Her footsteps echoed along the walls until she heard a voice and....was that a click of a gun?
It happened in a blur. The fear, the panic, the confusion. She knew it had to be an illusion. Another figment courtesy of whoever locked them in here. That didn't make it any less real. Or less painful as a moment of relief was soon shattered like glass as the gun went off.
Calliope felt pain, unlike anything she had experienced before. The sides of her vision darkened as she looked around. She did everything in her power not to look at her leg, knowing if she did it would unnerve her more. Butler's words still danced around in her mind. Again, the simulations knew what to say to dig into her fears and worries.
"G'day love. Seems you found yourself in a pickle."
The voice came from beyond her scope but she recognized the accent. She wanted to cry out, both from fear and hope. He had found her like she knew he would. She heard his footfalls get closer and closer until she could see the shadow form. She looked and saw....well...it was Banjo all right.
But not her's.
The Banjo she knew was not this put-together. She often joked how he would roll out of bed and just tackle the day, but it was true more often than not. She had to be the one to beg him to wear actual decent clothes when going out. This Banjo was well-dressed in a dark blazer and colored button-down shirt that accentuated his frame. Tailored slacks fell upon loafers that Banjo would never be caught dead in.
Much like how Frigid and the other Katja came into the scene before, this had to be Banjo's twin.
"Got you good in here, didn't they? Say the word, love, and I'll whisk you away from here."
"B-Banjo?" she asked through labored breath.
He chuckled and shook his head. "Always hated that nickname. It's Andrew, love. You can admit it, you hate the name too."
Calliope tried to move to see better but she felt her arm buckle a bit, knowing if she tried further she would just hurt herself more. Banjo, or Andrew supposedly, stepped around, kneeling down to face her. "I don't know what you see in us, darling. You have to know the messed up stuff we went through. Your's is a cakewalk compared to ours. Let's call it what it is: princess slummin' it to stick it to daddy. Am I right?" His question was punctuated with a grin.
Calli clenched her fist. Andrew seemed to pick up on it. "Hit a nerve, did I? You're too good for him and you both know it. There's no effort there. If I had you to myself I would scream it to the world. When is it Calli's time to get her flowers?"
Calli took some deep breaths, feeling angry and scared in equal measure. "I..don't need...to be in..the spotlight...content...with where I am.."
Andrew tsk'd her. "We both know that's not true. Sure, you tell everyone within radius you're fine when we all know you need that pedestal. How else are you going to be saved if no one can even reach you?"
Calliope closed her eyes, willing Andrew to go away. She needed to think, to figure out how to save herself before she bled out.
"One day you will realize the toxic nature you both perpetuate being in proximity of each other. I only wish you figure it out before the damage is permanent. See you around, love." With a flick of his hand he turned and walked back down the corridor. Calli wanted to call out. Even he wouldn't just leave her here.
She reached out into the inky blackness that remained. Someone had to find her. To...help her.
Banjo stopped stammering and shaking and concentrated on breathing.
Breathe first. Then think. Then move.
He straightened up in the duct, and got his bearings. Looking behind him was a walled up section, which made it an easy decision as to what way to go.
This place is all augmented reality. Maybe she's not even dead. Maybe it's bullshit. But everyone IS in trouble. So you've got to move. But everything in order. Breathe. Think. Move.
After a few more deep breaths he started to crawl onwards through the ducting. It bent hard to the right up ahead and he paced himself, nervous of the sound he made as he progressed, and unsure how vulnerable that noise made him.
Rounding the corner he came to a section of ducting that was filled with small pinholes of light on all sides, and the far end of the ducting showed light at the end of the tunnel.
Buoyed with optimism for a possible way out he crawled faster, until a voice echoed in his ears.
"G'day."
"All good, champ. I've got it figured from here."
"Not why I'm here..." The disembodied voice of Mamili's uncle called back. Darker in tone this time. Banjo sensed the shift. "And did you just 'champ' me..?" The dark voice ominously asked.
"Aww Hell..." Banjo muttered, realising his error from the breached social taboo from back home.
Suddenly the pin prick lights started to swirl and change shape, colours and forms burst from the black walls like the canvas of the night's sky.
"Want another tale, white boy? More of our culture to misapprorpriate? Wasn't enough your ancestors slaughtered and enslaved us in bunches... stole our children..."
"God damn it! I called this! The real one's thousands of miles away! And this isn't even close to what he was like!" Banjo tried to grab hold of the sides of the duct to steady himself as the lightshow swirled and disorientated him.
"In the beginning there was the Rainbow Serpent..." Swirls of lights combined to form a multi-coloured snake, which coiled and sprang at Banjo through the darkness. He ducked beneath the snake with a clatter as he sprawled onto the floor of the metal tube. His breathing and his heart rate spiked.
He glanced behind him and could see the snake wasn't done with him. Somehow, despite being born from the lights that surrounded him it had gained physical form, and an ability to exist beyond just that flat plane.
It reared up and hissed aggressively, rainbow coloured coils of pinks, oranges, greens and yellows finding purchase upon themselves.
"Shit... Again." He slid to the right as it struck out with another lunge again. Once more only finding air before landing with another thump on the metal. But how long would that be the case while his movements were limited in this enclosed tube?
"A supposed snake out of myth and legend... what're the odds whoever's runnin' this picked a venomous one to play your part?"
The snake hissed, and turned back on itself again.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. Don't suppose you'd like to go find y'rself some kind of rat or other vermin in around these ducts, eh?"
It once again arched itself up on it's coils and held a menacing demeanour, ready to strike.
"I take it ya mean you like the look of the vermin ya picked already, eh? Well... shit."
It lunged again, and once more, Banjo flattened himself against the floor of the duct and let it pass by overhead.
"Can't keep doin' this. Sooner or later I'm gonna pick wrong."
Banjo turned to face the snake, as it re-positioned itself for another attack. Squaring up and staring straight at his serpantine aggressor.
"You would FIGHT the Rainbow Serpent?! The Creator?!" The voice of Uncle Motlop screamed. It was a barely human distortion of his voice, which made Banjo almost sick to hear.
But it hadn't played it's last card. Lights swirled. The snake coiled. Uncle unleashed a blinding flash. Strike!
Banjo snatched at the snake with his left, grabbing it just behind the head, mere centimetres from his face.
It wrapped it's coils around his wrist and writhed to free itself, unable to get leverage on it's head to sink its fangs anywhere.
"Heh. Heh-heh-heh. How'd ya like that? Gotcha."
Slowly at first, the snake started to expand. More coils wrapped up his arm, as the snake then grew in width. It grew bloated and wide, and the duct seemed to shrink even more than Banjo already felt it had. He had to clutch the snake with both hands. Then wrap himself around it's back, behind its head to keep it from striking at him.
"Aw f'r fucks sake..." He was now stuck riding the thing, as it's coils slammed themselves and him into the sides of the duct, trying desperately to pry him off. Unless he could think of a way to--
Oh.
Banjo breathed, then let his breathing halt, as his body turned black and he felt the familiar rush, he soaked in the light Uncle had filled the duct with to try and blind him. His body turned cold, and frost began to cross the snake's face, as it listed far slower in its movements. It began to enter a hibernation state. Shrinking back to its previous size again. As it fell limp, Banjo threw it down the duct with a black arm. It landed with a thud and didn't make any moves at all, until the colours faded, and its light was once again taken and repurposed for this place.
"Lawlessness. You would kill the order bestowed by the Rainbow Serpent?"
"Piss off." Banjo grumbled. He was tired of this. Watching people he knew twisted and perverted for use, if they weren't being killed horribly in front of him as some sort of a message. He tried to power down.
"But then that was alway going to be your role. Destroyer. Devourer. ...Tiddalik."
"Tiddalik..? Are you takin the piss--?" Suddenly 'Uncle' shifted the lights, the whole duct went bright and pulsated with light so strongly he could feel it in his throat and in his ears. He kept feeding. For some reason he found himself unable to stop.
"You know your place in this world..."
His surroundings went black and he was taken to a place. A city. A dour dystopia of huddled masses in thick clothes struggling for their last moments of survival. Those poor people who were still alive tried to flee. Banjo was feeding. More. Above a building, from a dying world's skyline he could see what remained of the sun - the darkened embers of it's core struggling to hold flame in the face of entropy.
"Heh. Ha ha..." Banjo slowly chuckled.
"So this--" He swirled his finger around, gesturing at everything. "Let me get this straight. This is what you've got on me? Hahahaha..."
"I was brought here to teach me how to get a hold of my powers. And THIS was never a concern. Not a real one. The fear of a dumb kid who didn't know better, maybe. But not really. I just didn't use 'em because I was scared of it. Heh-heh."
Actually seeing his fear from so long ago actually play out in front of him made him realise how absurd it actually was. How foolish. Made even worse by the fact that it was still a nagging little fear toying with the back of his mind on occasion - as evidenced by the fact that it had been brought to the fore here.
"I was a dumb, naive kid who was smart enough to be an idiot. I learned about the nature of entropy and the heat death of the universe and thought it could be theoretically possible I could play a part in it. But two things; first, I couldn't do this by myself, and second, it wouldn't happen like this if I could. This is all you have though, isn't it? You're working off of fears and insecurities. Doesn't matter if they don't make any sense. Just like my stupid nightmares. And I'll tell you right now, it's havin' the same effect. You're just pissin' me off."
"And you're blendin' stuff, to the point where it no longer makes sense. I get the vents... playin' up to my claustrophobia. Smart. But the Rainbow Serpent... it's a creator myth. It's movements create rivers and terraform the earth. It's not fittin' in a bloody air conditionin' duct."
"And Tiddalik wasn't a kookaburra, like the old bloke you're playin' long tried to beat into my head. He was a big arsed frog. Heh-heh-heh."
Banjo gave a wry smirk.
"And when he laughed, everythin' went back to normal. BA HAHA HA HA HA!" Banjo erupted into obnoxious laughter, hoping to break through its own programming. He kept cackling with laughter until...
He found himself powered down and back in the duct.
"Ho-lee shit. That actually worked." He started crawling again.
Just goes to show... It's all about mind over mind over hard-light not-really-matter. It plays to your fears, but if you keep your wits about you, a clear mind, its not really that hard or unsaf--
The airconditioning duct crashed twelve feet to the floor below in an open hallway. Banjo groaned and rolled out of the broken metal, onto his back.
"Uggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."
Thoroughly battered and bruised, like he'd been left in a clothes dryer. Every part of him ached. Slammed and smushed against the sides of the duct with the snake, mentally drained from watching the rest of his team in turmoil or taken by death, and now dropped from a great height with no hope of a soft landing.
His body ached everywhere.
Through hazy eyes, he can barely see two legs and a slim lower half running towards him out of focus. The figure runs up to him and kneels down next to him. "Banjo? Oh my God, are you Okay? What the Hell happened? Please say something."
"Hun? Shit... Hey. You made it through. We both... made it through. You in better shape than me, by the looks..."
She shakes her head. "They really messed me up, Banjo. Made me see things, question things. What are we even doing? There's no point continuing this lie we keep pushing forward. Everyone on the team thinks it. Fuck knows I've had my doubts for a while now."
"Lie..?" The word, the question, caught in his throat, as he struggled to turn over to face her better, through no small amount of pain.
"We are two different people, Banjo. We come from messed up backgrounds. There's no future in that. I was quick to be with you to stick it to my father and I fell into the belief we could make it work. What kind of relationship could there be?"
"Oh. That." He accepted it without question. He'd been waiting for that coin to drop for five years.
But now..? We're going to do this now? I'm in bloody pain here...
"But nothing's changed there. That was the same case before. And you even took time to reconsider things when you realised that the first time."
"Yeah, and do you know how long that's been weighing on my mind? The looks people give me? Everyone knows our relationship started on a lie. I rushed into it. No..."
She pauses a moment.
"You pushed me into it. It was bad enough I felt so guilty, but you made me feel worse. The clinginess. The secrecy. Hell, I didn't even know where you came from for a long time and even then, even now, you secrets from me. Tell me honestly, can we recover from that? Should we recover from that?"
"I can't imagine how people look at ya. Because I've never really given a pinch of shit how anyone's looked at me. So I guess I'm sorry for that. But secrecy? I didn't know where I came from... and as soon as I found out, I told you. And ONLY you. Nobody else 'round here knows any of that. The main stuff I don't tell you is stuff I don't know, so what else is there to-- oh."
He grunted, shuffling slowly to get his free arm to the inside of the AR suit, through the leg of the pants.
"Hold on. Nothin' suss..."
He pulled out the crinkled pack of Winfield Blues and his zippo.
"I smoke. Is that what ya talkin' about? Because that's about the only thing I can think of that I haven't told ya. It gives me somethin' to do with my hands. Helps me think. And my hype power cleans it right out of me. Thought it was pretty victimless. You want me to kick it I could. Anytime. Juicin' cleans the nicotine right off my synapses. But that's about the only thing I can think of..."
"God Banjo, how stupid can you be? It's not about some fucking cigarettes. You expect me to believe there's a world you know nothing about and, what, I'm supposed to just accept that? You know everything about me but you hold so much unknown. For all I know, you were a serial killer child who messed up animals. I care about appearances, Banjo. That should have been obvious Day 1. Look at you, and look at me. We come from two different worlds. This isn't a Disney movie, we don't deserve happily ever afters. You certainly don't."
"Well... for one, if I were some child psychopath, then there'd probably be some signs of that in the time since where I have had my memories. But yeah, everything about me that I know... you know. Can't argue with what I deserve, but. So I won't. Is that what this is? Appearances? Reckon you'd be happier with someone else?" He asked, laying out breadcrumbs.
He shook the crinkled box until the end of a single smoke popped clear, and put it to his lips.
"Of course! You know the way Gil looks at me. You don't think I see your jealousy whenever he so much as greets me? He would be ideal. Someone my father would actually appreciate. You're not exactly ' Family Dinner' material."
He lit up, and rocked his head back. Confirming something to himself.
"Hell, can't argue that, neither."
He took a long draw.
"Though I will say... I don't much care for the fact that Gil ties into my fears and insecurities in any bloody way at all."
He blew out smoke.
"...or maybe the fear is that you might see it as that way."
Calliope looked at Banjo in shock before she let her face fall. Shaking her head. "Guess I laid it on too thick, huh?"
"Hey, I was just givin' you enough rope to hang yourself by pivoting from the pair of us not deserving happiness, to contradictin' yourself that there'd be someone else. You're the one who went full blown Daddy's Girl. Nup. Not my gal. No way, no how."
Calliope, no... Frigid let the facade drop as she stood up, blue highlights now appearing as she turned to him, a sneer on her face. She lifted her leg and stomped down on Banjo's knee. "Good, then I can do what I actually want to you. I can even make it hut more by telling you what's actually happening to your precious Calli."
"Nggg!" He grunted in pain. "Juicy bloody chrysanthemums" He exclaimed, clutching at his knee.
"I know... that my first source for news... Is one that will lie to me from the moment it bloody sees me, just to hurt me. So yeah, sure. Have at it."
He rolled to one side and kneeled shakily on his good leg, sizing her up.
"You really take the bloody fun out of bein' right, and solvin' puzzles. You know that?"
Frigid kicked him in the side now. "Lying to you would be easy. It would defeat the purpose of seeing you suffer in here. After all, we know what your fears are."
"So let me lay it out for you. Right now your girl faced one of her biggest fears. I could lie and say she is suffering eternally, but you wouldn't believe me. So no, she got through her room. Scratched, bloodied, beaten up, but she's alive. Though....gosh...not for much longer."
"You see, she tried to find you, bless her. But someone found her first and really laid into her. She didn't see it coming. Let's just say she doesn't have a leg to stand on. And the longer you take sitting here, feeling sorry for yourself, the longer she bleeds. Last time I checked, humans carried only so much blood before," Frigid made a cutting motion across her neck.
"I have an idea!" Frigid quickly formed an ice sword and drove it into Banjo's left leg, plunging it deep. "Look, twinsies!"
Banjo's howl echoed through this desolate place.
"Well, this was fun, but I have to go. Let's see if you can find her in time. Killing you would be easy, but watching you slowly die inside as your girlfriend slowly perishes is all the fun I need. Good luck!" As if to rub salt in his wounds even further, she slowly walked away into the shadows, leaving him to clutch his leg and bleed.
"Nggg... Shit." He rolled himself onto his back and scooched over to a wall.
The ice sword was in deep enough that it held its own weight. Drawing a furrowed brow from Banjo who contemplated removing it, or whether it would be better to leave it in.
"That one's probably best served stayin' put. If the doctor's tell me to stay off it and ice it... well... sorted."
He gradually stood up, leaning back against the wall to keep his weight off the other leg.
With one arm against the wall, he started hobbling down the hallway.
You know she was probably lying to you, right? He thought to himself.
"Doesn't matter."
He hobbled on. "What's the down side... Ya find out she's fine sooner? I can live with that."
Calliope had moved somewhat from her original spot, a blood trail following her. She needed to get out or find someone who wasn't some created fixture in this simulation. God, it hurt. She could only imagine what the others were going through. Would she be the only one severely injured? She doubted it.
As she neared she heard something or someone. God she hoped it was someone. "H-hello? I need help..." she attempted to yell, but it came out softly.
Banjo hobbled onwards. Considering whether it would be better to call out in this place, where his fears might target him again in a weakened state, and whether anyone however close would actually hear him.
He realised he didn't care.
"CALL-EEEEE!"
"CALLLLL-EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
His voice started to rasp, from shouting so loud.
Calli heard his voice and nearly broke down again. Surely this wasn't the other Andrew messing with her, but she couldn't be sure. The voice sounded like it was in pain. She had to risk it. She kept crawling despite the pain shooting through her nerves.
The sounds grew closer until a shadow formed in front of her. She stopped crawling and looked up, focusing her gaze. The figure materialized and she knew.
"Banjo...thank christ.." Tears began welling up in her eyes.
"We. Have... Seen better days. But you're still a sight for sore eyes. Sore eyes, sore everythin'." He hobbled over and held her.
"I reckon its about time we weren't here."
"So whaddaya say, you lean on me, I'll lean on you, and we keep goin' til we get gone?"
Calli nodded her agreement, reaching for him. "Going to need...more support probably. On account of the fact, I don't have a leg. And The Butler did it..." her attempt at humor. He brought out the best in her.
He laughed. Broadly. Then felt slightly ashamed at how loudly he'd done so and the timing of it all. Until he saw the smile it brought to her face.
Darkness consumed his sight. He struggled to keep silent. The devil devoured.
The next child returned to his bed, rubbing his rear end as tears filled his eyes.
There were only three left for the ‘Auld Scalder’ to consume, and then things would get worse. Much worse.
Banjo looked over to the other two. Jennifer’s eyes looked wide like saucers, she glanced at her foot locker in regret, there was nothing to be done now, it was too late. She’d never done anything like this before. Never even thought to get in trouble.
Banjo recognised the look on her face.
They’d toss her locker. She dare not even move towards it now. Find the two gobstoppers she’d stolen for herself and her younger brother from the local deli. He'd been beaten for them and hadn't even got to enjoy them yet. For a reason he never understood. Just as every child before her had already taken a half dozen ‘bites’ from ‘Auld Scalder’, but her fate would be different. With the culprit found the leather would find far more of her flesh. Her rear, through the thin flannelette pyjamas, would be lit up like a Christmas tree, and if past cases were any indication, there’d be no sleep for her that night. He could still remember the whimpering of the boy who they’d caught on the first night they’d been through this.
How long was he going to be stuck in this Hellhole? Prospective foster parents weren’t even shown to him. Was that even allowed? Beating minors with a leather goddamn three-strap piece sure as Hell wasn’t. Not that he had any recourse for that… Hell, where would he even go if he issued that complaint? What year did they bloody think this was?
As the heavy feet fell closer, Jennifer whimpered, and pried her wet eyes from the foot locker.
He dropped from his bunk.
“So you finally got to me, Huh?”
Dark faces turned to him, from the girl’s bunk who was next in line.
“Took ya half the bloody night. Surprised none of these jokers didn’t dob me in well and truly before this… Or did they, and you just wanted to keep beating your way through kids arses, ya pair-a pervs?”
The dour faces on dark faces turned a darker shade still. Humourless. Cold.
His footlocker was seized. The contents upturned. The invasion of privacy met only with a shake of the head and a laugh.
“You reckon I’m stupid enough to just hang onto the evidence? HAHAHA! Mate… they’re long gone.” He opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out, pointing at it.
The two dark grown figures looked at each other, and satisfied that the confession kept them from wasting any more time on the task at hand, grabbed the small boy by each arm.
“Hold up… hold up… You’re not gonna straighten my shit up? What kind of turn down service do ya call this?” His heels slid forward as the pair dragged him away.
“Well, you’ll get no bloody gratuity from me…”
He was brought before the Resident. Auld Scalder was brandished, tapped in the palm of the other hand.
“Ah, ya found it. Been lookin’ everywhere for that. I’ll just take that off ya hands and be on me way then…”
The grip on his arms was tightened, as he was cast further into the shadow of the seemingly growing Resident.
Too late to back out now, anyway.
“Three of ya. To haul off on one kid. How pissweak must you lot feel, eh?”
The sound of the strap, and the boy’s wails echoed much louder than from any of the half dozen that night.
It seemed someone wanted to prove their arm wasn’t pissweak, if nothing else.
Banjo walked on tiptoes from the calves down, with a tight grimace, as he made his way back to his bed.
As he got there he looked up.
“Ya jokin’ me?”
“Tidy it up.” The two grown men who awaited him said, referring to the upturned foot locker.
Banjo stuffed his tongue deep in his cheek, as he considered his predicament. His rear end hurt so much it radiated heat. He was pretty sure it had actually lifted strips of flesh. They’d worked him for a good few minutes. If he took another serve from telling them to go fuck themselves, would they work the same torn up area? Would sick bay actually do anything about the open wound?
“Ya not jokin' me…”
His eyes flickered up with spite, as he clucked his tongue and sighed. Turning the foot locker back over and beginning to dump the contents back inside in a haphazard fashion.
At the conclusion he slid the box back and gestured to it. Until, content that whatever point they’d attempt to make had been made, the pair moved off.
Banjo sighed and fell into his bunk belly down, as the lights went off and the quiet and still fell upon the room.
Banjo sniffed and his eyes felt wet, even as he tried to blink the moisture away.
He twitched and jumped as a figure appeared from the darkness.
Jennifer put an arm over his upper back and hugged him. He couldn’t relax into it. He sniffed.
How much longer was he going to be in this goddamned place?
Silence was absolute in Paisley's History class.
The rail thin man walked up and down the rows of desks. The tension in the room as always, was palpable. And his decision to teach from a mobile position, never static at the head of the class, only exacerbated things.
After a term on the French Revolution, this education-bloc had turned to the American Revolution.
If the Butler didn't pull him out of this school, the next revolution would see one of Paisley's or Banjo's heads on a spike...
A familiar flicking sound, resulted in hushed shuffling as every student's head turned around to see which it was today. The unspoken tension in the room heightened even further, Banjo knew what it was, before he even looked.
Paisley lifted the lighter, and today it was the cigar.
Banjo turned back to his desk, and internally psyched himself up.
He stood up.
"Sit down." The thin man's voice barely raised above a hoarse whisper.
This wasn't what he wanted. But good. Fuck what this dessicated skeleton wanted. Banjo thought to himself.
The smirk crossed his face. "Y'know what... I'm never going to America, so why the fuck do I give a shit if they had a revolution?"
Paisley's face held the same pallor it always had in times like this. The same it always would.
Banjo's held defiance.
In the face of the inevitable, which both knew was coming.
She turned and looked over to Banjo and Gil. "So we just....go through our door?" Was she stalling? She seemed to have pushed through some of her prior anxieties, to something else, but perhaps she needed a little more assurance.
She gave Gil a meaningful nod and then looked at Banjo. "I'll see you on the other side? I love you."
"Love you, too. Remember what I said. The way out is through. Whatever it is. Whatever we see." His words affirmed her. She could push through. She was stronger than she knew. He just wished she believed it as much as he did. "And yeah, I'll see you on the other side, too."
Calliope turned and pushed open her door and stepped through. He watched her go. Then sighed and looked at his own task that lay in front of him.
Banjo stepped through the door with a surprising amount of ease.
This isn't real. None of it. Stand by to be fucked with. Whatever it is.
He walked down hallways filled with the empty desks of students. Crisp and sterile. Presumably the layout of the Foundation's facilities again. Or an approximation by whomever programmed this. As he walked the hallways though, the classrooms began to look different. Bigger. Colour added to the decor. And more familiar.
Or was it to give the illusion that he was smaller. To take him back to an old-- That classroom was painfully familiar...
Banjo picked up the pace to a trot, leaving the memory of the scent of burnt flesh and cigar ash in his wake. As a sneaking suspicion set in as to who or what he could expect to cross paths with.
“G’Day…”
“Jessie fuckin’ Christmas!” Banjo jumped back about three feet in surprise. Mamili Motlop’s uncle from years ago.
“You bloody dug deep on this one, eh? A bloke I knew for a few weeks, years ago?” He spoke to the sky, as if a divine force or the programmers of this digital Hellscape were watching on. “What, are ya here to tell me I’m a disappointment? Am I that hard up for male bloody role models, you reckon this counts as a father figure? I suppose I should be thankful they at least had the sense to outsource it and not try and squeeze Jim-Bob in that role… or Heaven bloody help us, Tad…”
Something was off about his appearance, and not just the fact that a Darwin native tribal elder was over ten thousand kilometres from home in an augmented reality environment. No. Beyond that. Something was off. Banjo just couldn’t think of what it was.
“I’m not here for that. I was led from the veil of The Dreaming to be here as a help.”
“Hmm. Somethin’ tells me this ain’t that kind of game…” Banjo eyed him skeptically, looking over the Cleverman’s appearance.
“For some, no. But then as I once told you… sometimes the audience is equal part of the message as the telling.”
Banjo nodded in recognition. “New girl. Whatsername. Amma.” He said, considering the message and how it.
“You’re not surprised.”
“That thing back there with the training robots. Still felt, I dunno, a little pedestrian. Like, I dunno. Like busywork. I mean a couple Gils went belly up, but it kind of felt like the usual kind of problem solving for the Trials. Just... you know… a bit higher stakes, granted.”
“Busywork? Uncle asked.
“Yeah, y’know, like when you get sent to the Principal’s office and they give you some meaningless worksheet or assignment to keep you out of their hair while they actually deal with something else ‘important’...” He looked at ‘Uncle’ who was listening but it seemed like he hadn’t caught the analogy. “Of course you don’t… Well, it feels like we got pushed to a corner, whilst this place deals with what they really wanted to focus on. The décor too… Foundation layout… That’s not for my benefit.” He stopped and thought on it, soaking up what he’d seen. From what he’d heard around the campfire the Foundation could be… rough around the edges. But if what he’d seen here ACTUALLY pertained to their newest teammember’s experiences in the place, and her reaction to it when they first got in here suggested that was the case... He got quiet. That train of thought didn’t bear more thinking about for now. Not productive. Wait--
“Except there was one room back there…” He remembered, thinking back to a few rooms back.
… The only way out is through …
“Damn it.” He turned around and looked back down the hallway at where he’d come from. There was a half fallen fluorescent light, hanging off of one remaining thread, that was flickering and sparking back down from the way he’d come, towards the old classroom he had recognised. Just in case he'd missed the hint of the initial ominous vibes.
“Yeah sure. Wasn’t bad enough the first time, I guess.” He sighed. “Let’s do this, I suppose.
He turned to ‘Uncle’ and he was gone. A cackle of ambiguous laughter hanging on the uncomfortable atmosphere.
“Alright… so you’ll be on your way then. Guess that happened.”
As he looked back down the hallway, sparking and threatening in intent as it was, it struck him that this was more mundane than terrifying. Right down to the conversation he’d just had, with the figure he’d just sort of been reunited with. It also dawned on him what it was about the Cleverman's appearance that seemed 'off'.
He was bigger. Banjo was smaller and younger when they'd met, he'd since grown considerably, but 'Uncle's appearance had grown proportionately so he was still towering over him. Keeping him feeling more 'familiar'. A comfort.
Playing to overconfidence..? Is that what they’ve got on me?
Taking the quiet opportunity he checked his surroundings and drank in whatever those meagre surroundings provided him. His body turned jet black and a small corona encircled him, there was only secondary artificial light kept low, and the air conditioning was quite cool. His breath quickened and halted and his synapses flared as his body re-knitted. He held his form for a little while, not knowing when he’d next get the opportunity, and knowing there wasn’t as much of the day to draw on in this dark place, before letting his form revert back to his usual state.
The time and space to think was starting to make him second guess what lay in waiting ahead for him.
This whole thing was… what..? Just some Foundation move on Amma? Well, you saw how she took things at that assembly. They’re making some kind of point or taking some kind of shot.
His mind kept racing as he slowly approached the classroom with trepidation.
No. That doesn’t sound right. This whole thing is just about her, and nobody is taking a shot at any of the rest of us? Even if it did seem to get the desired reaction with her piss-boltin' off at the start.
He could see a sliver of light through the open classroom door now.
You mean ‘you’.
He stopped and stepped to the side to get a clearer angle to look through the door and what may be awaiting him inside, without getting closer.
That’s your ego talking. Can’t bear to think it has nothing to do with you. That fake Calli at the start said it about her other, but it could’ve easily been about you. Can’t stand to not be seen as the centre of attention.
He didn’t see any movement. Couldn’t hear anything obvious either, not from out in the hallway. Maybe if his hearing were up to Haven’s lev—
This is what the design is. It’s to make you overthink. Get in your own head. So get out of your bloody head, and get in the room!
He clenched his fists together and strode inside for whatever awaited him.
And he found himself in an empty room. No ghosts. No enemies. No Paisley.
And then he could hear it. Faintly, from the front of the classroom.
A portable AV set on a wheelable TV tray, facing away from the direction of class, which muffled the speakers as they spoke of the events of the screen.
He turned back, half expecting some horrifying imitation of Paisley with a cigar, or flamethrower or some other poetic equivalent to appear at the back of the class, awaiting the lowering of his guard. Seeing nothing, he slowly decided whatever puzzle this was, it’s solution was awaiting him at the front of the room. Projecting the rules of engagement away from him.
As he approached he could hear it before he saw it. The sounds of screaming.
He rushed to the front of the class and saw the television split twelve ways, four rows of three columns, with two blank screens along the bottom row.
One on the left was a view of himself looking at the television from above. He waved an arm up, to get a sense of where the camera was.
But all of this paled to what was on the other screens. It quickly became apparent what the scream was.
A winged girl was strapped to a surgical table in the middle column of the top row. He recognised the sound of Haven’s own voice in her screams, and the sound of a bonesaw. The angles didn’t provide the best view of the winged girl, but just how many winged girls did he know? – and the screams certainly confirmed it.
Aurora took a punch from a figure, and was held aloft by the neck by a redheaded girl, in the third column's middle box.
In another box Lorcán was fighting a version of himself and losing, his face being scorched whilst he screamed.
Calli fought for her life against something so monstrous he could barely even recognise, in the box opposite Banjo's on the right. Teeth sank into her arm and she screamed.
The screams combined, a witch's brew of pain, angst, horror and growing torment of everyone he cared about being poured over him.
He jumped back from the screen. His sniffed, his breathing increased. His heart pounded in his chest. He was getting lost in his quickening breath. He sniffed again. His eyes started scanning the backgrounds of the scenes in feeble desperation, if he could recognise where they were maybe he coukd find them. In... this place... where appearances mean nothing.
He turned away from the screen and the screams grew louder to compensate. As if chasing him.
“Sit down.” The thin man’s voice, barely above a whisper. He could hear a hint of pleasure in the situation rasped from the gaunt figure. Somehow it penetrated the screaming. It was a familiar voice, and the only one he'd expected to hear in this room.
”Get ‘em out. Now.” Banjo growled, trying to regain a grasp of some sense of control.
“You have nothing to barter. Nothing to offer. You’re not in control here.” Mirth caught in Paisley’s throat, as the corners of his mouth upturned, and specks of saliva flew from his mouth.
“Now. Sit. Down.”
The old thin man was right. He had no play. Except for that itself.
“Sure... But not until they’re out.” A forced leer started to creep across Banjo's face. He worked to quell the pounding in his chest, and the obvious effect it had taken on him in his breathing. He wasn't sure how convincing it looked, but it was the only play he had. As the screams wore on. With intermittent breaches of bonesaw mixed in..
“If you’re worried about missing what’s on the tv, you needn’t be concerned. And as for your compliance, it was just requested for ease. But you never could do things the easy way.”
A desk behind him swept Banjo through to his own chair further back in the class, and a wall raised up from the floor, which contorted and twisted in shape until it produced a wall sized screen of the same thing he’d just been watching.
He was corralled to his desk, and then the back wall itself started to move. Paisley stepped through a back door, which locked behind him, and opened a slide to a multiplex window to watch proceedings.
“No. You won’t be taking the burn for anyone else. That’s not how today is going to go.”
The walls began to close in, above Banjo a fluorescent light burst, whilst others flickered as walls gradually closed in. Amidst destroyed lighting and desks getting splintered as they were pushed together beyond what they had left to give. He scrambled upon his own desk to buy himself some more time, before his legs would be crushed in his seat. As he'd turned away from the screen to do it the screaming torment got louder in his head, again as he did.
He felt like everything was collapsing on him. His view was dragged back to the screen in time to see bindings tighten around Amma's middle and her throat as she gasped out. Katja found herself drowning in blood as flames licked at her heels. And even hers... even Katja's screams... added to the concoction of trauma pumping into his head. Rory grunted with exhaustion as flames consumed everything around him. A Gil getting jumped and dog-piled by about a dozen other Gils whilst some strange new gal watched on. Baxter was being cut and hurt by the same red head who tormented 'Raw. Katja's bloodcurdling bellow sliced through louder. The bonesaw...
Banjo dropped to a knee and gasped. More air. His heart pounded in his chest like a jackhammer. Gotta have more air. His breathing at a fever pitch.
“You don’t get to point the gun at your own face and eat the bullet to spare seeing anyone else hurt.” Paisley’s voice rasped. “Here. Now. You’re going to watch all of your friends die, and then you’re going to join them in discovering whatever afterlife awaits you.”
“You never talked this damn much. You were just... a sadistic prick.” He barely squeaked out between breaths.
“Well, yes. Because I’m not really here. Or are things really starting to blur for you, are you that far gone already? No matter. Doesn't help them, anyway. Nothing you do. Nothing you say. Nothing is going to make me give them up to you. You'll watch them die now. Maybe if you got here a little sooner. But then you always made your way to class in your own time as well...”
The bonesaw and the screams were louder. Somehow, whenever he looked away, the sounds, the screams, the angst came in louder.
Just... need to breathe... That's all. Breathe... And think...
“You really had some of those younger kids fooled. But this is exactly who you always were. The biggest pretender of them all. For all your talk. All your bluster. All your machismo and 'I don't care' for the sake of being cool. You're just a scared little boy who doesn't want to see anybody else get hurt. Who's so broken that you'd rather take it yourself first, just so you don't have to live to see it.”
Darkness started to fall upon him as more lights had burst from the closing walls, and the chilled air made him feel worse. Every part of this was curated for purpose, to maximise the anguish. His heart felt like he it was going to explode in his chest.
The walls closed in, the cold, the dark. Haven’s screams. Calli was grabbed by some kind of a tongue. She cried out.
Hers were different. Calli's torment cried out to him. Rather than just another ingredient in the pot. It was as if it was targeted. Directed. To him. Even though he wasn't there.
So I've gotta live... to get her out... If nothin' else...
He put a knee down on the table and took a few deep breaths. No plan yet. No way out. No problem to punch into submission.
“I'm not goin' out... to a prick like you. Even one who just looks like ya. No way, no how.”
And then his table tipped on one side as it to was getting crushed by the closing walls. 'Paisley' laughed at his enfeebled defiance.
The two walls were elbow width apart now. He pushed off in a sudden panic, and his face smooshed against the TV wall as Haven's wings were torn through in a bloody mess of bone, sinew, blood and feathers as her screams dimmed amidst the cacophony. ‘Paisley’ looked on in as much sick joy as the original may well have had. The dark. The cold.
Wait— the cold..? The curated cold.
“Oi. Paisley. Fuck your American Revolution right off. Vive la Banjo, Numbnuts.”
He lept off the table and bounced off a wall, before bouncing off the next, back higher again to the first and jumping for the overhead air conditioning vent. Scrambling like a rat up a drainpipe, he could hear the Paisley simulation swearing behind him as the tv wall was crushed against the compressed furniture below.
He pulled his legs up, just as the walls closed together beneath him. It wasn't until he did, that the enormity of everything he'd just seen actually hit him.
He hugged his legs and leant against one of the walls in the tight air conditioning vent, as the adrenal kick wore off and he once again found himself gasping for breath.
"So, what about you? How were you touched by the Dreaming?"
Banjo's brows raised. He was surprised Mamili hadn't told him anything beyond the fact that he also had powers, apparently.
"Don't much care f'r showin' off, but alright." He stepped forward, and then looking up at the night's sky he paused.
"Uhh... Can you put 'em back. I can tell, those stars aren't where-- it's kind of makin' me nauseous."
Uncle quickly pulled back the veil of Dreaming from the night's sky and left it exactly as was.
"Thanks. The light... wasn't comin' from where it looked like it was comin'. That's better."
He could feel the tiny dapple of starlight across himself like pins and needles upon his flesh. Now at least, it felt right for where the sensation should come from. He nodded to himself, now feeling more comfortable, before he suddenly burst into blackness. A small corona from the starlight of the clear night encircling his body, his breathing halted before quickening. The night's air grew cooler from him upon the breeze's direction. His spine stiffened and musles seized. He re-knit anew.
"Yeah. It was like that." Mamili said.
Okay. So he had talked about it. The older man just wanted to reserve judgement until seeing for himself.
"It's better in the daytime. With the sunlight. But it's still not for nothing. Watch."
Banjo picked up a stone from the dirt, and threw it. The trio were unable to keep sight of its trajectory in the night's sky, regardless how clear it was. But the velocity alone had been impressive, despite Banjo's disappointment in the less than dramatic result.
"Mamili tells me you are something of a-- a-- what is the word. Joker. Jokester."
"Class clown."
"That's it. Clown. Buffoon. Fool..."
"Yup. Those are all certainly synonyms for 'clown'. However hurtful they may be... Is there a point in all of this."
"Perhaps not a point. Perhaps a story or two."
With a wave of his hand, 'Uncle' pulled back the veil of the Dreaming again and froze the very stars in the sky for his own purpose.
The prior shape of the Milky Way, which looked somewaht emu-like from before was turned, twisted and its color and vibrancy spread wide.
"Long ago... in the Dreamtime. Before all of this..." The 'this' was vague in meaning, but left no doubt as to what it meant.
"The birds in all the land had no colour. All were black.
The stars formed scattered flocks of birds, their twinkling wings in formation, sweeping across the sky, ocasionally clustering, and becoming more prominent. He brought to the fore formations of stars forming whole recognizable birds, emus, cassowaries, magpies, galah, rosellas and crows. All plain in color.
"One day Budjil, the great king of the Dreamtime, decided to change all of this..."
Cockatoos, gulls, parrokeets and finally a wedge tailed eagle, which spread its wings wide, and turned it's sharpened beak.
"Bundjil smashed the great rainbow of the sky. Scattering the colours and drenching the birds below."
The star flocks passed under the spread wide rainbow that had been converted from the 'sky emu' Milky Way galaxy, and the twinkling stars changed colours, be they blue, red, orange or green. Birds took new hues, and swept across the vista. The repeated birds had new colourific forms.
"Some birds which had stayed close to the rainbow in the sky... the rosellas, the lorrikeet's took much from the broken rainbow, and sang their songs of joy. Other birds who strayed wide and searched for carrion and other food like the crows and ravens remained black. Even the magpies had new white streaks to kaboodle about."
More star birds took the fore, demonstrating how the broken rainbow had changed their appearance.
"Other birds, took great fear and screeched and screamed with commotion out of fear!"
The spread wings and frightened beak of a white cockatoo with a shock of yellow 'hair' its crest, the pink and silver galah.
"But there was one amongst them who didn't say a word. Didn't make a sound. Goo-Goor-Gaga - the kookaburra, sat in silence, a wry smirk upon his beak until he couldn't keep it in any longer and burst out laughing."
Stars formed a kookaburra, reshaping to allow it to laugh around the beak.
"Still he laughs. From sun up, when he can first see the colours of the birds, until they are washed over in darkness again in the evening."
The stars held the kookaburra in the sky.
"Right. Ok. Had a laughing animal in it. A mention of the sun..."
Uncle once again raised an arm to the sky.
"Another tale of Goo-Goor-Gaga..."
"Oh, okay... I didn't even put a dollar in, and off he goes..."
"Shhhh." Mamili shushed him.
Uncle smiled broadly and continued. "One day, back in the Dreamtime..."
The stars swept and coalesced, forming two more birds, and emu and a crane of some description.
"...Dinewan the Emu, and Brolga, the beautiful dancing bird... were arguing."
The long necks of the two birds were swinging, beaks snapping, at one another back and forth in a rhythmic formation of stars.
"Their rage got more and more ferocious, until eventually, Brolga got so angry that she ran over to Emu's nest and threw one of her large stone or coal sized eggs and hurled it into the sky--"
One long legged, long necked, long beaked star bird, danced over and picked up one of Dinewan's star-eggs, and with a quick snap of her neck, launched the star orb skyward.
"--the egg went up and up, higher and higher, until it landed on a heap of firewood left in the sky, breaking the egg and it's yellow yolk burst forth into flames. The whole world lit up underneath, to the dazzled amazement of everyone. As back then, they had only ever known semi-darkness and were not used to the brightness."
"A good spirit of the sky, looked upon the Earth and saw how fine it looked when lit up by a great fire in the sky and decided that this was something that should happen every day. Which he has ensured happens every day since."
A star spirit walks across the sky, picking up stars. Stopping at each cluster, bundling more.
"All night the good spirit gathers wood, kindling and grass for the fire. Once the stack is nearly big enough, the good spirit sends out the Morning Star. To signal to all that he is about to light it."
The Good spirit casts out a star, which floats in place in the night's sky. Getting brighter and brighter.
"But the spirit discovered something... That the star alone was not enough to alert people to the fact that the fire was about to be lit. Many slept through, and did not see the Morning Star. So the spirit decided that there must be some kind of sound to accompany the Morning Star, in its duties of alerting everyone to the fire about to be lit."
The Good Spirit is shown to think, as the Morning Star grows, swells and twinkles brightly in the sky.
"Yeah, I think I see where this one's goin'..." Banjo muttered to Mamili.
"Shut. Up. Man." Mamili hissed.
"Then one day, the good spirit overheard the cackling laughter of Goo-Goor-Gaga, the kookaburra..."
The stars once again formed the outline of the kookaburra. They shifted and moved as its beak opened, and the bird laughed.
"In his loud cackle, the good spirit had found the sound he was looking for. Spirit asked, that as the Morning Star faded, and the great fire of the sun was about to be set, if he would laugh his very loudest, and rouse all to see the new day. Goo-Goor-Gaga agreed, and so it is with every new morn and a fresh sun's blaze, that his laughter rings best."
The star-kookaburra hung in the sky, laughing to effect.
Banjo didn't care much for the somberness of the moment.
"OK. Nice. You've got yourself a couple of nice legends there about kookaburras and the sun."
"They are intrinsically linked." Uncle said. "The second tale is not even our tribe's story. I believe it comes from one of the tribes along the Murrumbidgee... maybe the Ngunnawal, Wiradjuri or Nari Nari mobs' legends. In the oral tradition. Thousands of miles apart, bound together by common truth."
Banjo took a pull from his water bottle as he tried to take in what he was being told.
"As with the other legend I told you, of the jabiru and the emu... sometimes the audience is equal part of the message, as the telling."
He closed up his water bottle and turned his sight back to the night's sky, as the star-kookaburra kept laughing to belabour whatever point the elder seemed to be trying to make.
Ever laughing it's name into the morning's fresh dawn.
Banjo cackled in the early morning, holding up his enamel camping coffee mug in salute of the winged girl.
He'd just hummed along to AC/DC's 'Shook Me All Night Long' again, as the pair passed. A reference which Haven had caught, but seemed to have soared over Rory's head completely untouched. And he couldn't help but laugh at Haven's recognition of what he was doing.
Banjo hid in the box, peeking out.
Had it seen him? He hoped not, more than he could say with any certainty or conviction.
Darkness swept past, and he struggled to hush his breathing, and any other extraneous sounds. The murmurs of fear, rattling from trembling.
The kinds of things that the darkness would recognise as foreign. Something to attack. Signs of something, where the darkness could reside. Even worse, those signs would be of weakness.
As if that would matter. As if strength had meaning in the oblivion of the darkness.
Banjo closed his eyes and swallowed, and hoped that it wasn't as loud outside of his body as it certainly sounded within it.
He dared open his eyes again to peek out, from the small hidey hole in his box, and inhaled harshly as he caught a glimpse of the darkness making another pass. It had heard!
The darkness started to pour in, through horizontal louvers, that seemed almost designed to catch the flow. Banjo panicked, he'd been seen. He tried to move, but the box restricted him as the darkness poured ever deeper.
It was all happening too quickly now, with no escape. The box formed his mold as the darkness poured forth in a torrent. Taking the space, thick as treacle, but with no real density. It made the atmosphere unbreathable.
It was becoming everthing! He couldn't breathe! He couldn't move! There was no space!
Banjo whimpered. Then he felt it... within the darkness.
A presence. It was alive.
He jerked awake, and cursed himself. The nightmares had come back.
He felt movement before he knew he was awake. She was stirring. And with the realisation that he was aware enough, so he must be awake, he joined her. To whatever capacity he was capable of at this point, at least. He had the pre-coffee stares and a dopey grin on his face. "Good morning love. I noticed you moved around a bit last night. Everything okay?"
How did she..?
He looked at the bedding, and it was clear that he'd moved.
How's she so with it so early in the morn--?
"Had another nightmare... Not anything that could be helped. In fact... I have a theory that when the present gets less 'noisy' you can hear the past a bit clearer. And... well, we knocked every thought, worry, and concern I might have for the present out last night." The dopey grin threatened to turn into something more wry and game, but then fell off, he wasn't awake enough for that yet.
"Want to talk about it?"
He could think of few things worse. He just wanted to put them as far into the rearview mirror as he could get them. They were generally becoming more infreuent. Mostly. At least it seemed that way...
"There's not much that can be done about it. And they don't make much sense to explain. I think it ties back into somethin' from back when I was small though. That stuff I told you about. So yeah, I don't remember anything about then either. Thanks, but."
Maybe its because the Trial thing's on today. Tight suits. Maze. Some of the more tight spaces at times with ARC sessions could sometimes trigger his claustrophobia for a bit as well. Maybe that was it. Anticipatory nightmare. That's a thing, yeah? Isn't it?
He tried not to get too distracted watching her dress, whilst he got himself ready for a new day as well.
He got coffee and sat for a while whilst waiting for Calli to get her food.
Haven and Rory made their own way to breakfast. He dug his tongue deep in his cheek and considered his course of action.
A half dozen different smart arsed comments bounced through his brain, before he decided he wouldn't let them off the hook so easily by actually saying anything, and chose to instead just hum along to AC/DC's 'Shook Me All Night Long' and let them stew in it, waiting for what he'd eventually say.
Haven was scanning the other campers, probably looking for any signs that people had picked up on what they'd been up to.
Which they almost certainly had. Even if they missed the noise, Haven had pretty clearly had a shower since.
Which is why she snapped her head back at him and flushed red after she had passed, her heightened hearing having picked up on what he was doing, with the song she recognised from earlier.
He cackled with laughter and offered a half-hearted salute with his camping mug, as she tried to pass off her reaction and ignore what had just happened.
Calliope returned with her food, and now it was his turn.
He grabbed a mismashed plate of everything and sat back down next to Calli, who's attention was glued to Haven, Rory, Harper and Katja.
Katja had pretty clearly seen better days.
"What's up with those three do you think? I'm picking up weird vibes."
"No idea." Banjo said, trying not to pay them any attention as he drank his coffee. "It'll all come out in the wash, anyway. Early morning, bad sleep. Probably just doesn't want people up in her business." He thought back to how much she glowed when telling him about how she was going to be bunking with Amma. Something had evidently gone very wrong. But it looked like she was in no mood for prying.
"She'll probably talk when she's good and ready."
He'd meant what he said before to Katja, when he'd wished her all the best. His own lack of trust towards the new girl had very little to do with anything actually tangible, and just more an uncomfortable feeling she gave him. If Katja could find happiness there, fantastic.
That didn't seem to be what had happened though, by his estimation.
He kept picking away at his food, but Calli's attention seemed to be held by Katja and the small group. Fascinated.
Nothing good was going to come of it though. And Baxter had her nose deep in it, as was her way. Banjo just stuck to his breakfast.
Their discourse quickly turned explosive, as Katja could take no more and responded to the constant unwanted probing by emphatically destroying a table with her head. Causing Calli to flinch and put her hand out for him.
She kept watching, clearly wanting to intervene, but not quite crossing the threshold, until the situation had the heat taken out of it.
"What the hell..."
"Like I said, she'll talk when she's good and ready."
He finished his coffee and put his cup back down next to his seat.
"I might go let her know I'm here if she needs anythin' in a bit, whenever she's ready, but right now the last thing she'd want is more people in her business."
She'd probably love nothin' more than blowin' off steam in the Trial right now anyway. Mightn't be the worst timing in the world. Just hope there's somethin' in there for her to hit.
At the Trial, Blackjack were milling around waiting for everyone to arrive and for the start time to approach. Banjo took the opportunity to drink deep of the morning sun, whilst he had the space and the direct daylight to do so. He didn't care for doing it in enclosed spaces, for the risk he posed to others, so he made the most of the time before.
Calli stretched to limber up. Probably not the worst idea. Things at breakfast had pretty clearly 'tightened her up'.
She'd kept their work on the interior a secret and had seemed mighty proud of it before. Banjo silently decided he'd actually put some effort in on this. His care factor for this kind of this would generally barely max out at 'mild disinterest, featuring sarcastic mockery of the task at hand', but with Calliope's proud efforts layout, that seemed inappropriate for the time.
With a swipe of his card, he entered in the middle of the pack. As Harper brought up the tail, the entire layout shuddered. The programmed simulation began to shut down in a flash of scrolling, corrupted red code. The area went black, submerging them all in darkness. Banjo's hands began to twitch, and he started to feel that the people around him... did they have to stand so damned close?! Finally, it flared back to life in a blinding flash of white. Winding, sterile halls replaced the stone maze and jungle of the previously programmed simulation.
Hmm... Hardly subtle.
It's the kind of thing he'd do. Well, no. The first 'challenge' would be to slap approximations of the Foundation reps at the assembly in rapid succession like the Three Stooges... but this wouldn't be out of place as a distant second.
The name 'Tiamat' was repeated in hushed whispers, and it became very apparent that this was very wrong.
And that he wasn't the person whoever designed this place was 'playing against'. He recognised the name that was spoken between Firebird and Blackjack. The name for Amma.
He was a bit player here. Which... well, whatever the Hell this was. Probably wasn't the worst thing to be under the circumstances.
"Perfect. It was all going perfectly...."
Oh no... She's spiralling...
Banjo tried to squeeze his way through the group to get to her, but they were grouped together in a quite condensed fashion near the entrance.
"Perfect. It was going to be perfect."
He swam through bodies. He should have been closer from the outset. What was he think--?
"I can't...Banjo..."
He squeezed past the last and dropped to the floor to get down to her level.
“I can’t believe I was ever that weak.” A crisp cold voice penetrated the scene from a nearby hallway. “Really? A panic attack right now? Couldn't handle not being the center of attention could you, Princess.”
These pricks sure are making it difficult to turn the other cheek...
He scowled at the glib crack at the real Calliope when she was down.
...But you've gotta admit, they're easy on the eye.
Mamili and Banjo walked, their path lit well by the full moon onanother spectacularly clear Darwin night.
"So, tell me about this guy." Banjo broke the silence, as he was ever wont to do.
"Uncle..? He's just-- Uncle." Mamili replied. Circumspect with his words.
"You're not tellin' me somethin'."
Mamili sighed. "Yeah, cos you're gonna gimme shit for it."
"I'm not. You never give me a bloody chance. You keep assumin' I'm gonna think the worst of you or spin racist or somethin'. Dunno what I've ever done to suggest that I would do that-- besides the colour of my ski--"
"Alright. Alright. Fine. He's the cleverman. Y'know, the medicine man. OK? Gonna act like we're all backwards now, or someth--"
"Okay. It's a legitimate tribal role. Respected too. What's the big deal? Western kings claim to have had their position bestowed upon them and their entire bloodline by God. And people accept their rule nonetheless. Get over it. I have. You're always defensive around me. You need to drink down a cold glass of harden-the-fuck-up."
Mamili stopped and considered what he said, before giving a chuckle, and continuing to walk.
"Damn." Mamili shook his head to himself.
"What? Was I wro--"
"Nah. I mean 'Damn. Uncle's gonna love ya.'."
They pushed through some brush and scrub, and came to a clearing, where an older man stood.
"That's him, right?" Banjo asked.
"Unless you see any other elder lookin' types 'round." His face deigning to crack a smirk, from its usual stoic demeanour.
To his credit, 'Uncle' didn't have to ask the same thing about Banjo.
"This is him." But Mamili told him all the same, gesturing at Banjo with a hook of the thumb.
"G'day. Mamili told me that you've been touched by the Dreaming as well."
Banjo thought for a while. A shower of High-energy particles at a period of shelter behind a total lunar eclipse, bestowing strange powers to the few... Spirits tearing a hole in the Dreaming to alter a few and their paths. A few with a mythology and legends where this had happened innumerous times to their own tribes and others.
Made a lot of sense for it to be translated that way, culturally.
"Somethin' like that." He replied. "G'day. Banjo." He extended a hand to the older man. The older man enveloping the younger boy's hand with his own.
Uncle smiled at Banjo's reply. "Let me guess, you don't agree with that description of how we have come to pass?"
"Is your whole bloody family this defensive? I'd figured it was just a 'you' thing." He first turned to Mamili. "I think we both have ways of interpreting what happened to us, within our own cultural understanding."
Uncle's smile widened, showing his teeth in stark contrast of the night's sky.
"You two argue a bit, eh? I'm gonna tell you a story..."
Uncle turned and cast a hand to the night's sky. The stars swirled, coalesced and re-formed to his whim. Creating a storyboard of light in the night's sky, portraying the tale he weaved.
"The cleverman, eh..? Reckon I can see how that position came to be..."
"Shhh!"
With a turn of his fingers, a small group of stars moved and took the shape of a man and some children.
"This is a story about a man called Gandji and his children..."
Another turn, another small cluster of stars swirled into a second man, and children. "...and another called Wurrpan, and his children. These two men. They were like brothers, but not of blood."
"They're brother-in-laws." Said Mamili. He'd heard the story before.
Uncle silenced him with a look. "Yeah, sorry Uncle." Stepping on the cleverman's role. It wasn't his place.
"Gandji and his children had been fishing for stingray--" A collection of stars took the form of a stingray, and changed color, shifting to a bright blue, as the stingray swirled, turned and swam across the night's sky. Banjo marvelled at his power. Mamili had seen it all before.
"With the water so clear, they speared many stingray. They then cooked it over fire, to separate the meat from the fat. Wrapped it in bark and took it back to the camp where Wurrpan and his family were..."
He had perfect control of the imagery for every story beat, the Gandji and his star family carried the object to Wurrpan's star family. A small star figure took the object, and ran it to the larger figure and the others.
"One of Wurrpan's children brought the stingray to father... Who checked the stingray. The family divided it, and ate it." The star family were gathered around a sparkling red and orange star fire.
"Unhappy with how the stingray had looked, and it's taste, Wurrpan stood up and accused Gandji and his family of giving him old stingray and lesser meat, whilst keeping their fresh catch for themselves."
The star family swirls and chaos changes, specks of red encircle the raging father, capturing his wrath.
"'You should have gone stingray fishing for yourselves!' replied Gandji." Red specks now encircled the growing larger star man of the other group.
"The two men's argument grew more spirited and violent in nature, until Gandji, growing fearful of what Wurrpan might do to him in his rage, grabbed a handful of hot coals from the fire and threw them at Wurrpan. Striking him right in the chest."
A bright explosion of red stars was hurled from the larger man of one side into the mid-section of the larger figure on the other, where it erupted into another red starburst, in stark contrast of the other stars which dimmed.
"Gandji, realizing what he had just done in anger started jumping around in fear of what Wurrpan might do to him in retaliation. From jumping awkwardly he began flying, slowly getting higher and higher. As he flew he began to change form."
The figure grew much larger, and Gandji's legs grew longer and more spindly, as his arms began to round and change shape. As did his children's forms.
"Seeing Gandji was getting away, Wurrpan called out to his children to bring him his spear. Pointing it to the sky, he noticed it was too long for this use, because it was bending back. So he had his children cut it shorter with a sharp rock."
The large Gandji figure and his children were now far above the dimly lit Wurrpan and his own children.
"Wurrpan took aim, and said to his spear 'Please don't let me miss'. Then, hurling his spear, it struck true. The spear driving right through Gandji, from his behind right through his face, where it poked out the other side."
The spear completed Gandji's form change, making a long beak, as he took the shape of a jabiru. As he and his children fell to earth.
"Wurrpan, realising what he had done, said to his children 'Let's get out of here, while we still live!' and they began running. The blacks coals turning them a dusty grey, and their own legs getting longer so as to run better. They all had a bump on the front, growing from where the coals had hit."
Wurrpan, and his dimly lit star family, began to change their own forms, taking the shape of emus as they fled.
Uncle brought the two figures to center focus in the night's sky, first the jabiru, and then closing with the shape of the emu.
With a twist of his hand, Uncle powered down, and the brightened light stars of the emu reverted to the night's sky as it was.
"Okay... Nice story. Message."
"Yeah. Always take care of your family, like you would yourself."
"Eh?"
"Well, yeah. You know. If Gandji gave equal parts to Wurrpan's family..."
"The story never said he didn't." Banjo replied.
"Sure it did. Wurrpan checked the stingray--"
"And he wasn't happy with what his family got given. Doesn't mean that wasn't equal meat. just that he wasn't happy with it."
"Then why'd he get defensive and say he should get his own meat, if he's not happy with how it was divided?"
"That's purely speculative in intent." The inner lawyer in Banjo poked his head out. "How would you respond to ingratitude after you did the work to catch the stingray?"
A smile creased across Uncle's face.
"I think, the point is, that it's meant to be vague and hard to determine who was at fault, for the sake of the message. I suspect the message is about the fraught perils of needless arguments. The potential costs of war over small things. Was this legend told to tribal leaders?"
Previously:High Tensions with the Hypie from the Highveld (It's OUR word!)
Banjo continued his trot away from Katja, until he got back to the campsite. They were the last two to arrive, as others milled around sorting out food and talking.
Banjo rubbed his hands together at the thought of the fodder at hand, catching a whiff of himself and his sweat covered clothes.
Apparently he'd done a bit more work than he and Katja had thought. Ugh.
He trotted over to the tent. Bursting through and rustling through his stuff.
Hmm. Short-sighted. He had a change of clothes... but no towel. No soap.
He poked his head out of the tent to check nobody was around, then went back in and stripped naked. He poked his head out once more, and satisfied nobody was around, he went back inside and went 'the full sun-shower cleanse'. Just a quick one... I mean, you've been doing it all day, anyway...
Breath halted and quickened, a jet black silhouette at the centre of the extravagant tent, the tent lit only by a small, dim corona due to the lack of light within the tent, which orbited his being. Flesh re-knitted and synapses flared. Born anew.
He powered down, and gave himself another whiff, and smiled at the results.
"Clean as a bloody whistle." He uttered, getting changed, and bagging his clothes.
He bounced back out of the tent, brimming with energy and indefatigable confidence.
He made eye contact with Calliope and gestured that he was just going to get himself some food from the set up. He stil couldn't quite see what it was yet, as he hurried over to see what was left.
Oh, hey. Tacos.
Banjo thought back to a time years ago, when Calliope had rounded out his palate and introduced him to a better quality of 'actual' Mexican food.
As he constructed his own from the dregs and detritus that Katja had presumedly left in her wake, he thought back to the look of horror that Calliope had been unable to keep from her face, when he explained his own limited experience back home with his schools' attempts at the cuisine, which had included pita bread and kraft cheese singles slices.
"You look like you're about to call Child Protective Services..." He had replied to her horrified expression. "I assure you, the damage there is already well and truly done."
It was little surprise though. Whilst she'd had a terrible experience with the actual family mealtimes, the food itself from back home was a pleasant memory for her, and she enjoyed introducing him to tastes and flavours from her childhood. He'd become quite enamoured with the idea of the breakfast burrito. And whilst he originally claimed in jest that the only difference between the different food types seemed to be how they were folded, he now knew his empanadas from his enchiladas.
Happy with his plate's meagre holdings - truth was he'd been juicing all day and wasn't really hungry, intending to eat mainly for taste - he grabbed two bottles of Hyper-Aid and made his way over to where Calliope had kept a seat for him.
He was pleased to see she hadn't completely finished her food, so he concluded he hadn't taken too much time. And the pair sat next to each other hand in hand, working away at their plates' holdings. With a full mouth he missed the opportunity to tell Tad to shut up, but instead gestured to the full chorus of his teammates, who voiced his sentiment. He wouldn't miss the next.
Jim-Bob's truck - because Jim-Bob could only drive a truck - brought good news, as he conveyed information that their degrees and accreditations would hold, after negotiations with the wolf at the door. Calliope squeezed his hand in equal parts excitement and relief, and a broad smile creased across his own face for her. His concerns for her eased.
It asked more questions than it answered though.
Negotiations meant terms had been met. What had they given up for this new status quo?
And a truth he knew in himself... Whether it was Him and Tad, Him and Gil, Him and the freshmen at his Community Contribution, Him and any number of teachers and schools over the years, The Foundation and this school...
It wouldn't be the end of things. Once one finds a tender spot to poke at and prod... they're not going to stop until something makes them.
Which means this wouldn't be the end of things. And they'd found a weak point of the school was targeting his mob.
So he'd still need to find out what he could about these people.
"I'll be back soon."
Speaking of Gil, Jim-Bob had called him and Calli forth, Banjo gave her a friendly reassuring smile that tried to offer more optimism in the light of their recent luck with the accreditations.
As she left he looked around, he downed the rest of his first bottle of Hyper-Aid and surveyed the scene of the campsite.
Earlier he'd caught Raw looking at him and Calli glumly, and then the empty seat beside her. It didn't take a genius for him to figure out what was going on there. Lorcán had taken the news badly and had stormed out of the stadium, hopefully that situation would now sort itself out with Jim's news, despite the fact her expression hadn't seemed to improve yet.
Not terribly surprising though, Lorcán was hanging out and talking with Haven and Harper. Presumably Haven was looking for an in with people in Firebird, and remembered Lorcán had family there. Whatever the guy's name was... Sparky McGee. That bloke. It should resolve itself once they actually get the chance to talk and she gets a sense that his concerns are gone now. He made a mental note to check in later though if things hadn't changed, but it shouldn't be necessary.
Besides, Baxter seemed to have picked up on it and had made a move with her self-important self anyway. To dubious effect, judging from Raw's expression now... but hey, Lorcán was on it now, at least.
And that's what had captured his attention now. If he was reading the situation right, Haven had asked Lorcán to ease them into conversation about the Foundation with Firebird members whom he knew. So Banjo took his lead from his movements, and held his mental note for Raw's benefit for later, if needed.
Lorcán got up and started making a move towards an area with more Firebird members. Haven seemed excited. Possibly confirmation bias, but Banjo suspected his assumption was correct.
He took a moment to think to himself, before picking up the remaining bottle of Hyper-Aid and getting to his feet. Walking over to stake out a place for himself within earshot of the redheaded girl, her group and where Haven would likely sit, with a view overlooking the rest of the campsite and waiting.
Eventually Haven made her way over and greeted the group - always affable sort Haven. Baxter joined her, doing likewise.
They started talking, first small talk, then building. Then the transition. Banjo wanted to look at the girl's face, he suspected she'd turned over cold at the mention, but he couldn't bring himself to look for the same reason he'd kept his distance and remained silent.
His presence cast suspicion. He wanted to ask his own questions, but from his lips people would assume an agenda, or at least question his motivations.
Which, I mean, fair enough, I guess...
But it put him in the frustrating position of basically sitting in on a deposition where he had to remain silent whilst others took the lead at their own discretion.
Which was pretty much an unbearable scenario for him.
He was poking around at the remains of his plate, shuffling them around the plate now. The situation had left him antsy, twitchy. 'Juicing' all day hadn't helped either, he had a surplus of energy. But he took what he could from the conversation.
Towards the end he watched as Calliope walked across the campsite, alone. He smiled at the sight of her, but if she saw him, she didn't show it. He couldn't gauge her impression from the meeting she'd just had with Jim, either. Not from this distance. All he could do was watch her walk. It was a graceful walk. A graceful walk to their--
A graceful walk to their tent...
His mind flashed back some years. To a not dissimilar night in this very place. His tongue dug deep in his cheek, and he considered how much information he was actually getting out of this conversation, how much more there was likely to be, and just how fast he could get to the tent.
Don't be stupid. She's been upset all day.
He picked up the Hyper-Aid and took a gulp.
Upset because of the accreditations. Which have been restored.
More poking at the food. Listening.
She's not going to go from distraught to red hot and raring in minutes though, surely. She's someone who prepares. With everything today, it's not like she'd have come here anticipating--
He picked up the bottle. Haven and Harper wished them goodnight. He gulped everything down.
But she's not been upset with you. And you've been supportive. And she hasn't taken anything out on you. And as relief washes over her she might actually--
He got to his feet and walked away for five metres, before breaking into a full on sprint to the tent.
He slowed a few metres before, just to try not to seem overeager or as if he had any expectations. He could after all, have misread everything based on-- a walk..? And let's face it, a surplus of energy that he was experiencing..?
"I saw y' head in here, hun. Everything alright?"
With one look at her in her lace outfit, he could tell he'd read everything just perfect.
Alright... a little abrupt ending to that one, but our little lady of expositionary dialogue has laid out the worst kept secret moving forward.
We're going to group people together by level of activity, so that we can better tend to players' enjoyment going forward.
I'm going to be more vigilant going ahead with the post summaries, so that those working at a slower pace can still have a shortcut to keeping up with events in the game as a whole.
What I would like you, the player base to do, is take a good hard look at yourselves and assess your likely level of involvement, and the pace YOU can maintain going forward. This is for your own benefit, if you think you would struggle maintaining pace with a faster based group, that's fine and there's no shame in it, there will stil be things to do and engagement at each and every level. And interaction across the larger group as a whole will still occur day-to-day so collaborating outside of your own group will still be possible at times.
But for the viability of the game I would like to be able to bundle together groups who are likely to work at a similar pace of play.
Those of you still looking to be involved, please contact the GM crew and let us know what that level of engagement is likely to be - or if you're comfortable doing so, mentioning it in the OOC or Discord is fine.
“There’s too many of ya…” The grizzled juvenile voice spoke out.
“What exactly have ya gone and done here? This isn’t right.”
She seemed genuinely put out by the fact. As if it were HER place and her responsibility for such things.
The Kid had picked up on there being extra people here, and whilst she hadn’t known anyone well enough in the Rec Room, she could tell there were extras. She just wasn’t sure which ones.
“Is that a problem?” Rex asked, the large stony teen breaking the silence.
The Kid smiled. A question. She revelled in the opportunity to impart information.
“Can be, yeah.” She said, with a knowing grin. “I don’t know if you lot have noticed yet, but the screws get antsy when there’s too many of us in one place. Or if the power level swings too high in one place. It’s why tomorrow, they’re gonna break you up into smaller more manageable groups. Now you’re all gonna be known as a Bloc letter – dunno what your designation is, but you’ll be in smaller units above. They’ll probably push it as some measure so you can develop and hone teamwork abilities with a few more familiar people. But it’ll really be cos it scares the shit out of our ‘porters’. So the administration does things to accommodate them. Don’t want guards goin’ on strike now, do they?”
She let out an uncomfortably low growl of laughter for her appearance.
The group had already experienced that. As the majority of the group had witnessed a jumpy guard being quick on the trigger with his pepper spray earlier.
“But yeah, there’ll certainly be no escapin’ it in your instance… what’ve you got, twenty-five? Twenty-four? How’d you lot swing that?”
“We’re not supposed to be here.” Came a soft voice from a new person they hadn’t seen or heard from previously in bright white reflective clothing. Everyone turned.
“That’s why.” Vanyssa elucidated.
“Four of us, came through unique means. Wound up here.”
The large form of Kaiden gave a little wave.
"So what's likely to happen from here?" The brassy blonde rockabilly asked, looking up from her tray.
"Well, tomorrow mornin' first thing, they'll likely break you all up into smaller groups. Two or three's not uncommon, but considering there's twenty four of ya, and considering you just blew Calculus away in the first five minutes of bein' here - and wasn't that a thing of beauty, by the way. Well, I wouldn't even rule out four or maybe even five."
"Long story short... I don't get surprised by too much here normally, but I reckon you bunch might be treated outside of the ordinary."
"You keep saying twenty-four, and you, what about you and those others we met--?"
"The half dozen you met in the rec room? We're not in your bloc number. We're just a welcoming bunch of low numbers they grouped together to ease you in to the rest of the people here."
"Low numbers?" Queried the Hawaiian air rider.
"Yup. Number #543 at your service. The lowest number at this here facility. When I started out those numbers held a lot more meaning, and the handling of the... residents... was a lot more sterile in nature. Most of us weren't considered much more than the numbers they assigned us on arrival. But the low numbers are long timers here, who have either washed out, or as yet not completed the Ju-V program to a regular schedule. The six of us aren't in a real bloc anymore, with most of the people we arrived with already having progressed through. So no, we're not in your bloc. You'll probably see us around a bit, though. We tend to get grouped as our own separate bunch, since they don't really have much other way of sorting us."
"So tomorrow morning they group us, then what?" Asked Adam.
"Well, then your program starts in earnest. Some of you they'll probably take into Heuristics, or training, get a sense of your powersets, what development they figure you'll need and identifying what they think you'll be capable of. Others will probably go out on some local patrol with a local metahuman hero affiliate of Aegis... kinda like a ridealong. They'll keep you busy regardless. Nothing that'll actually be too involved yet, though. Too much liability for that. But yeah, showing you the basic ropes, and what's expected of you."
"So how will they decide who they'll be grouping together? Do we get to pick who we go with?" Kaiden asked.
"Now that I can't help ya with." The Kid said, explaining the limits of her knowledge. "I've never noticed a common thread for how they divide blocs up. They'll split roommates, leave others together, if there's a rhyme or reason to it, I've never figgered it. Any of you could be together, or any of you separated." She stopped and shrugged, aware at how little help the honest answer was.
Amma had paused, a slow tilt to her head, almost as if unsure that she had heard the speculation and inquiry correctly. Someone wanted to share a tent with her, something of a nearly implausible circumstance when she did not even possess a roommate. A tent appeared for more... confining. Intimate. Close. And though there was a precedence of friendship there, a hesitant conclusion that Amma was still uncertain of, she seemed almost taken back by the unfolding situation. Firstly being conjoined to work with Lorcan and Rory, being entrusted to the field, and secondly being approached by Katja when she was almost positive she would've rather bunk with someone else.
Anyone else.
With a curious pass over, she tested the words in her mind still awhirl in her musings and said: "No, I hadn't planned on sharing a tent with anyone." Such was the truth, everyone else had been paired up almost automatically, it was a given for some and a trial for others. Whilst she had no intention of participating, Amma still considered the alternative and almost denied that beaming smile, but with a slight grin and a crossing of her arms she simply nodded.
"Sure," she gestured with a slight shrug and flicked her wrist in an off-handed gesture. "Why not, I picked the one closest to the cliff there. Hope you're not afraid of heights." she deadpanned; a soft, tittering sound loosened from her smile before she resumed her walk towards the field and waved her farewell over her shoulder.
Katja didn't realize she was holding her breath until she exhaled in a sigh of relief. For a second there she feared Amma was going to decline on her offer. But those doubts melted away with the Raven-haired girl consenting to bunk with her.
Katja's smile grew even brighter upon hearing her accept. Almost to the point of it hurting. She chuckled softly at Amma's joke. “Fate would've pulled quite a cruel prank on me if it made me afraid of heights.” She gestured to herself as if to emphasize the point.
Katja waved back at Amma as the French girl made her exit. She could feel her heart pounding with excitement in her chest for some reason. She didn't quite know why, as this wasn't the first time she shared a tent with someone and she'd never felt this way about sharing one with someone before.
But with Amma it just felt… different.
Her gaze lingered for a moment on the French girl as she walked off. Katja thought about the night before on the beach, about how she still had that unasked question that had been on the tip of her tongue.
Maybe tonight, she thought to herself.
Turning around, Katja muttered to herself as she made her way over to the construction site. “Now then, where's that little shit hiding?”
Banjo got to the worksite, to find himself alone, without guidance or assistance. Or supervision.
He looked around to check he wasn’t being watched.
“Hey, anyone..? You’re just going to leave me alone with copious amounts of heavy metal, wiring, and construction materials?!” He called out into the open.
“You guys know who I am, right?!” Still nothing.
“Dodgy AY. EFFF. Shoddy site management. Y’know this makes me want to do somethin’ just from the hubris of it all…”
He sighed, and took a look at the plans.
“Fuck, I hate bein’ the responsible one… Buncha bludgers.”
He got to work hauling heavy materials. Katja would be here soon, if he got things roughly where they should be, they could more easily join the awkwardly sized components together.
He looked around to check he was all clear, and drank deep from the day’s sun. His breath quickened and then halted, and his body turned black. A cool breeze came from the leeward side of him. He felt his spine straighten and seize as muscles and sinew re-knitted and his synapses flared, exhilarating him with the sudden ecstatic rush. Slowly he looked to restore his breath to its normal rate, with some effort, and the corona swirled around his form.
Comfortable that he’d taken enough to make a start on the job, he stopped ‘juicing’ and let his body revert back to its usual appearance.
Making a start, he stacked a few girders and looked to carry them to where they’d form the framework.
Having finally made her way over to the construction site, Katja immediately started looking for her co-worker of the day. Or, to be more precise, she was trying to gauge whether she was already on clean-up duty or not.
To her surprise, she saw that Banjo seemed to be putting in some serious effort into his task. Which was good, of course, as it meant her good mood would survive. At least for the moment anyway.
A loud whistle rang across the site as Katja tried to get Banjo’s attention. “Look at you, productive little wallaby that you are!” she called out as she approached him with a distinct skip in her step. A wide smile gracing her lips as she practically beamed in her happiness.
Without even slowing down in her stride she easily picked up two stacks of girders and tucked them under her arms before finally standing beside Banjo.
"Don't say 'wallaby'. You start sayin' rugby words, my ribcage starts hurtin'." He called back, dumping a load of metal. Picking up cable and timber to save himself a trip later.
Katja flashed a knowing grin as she recalled the last time she played rugby against the little Aussie and practically folded him in half. “Honestly, with you being on your own here, I’m shocked that you haven’t burned the place down yet.” She laughed a little too loudly at her own joke before gently tapping his shoulder with her elbow. “Then again, we’re only just getting started.” Finishing the phrase with a playful wink.
"What kept you, anyway? Too busy listenin' to heavy metal to be haulin' it?" She seemed in good spirits, but that also seemed to be standard fare for Katja.
On occasion the large South African girl would have a flicker of despondency. A flash across the face of what would otherwise be an omnipresent smile, so brief you could barely tell that you'd seen it. If it hadn't repeated on other occasions. But if you'd experienced the same things she had, that was more than understandable.
As if the girl was keeping the dark memories at bay with built momentum of positivity. Forgive the brief loss of power whilst her transmission's changing gears on occasion.
Watching what happened to her family would do that to a person. Or worse.
Katja rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion to Banjo's metal comment. “Of all the people to comment on my music tastes, you probably have the least right to complain.”
She carefully put the bundle of I-beams she held under her left arm down on the ground, making sure that they wouldn't get too banged up. “Besides…” Katja then swung the other bundle of girders in front of her, grabbing it with both her hands before effortlessly lifting it high above her head. “You know I'd never pass up a good opportunity to lift heavy shit!”
"My tastes are impeccable, and beyond bloody reproach. This just goes to show that shit you listen to has made ya ears cactus. And another thing, when sdasdf ... " He kept mouthing whilst no sound at all came out, before finally mutely mouthing the words "Can you hear me at all?" and pointing to his ears.
Rolling her eyes at his tomfoolery, Katja put her second bundle next to the first before turning to Banjo and apologetically raising her hands. “But yeah, you're right. I'm a bit late. Sorry about that, bru!” A smile formed on her lips. “It just took a bit of time before I found someone crazy enough to share a tent with little old me. Not everyone hit the jackpot like you did five years ago!
She chuckled at the memory of the Aussie rascal and the New Mexican Ice Queen's first couple interactions back then. They were such an unlikely pairing and yet, they seemed to be made for each other.
The corner of her lips dropped for only a millisecond as she recalled what happened shortly after. A quick shake of her head cleared her mind of that aweful recollection. And with those memories tucked back into the dark corner they belong, her wide smile reappeared in full force as she thought about her bunkmate.
A gentle softness took hold of her voice when next she spoke. “If I'm honest, I kinda expected her to say no. So when she actually accepted the offer...” She cut herself off with a pleased hum as her cheeks visibly reddened.
It took her a few seconds to realize how she looked and she tried to turn her face away from Banjo. But she knew she was probably far too late with that action.
"Aaah... so that's what brought this on." A wide grin of recognition crossed his face, as he didn't hesitate to take the opportunity to tease his friend. "All of this." He said, gesturing to the blonde South African girl.
Katja put her hands on her hips as she looked over at Banjo for a brief moment, regarding him with a slightly tilted head and a raised eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘All of this’?” Though she quickly turned her face away again when she felt her cheeks heating up.
"This sunny bloody disposition of yours... I could power m'self for about a week off it."
He put some space between them before continuing the thought.
"Lemme guess, New Gal, yeah? Well, just you mind yourself. You know what the French rugby players are like..." His grin started to turn into a more cheeky leer.
"Almost as dirty as the Bokkies. So mind you don't go gettin' a finger in the eye, in that tent there. Or were you lookin' for a fing--?”
Katja’s head snapped to meet Banjo within less time than it took either of them to blink. Her icy blue eyes were filled with unmistakable embarrassment which, as her pupils narrowed, slowly turned into rage. Her head became as red as a tomato, though it was hard to tell whether this was due to embarrassment or anger. Probably both. She bolted after Banjo within a split second, her big open right hand stretched out to grab the joking Aussie’s head.
“oh shit, she's comin'! HA HA HA HA HA HA!" Banjo ran away from the large, rapidly reddening blonde girl, cackling with laughter. Relieved that he was comfortably able to keep a safe distance because he'd juiced earlier.
It was only a matter of inches, but she could’ve sworn she’d had him this time. She closed her hand with so much force that it actually made such a loud noise that people dozens of feet away got startled by it. In hindsight it was probably better that Banjo dodged that one, as his skull likely would’ve offered as much resistance to her squeeze as a ripe tomato.
Her eyes lingered on her empty hand for a few heartbeats before her gaze shifted back to the object of her ire. “I promise you…” She said with a voice that rumbled with barely repressed anger. “When I get my fucking hands on you…” Turning to face him, she continued with what almost sounded like a growl. “I’ll toss you all the way across the Pacific back to Australia…” Katja crouched down to prepare her pursuit, the volume of her voice ever increasing. “You little Aussie shit! She howled before leaping after the little bastard.
If it weren’t for the tremors each of her steps made and the craters her feet left behind, one wouldn’t have guessed Katja’s mass was anything noteworthy by the way she moved. Despite her great weight, she never seemed to be encumbered by it in her movements. She was already a freakish athlete without her powers. With them? Well, she was known as one of PRCU's star athletes for a damn good reason and it was clearly shown in just how close her pursuit of Banjo actually was. However, each time she nearly had that runt by the throat, he’d slip between her fingers, cackling all the way.
A smile slowly started creeping up on Katja’s lips as the initial anger and embarrassment subsided and made way for amusement. They had gone over this routine countless times now. He would say something to aggravate her, she would attempt to squish him like the bug he sometimes could be… Fun times all around, really.
She finally called it quits after what felt like an eternity, though it probably was only a few minutes. She didn’t like to admit she lost, and Banjo most certainly knew that, so she just feigned disinterest in the entire pursuit. Banjo usually knew better than to continue prodding the bear when that time arrived, and they’d merrily continue on with their business. As she looked over at the now ruined field, she hoped that today would be one of those days where he wouldn’t try to rub salt in the wounds.
As her attention shifted to the cloudy sky, she addressed her fraternal menace. “We should really get to work on this…” Katja panted before looking over at Banjo with a grin. “While we’re both still able to get some work done.”
“You’re getting quicker.” He said with a wide grin, still backpedalling freely, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I mean, I still had a gear or two to go, but if I wasn’t juiced to the gills to haul this crap around, may well-a been a different story. But you didn’t even let me get the punchline out.” He crowed cockily.
Katja chuckled softly as a smirk started tugging at the corner of her lips. “You better pray I don't ever get you into a ring or something. You'd become the damn punchline if that were to ever happen!”
“Awww... dunno 'bout that. Still got the ol' slip'n'dip... the ol' One-Two Timmy Tszyu!” He said, bobbing and weaving and throwing rapid left-right combinations. Before he stopped and thought for a moment.
“Don't know how much it'd do, but...” He said scratching his neck at the thought of throwing a combination at someone who tipped the scales at... well, tipping the scales. So he continued in earnest.
“So I’m glad. Someone to get a bit over-protective over. If anyone’s deserved someone like that, it’s you. Someone like that… sounds like Home.” The cheekiness dropped from his smirk, before returning. “I’d let ya go the hug, but I’m still a bit wary of lettin’ ya close just yet.”
The redness returned to her cheeks while her smirk turned into an embarrassed smile. But Katja didn't turn away this time around. Instead she just looked at Banjo, her bright eyes shining with appreciative joy at the Australian's words. “Thank you. she mumbled softly with a hint of embarrassment.
He looked at the damage to the terrain and the job that was still very much at hand, and let out a long, low whistle.
“Bet I’ll get blamed f’r this…”
Katja followed Banjo's gaze and, after surveying the aftermath of their little scrap, instinctually scratched the back of her neck. “Nah bru, we'll both get yelled at if we don't fix this by the end of the day.” She admitted with a hint of guilt in her voice.
Katja quickly made her way over to the bundles of girders. “Come on, let's get to work!” She snapped the reinforced wires keeping the bundles together with a quick jerk of her fingers, the steel beams tumbling down from their neat packages into a pile. “No messing around until we're at least half way through the schematics, deal?”
“I mean, we might as well. There's nothin' left to destroy right now...”
Anybody still interested... please drop a comment in the next 48 hours in either the Discord game thread or the OOC.
Gauging interest.
Anyone who does not do this in the next 48 hours will be partitioned into a "slower" section of the game, bundled with NPCs where interaction will be less frequent and the "expected pace of play" considerably slower.
So there I am, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, looking for one thousand brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night. So, Jeff Beck pops his head 'round the door, and mentions there's a little sweets shop on the edge of town. So - we go. And - it's closed. So there's me, and Keith Moon, and David Crosby, breaking into that little sweets shop, eh. Well, instead of a guard dog, they've got this bloody great big Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shopowner and his son... that's a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really. But, sure enough, I got the M&Ms, and Ozzy went on stage and did a great show.
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;">So there I am, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, looking for one thousand brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night. So, Jeff Beck pops his head 'round the door, and mentions there's a little sweets shop on the edge of town. So - we go. And - it's closed. So there's me, and Keith Moon, and David Crosby, breaking into that little sweets shop, eh. Well, instead of a guard dog, they've got this bloody great big Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shopowner and his son... that's a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really. But, sure enough, I got the M&Ms, and Ozzy went on stage and did a great show.</div>
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