Member
hanzo
Phase
Marlowe
LadyAnnaLee
Atalanta
Alby47
Abstract Proxy
Skwint
Auz
ZygfrytMorgan found herself floating in a dark space.
No, not floating - she felt weight on her feet, but she had no sensation of what might be around her. Nothing but a vast lightlessness, a tenebrous, echoing totality stretching in every direction, including below her feet. The space was not quite familiar, like something remembered but seen from a different angle, a different place. She turned, felt her boots click against emptines. Of course, nothing. There was no light here.
There were sounds, though, just at the edge of hearing. A sussurus of half-heard voices, their meaning entirely opaque but punctuated with the occasional wordless gasp or cry. Moment by moment, Morgan became certain that she knew this place, somehow, but she couldn't quite recall why. She looked around again, then blew out a breath through her nose. Enough of this. Whatever was going on, standing still wouldn't solve anything.
"If you're trying to frighten me, you'll have to do better than this," she called into the darkness, "I find sensory deprivation rather soothing."
Her words didn't echo, every syllable swallowed by the vast expanse. All the same, her skin prickled, and she thought she felt a pulse of cool air across the back of her neck. With a bone-deep certainty, Morgan knew she wasn't alone.
"You are not the Vanguard," something said, the words dropping directly into Morgan's mind. There wasn't really a voice, rather the sensation of tectonic plates grinding together. If the the sound of planets colliding could form words, this would be that feeling.
Morgan tried, but not very hard, to keep a note of exasperation out of her voice, "Are you always this astute, or have you been saving up your brilliant observations?"
"Only those made here may set foot in this place," the thing said, and paused. Morgan felt her skull ache, then the words continued, "Ah. We understand. We comprehend. We had considered this path. Our time is not yours to command. Your place is not here, Morgan Lisbeth Blackwood. Do not return."
She opened her eyes, felt the bump of the plane's wheels hitting the runway. The seat next to her sat empty - on the otherwise-packed plane, Morgan expected this was a courtesy Eleanor had arranged. Morgan cleared her throat and sat a little straighter in her seat, feeling the aches and stiffness of too many hours without movement. She shook her head, scrubbed her face with her hands. Of all the things that had happened to her, this was one of the strangest. While the landing announcements rattled by and the plane pulled up to the jetway, she filed the particulars of the experience away in her mind. She didn't wonder if they would be important, but she did wonder if they would be important to this case...in any event, she'd talk to Tragellan later. For now, being on the ground was by far more important.
Nothing caught Morgan's attention until the company were on their way out of the airport, at which point several things rapped against her mind in quick succession, almost all of them with her own companions. With growing alarm, she stepped up to Manny and Kennedy, her expression in a deliberate and, she knew, convincing, expression of surprise and delight.
"Kennedy! Manny!" She slung an arm around each one of them, "I can't believe we ran into one another like this! Isn't it great?" She pulled them each a little closer and continued in the same tone of voice, the same nuclear-powered smile on her face, "Are you two insane? You both took your guns out of their cases in the airport and now you're thinking of starting a fight? If we're being tailed, let them watch, because we're on at least a dozen different cameras, any agent in this building is armed, the police are outside, and there are mortals to get caught in the crossfire. The only thing we can do is leave and pretend we haven't seen anything."
She waved at someone, laughed, and turned back to the pair, "If they don't know we've seen them, they might let something else slip by their action or they might just break off and return to whoever's pulling their strings. In any case, they were ready for us, we didn't know that, and we've lost this one. We'll make plans, but not if we're inside a jail cell or bleeding ot death on the sidewalk." She patted Manny on the back, and gave Kennedy a peck on the cheek before pulling her arms away from them, and taking a few steps ahead.
She turned, and without missing a step, said "I'll see you two around town, huh?" then quick-walked away, heading toward the rental counter. Ahead, she spotted Eleanor. Well, no time like the present.
"Eleanor," Morgan said, coming up next to her, "They were ready for us. There were people watching the airport. We need to get away, before they decide civilian casualties are worth whatever they hoped to accomplish, or before one of our own does something...unwise."