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harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#276: Aug 5th 2010 at 1:13:55 AM

How random could a scene possibly get?

I'm glad it had the right effect on someone, though. That's why I'm still writing. smile

Ce ne pas un post.
harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#277: Aug 9th 2010 at 3:58:20 AM

Chapter 5.5


As when Aubrey London had been alive, the telephone line of his former bar was triangular, strung between two Chapals and one London. Calling one called all three, and the caller would wind up speaking to whoever turned on their earpiece first. The line still was known for its unreliability, as the three were apt to make a race of each call, often resulting in two of them pressing the button at the same time and jamming the call off of the line. Since Demetrius had grown old enough to handle calls, which, in his case, was just over ten years old, it was thought to have improved: he had almost always won.

But midday, whoever would answer was a matter of whoever was awake. Sometimes, someone forgot. Often, someone was Doctor October "Bonesaw" London, Aubrey's niece.

Like most Londons, her company was not immaculate. She treated Iosethep's criminal underbelly, the surprisingly large range of people who would both be arrested were they to be looked up in a hospital and could pay for her. Plus her father, plus her great-grandmother, and plus Demetrius.

Or was her primary job Demetrius? Since he had appeared on Aubrey's doorstep with the telltale streak of white in his hair and a memorized line explaining his parentage, it had seemed like it. His hair was only the first anomaly; from there, they had multiplied. Even for a London, he was a mystery, and that was once again what she called the bar about fifteen years later.

It was noon, but she had seen Demetrius awake at that time before. She willed him to be the one to answer, though she knew he always was anyway.

"Bones?" For once, not Demetrius. The graveling, barely female voice of Nitya Chapal, the least personable of the three and the most annoyed with Bonesaw's weekly sticking of needles in Demetrius. Never mind that he thought that needles tickled and swore to her that he liked them.

"Yes, me," Bonesaw answered. "Could I speak to Demetrius?"

She heard Nitya's sigh before she had finished saying Demetrius's name. "He's asleep. What for? You were just here."

"I didn't plan on this—but could you give him this message? Miyagi—"

"'No."

"Miyagi isn't doing anything, but he knows an Oceanic doctor with better connections than I, who he can deliver another DNA sample from Demetrius for more advanced testing. All I need to send is one piece of his hair, but only Demetrius can give me permission. I know how you feel about this, but he's never given any sign of feeling the same. Can you give him this message from me?"

"Can we ask you to leave him alone? Since the implants in his legs and since his weight stabilized, you haven't done anything but come up with more reasons why you can't figure out what's wrong with him." But Nitya had spoken too quickly—Bonesaw had not yet had the chance to explain herself. "Is he okay?"

"Yes," Bonesaw answered, "that's why I want to send this. It's not a matter of what is wrong with him, but what isn't."

"Bullshit—you could take one look at him without your glasses on and see what's wrong."

"Yes, he looks alarming—"

"Don't let him hear you say that." Demetrius was more than used to people being startled by him, but the Chapals had been close enough to a London that they knew what ran deeper in their bloodline—that they didn't like the way they were feared, and Bonesaw knew it because she was one.

"But how he looks is not consistent with how his vital signs have been constant throughout his life. And where they stay is far in the opposite direction of 'alarming'."

"I'll take it that doesn't include his blood pressure."

"He has been alive for seventeen years, with no symptoms of it but the number. We both know how thoroughly I've looked. But after that long with the reading being too low for any other human to survive, that metric no longer looks meaningful to him. What I'm trying to say is that, beneath the surface, his body is far better off than anything I've learned says it should be. If I didn't know, I would say he appears several years younger than time says he is."

"Can those implants...?"

"He's never been ill once in his life, before or after the implants. Electrodes can't do that. Next to everyone's I have ever examined, his numbers look like nonsense, something damaged clashing against something superhuman. I want DNA testing because I suspect there was something very, very off about his mother. I'm unsurprised that the outward result isn't pretty; his body seems torn between two very different directions. You're right—it's clearly not in my power to find any reason for what's happened to him, and that's why I need this sample."

Ce ne pas un post.
harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#278: Aug 10th 2010 at 2:00:47 AM

Lol; technobabble goes perfectly with my avatar. [lol]


With the bar only open at night, machines were sufficient for its security needs at noon. Just in case, Deva Chapal sat on duty upstairs, leaving her sister free to sleep if she wished, but she didn't wish yet. She spoke to Bonesaw from one floor below. Unpopulated and with lights off, the club contained no more than an empty warehouse, except for one thing that made it feel populated enough for Nitya.

As she talked to Bonesaw, she leaned against a blurry column of blue coolant that extended from floor to ceiling, just a little more than enough to submerge a large man. Nitya hadn't known that Aubrey had actually had it built until she saw it for the first time. His interest in preserving his body in the event of his death had come suddenly, very recent and mysterious in origin, but it appeared he had meant it, including that the tank would be in here—one of the many times he had surprised her with his playfulness.

Lux II had relived the public of the...artsiness...of the installation of Aubrey's dormant body clothed only in medical tubes. An expert at playing with others' comfort zones with visuals, that time he had been his own target—he, with an aversion to his own appearance that bordered on the dysmorphic, saw something interesting in how he would cease to care when he was dead. Nitya did care—if only he knew about what. The stupid story that Aubrey had fallen into a pile of knives and died did not nearly account for the damage Lux's minions had inflicted. All that had been left to recognize him by was his necklace. Somehow, the bottle had stayed unbroken—Nitya had seen Inspector Takei handing it to Ginger, bloodstained. Seeing how sick Takei looked, she, though she had spent childhood in southern Numeria and could handle violent things, decided not to go downstairs and see what remained of the man who had become a brother to her and Deva.

The most important bit, it turned out. Aubrey's questionably legal, makeshift will had noted that if his body were irreparably damaged, to save his brain if possible. It had been possible. They had dashed his skull but missed what was inside.

As she listened to Bonesaw, she rested her head against the thermal glass where it floated, a dark, hazy spot growing tubes and wires that did not take up one tenth of the tank. What would you have done about Demetrius? she thought through the glass. She almost believed he might think back. Through Demetrius's ordeal, she had wanted to hear his voice so badly, even if all it had to say was that he didn't know, either. At the base of the tank was carved, in his handwriting, "to Ginger"; somehow, that told Nitya that he would have an idea.

"Don't make him some kind of wonder of medicine," she cautioned Bonesaw. "Ever been sick or not, you've said yourself that he might never walk again, and something bad is up with someone who goes years without leaving their room. Just because he might live to a hundred as he is doesn't mean that as he is isn't worrying."

"Maybe this will convince you—you might have noticed that impairment to Demetrius's mobility began when his duplicate organs started to mature."

"And you still decided not to remove them. This could've been over long ago without your indecisiveness—"

"I didn't because I didn't fully understand why they were there yet. Being born with fully functional doubles of sixty percent of his body inside him was strange enough, but the lack of adverse effects has made me wonder if he needs them. These tests might bring me closer to knowing whether to try."

"Needs them? Now you're losing me. Where did you get that idea, a movie?"

"Nothing is impossible. As I've told him already, everything we do know about him so far is inconsistent with current medical knowledge. So that didn't come from anything I've read—but what I've read is all human metrics that say nothing about him. I don't know what Miyagi's doctor might find exactly, but the only thing I can imagine would be many mutations we have not yet had experience with. As astronomically unlikely as it may be for such things to be so noticeable and survivable, it's not technically impossible for a member of a species to make a sudden jump into something new and not predictable through the past. As of now, with no further testing performed, that's all I've got to go by—that he is a very ill Homo sapiens, but a very healthy mutant."

edited 14th Aug '10 5:08:57 AM by harmattane

Ce ne pas un post.
harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#279: Aug 11th 2010 at 3:27:30 AM

That had been the worst way of putting it.

"What the hell?" snapped Nitya. She stood straight again, as if Bonesaw were there for her to slap. "I hope that was just a bad choice of words—"

"Yes."

"Because if it wasn't, you'd better have a damn good explanation if you want me to let you see him again."

"Yes. Yes, it was—I can refer you to another doctor, but he's my cousin. I love him. I come to visit him, too, and I want him to be able to visit me on his own, someday—"

"I thought that sounded pretty, Bones," a third voice purred between Nitya and Bonesaw, with no sarcasm directed toward Bonesaw's eerie pronouncement, but genuine delight. They knew him better.

"Demetrius!" they both gasped. They had never heard the staticky hum of him turning his earpiece on and joining the line. He had been listening to everything.

"It is good to hear that you know my name." Nitya knew that voice—so reedy and childlike compared to his father's, but just as tranquilizing. It worked. She could hear the look on his face. Smiling was something Demetrius did with his eyes, his mouth being ordinarily hidden just inside the maw of the coats and blankets he kept wrapped around his unseemly body. He would bring his powdery eyelashes together like a purring kitten, his temples would give a twitch from what she knew his mouth was doing, and suddenly, being angry felt inappropriate. He looked this way all the time.

"If you ever want to hear everything, you can always ask me," said Bonesaw. "We know you could handle it at your age."

"I'm sorry if your cousin is scaring you," said Nitya. "She seems to think you're some kind of test subject—I have nothing to do with it."

"Test subject?" Demetrius repeated with a giggle like that had been the cutest thing he had ever heard. "You're too serious, Bones. You both know me better than that. Whoever my mother was sounds so interesting, but that is all we know of her. I carry just as many traits from my father—perhaps, such as his calmness staring at the unknown? You know what I mean, Bones—did you not see him often?"

That she had. Aubrey's life looked like a forty-three year long string of injuries. One of the first things he had done in Iosethep after running from his birthplace of Sef had been to become trapped in a phone booth on the worst day of tornado season. It was not adequate shelter—his eye and his neck would never be the same again. Watching her uncle cover up the scar in his eye with a splendidly devilish contact lens as a girl had been the first time it had occurred to her to offer her services to her own family someday—because he had so much trouble putting it in with his large hands and had to ask her to read the instructions. This weird uncle she had never met before, who had come running out of the middle of rural nowhere with a a boyfriend named Andre on his arm and a vocabulary that shocked her mother, would come to be irreplaceable to her. Her mother was there to talk to, but with her uncle, she didn't have to say anything at all. They would grow special to each other over silence.

Another time, she was on the train back from Cedille, her stint treating the crime lords who ran the crumbling city having ended brutally. Her uncle lay asleep on her shoulder, exhausted from blood loss—three bandages on his shoulder were not enough. Why had had he said he could wait until they were home to treat the bleeding properly? They both knew—because of how easily it could have been her. She had heard him snoring, and the first thing that came to her mind was begging of him to wake up when they got to the station because performing a blood transfusion on a train, though easier than carrying him, would be complicated.

She remembered when, during a robbery, he had taken a pressure gun's blow to the head, meant to kill. His body awoke twelve hours later, but his mind stayed in his dreams. For a week, he lay unaware of everything but the dream things he followed around the room with his eyes, sometimes screaming and once shedding tears. Several years later, the morning before he was killed, he had called her, concerned that this past incident had "severed something in his brain". The night before, someone had threatened Demetrius—the next thing he remembered was being on top of the stranger, holding a spoon to their neck as they begged him not to kill them. Bonesaw was unsurprised, reassuring him that he he had been in just as many fights before his accident as after, and that being newly aware of his rougher tendencies was part of having a child. But if he insisted—and he did, for Demetrius's safety—she could scan him in three days.

That missed appointment hit her again, speaking to Demetrius, like it had years ago. Demetrius was correct—he himself had been the scariest thing his father had ever faced, but Aubrey had never been so patient or gentle with anyone. Bonesaw did not have that. She fought off chills listening to Demetrius; for all that was unsettling about his body, his voice did it too her. He sounded too much older than seventeen. This effect she would keep a secret from him; it would break another London's heart.

"Though more anxious personalities do exist that would care, I am not inclined toward being afraid of myself. I am very interested, Bones," Demetrius concluded. "When you next have time, Nitya will let you in, and you may have whichever hair you wish."

"Tomorrow night?" offered Bonesaw.

"I am always here. To you and your doctor friend, good luck," he beamed.

"Get some sleep now, honey."

Demetrius laughed, a muted hum. "Goodnight."

The line cleared a bit; Bonesaw had left.

"See?" he said to Nitya alone. "Haven't you ever hidden behind something when you were afraid?"

"What are you talking about?" Nitya did not even try to understand, giving the first idea that came to her mind. She never understood what he was talking about the first time. "Like a wall?"

"In your mind, mum," Demetrius corrected patiently. "My cousin's clinical speak only means that you intimidate her—nothing about me. When you are a doctor, you can hardly go wrong with it...except with someone like you, it appears. She has behaved the same around me, but doesn't appear ready to admit it," he hummed. "I won't bother her about it. But please be less hard on her. She has given up more paying jobs for me than I would say she's had to. Now, I am very sleepy..."

"Already?"

"I've been tired lately. It will pass. Before I forget, in case I don't wake up until late—the next time you see Kenichi Zimmer, please send him to me immediately, whether I am awake or not."

"Kenichi Zimmer? Which? There's got to be a hundred guys with that name in this city."

"Red hair and dark eyes. Oceanic face." Demetrius paused to yawn. "There is a picture on its way to you..."

"Oh—ew. What is your business with Tama's...kid?" She waited. "Demetrius? Can you hear me?" Nitya would have to find out when she saw Kenichi. Demetrius had fallen asleep already, with his earpiece on again.

She rested her head against Aubrey's tank again for just a second more before going upstairs to switch Demetrius's earpiece off, not thinking anything this time. She didn't have to.


Chapter 5.5 End

edited 11th Aug '10 3:32:27 AM by harmattane

Ce ne pas un post.
Korgmeister Sapient Blob of Tofu from Zimbabwe Since: Dec, 1969
Sapient Blob of Tofu
#280: Aug 11th 2010 at 3:30:22 AM

I'm glad you're still updating this.

Again with the data mining, dear Aunt?
harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#281: Aug 11th 2010 at 3:37:56 AM

Yeah; it's been too much work to give up. This thread is about the only place I'm active, and that arrangement is turning out not to bother me at all.

Ce ne pas un post.
Korgmeister Sapient Blob of Tofu from Zimbabwe Since: Dec, 1969
Sapient Blob of Tofu
#282: Aug 11th 2010 at 3:52:37 AM

Yeah, I am finding that restricting involvement greatly reduces annoyance and lameness exposure.

IJBM? What's that?

Again with the data mining, dear Aunt?
harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#283: Aug 16th 2010 at 2:33:26 AM

Chapter 6


It took weeks for the Chapals to spy Kenichi again, who normally came to visit Tama often—Tama assured them that he was alive and well, just “busy”. When they did see him again, it took them another week to catch him without someone else attached. To separate him and Tama in particular with the necessary crowbar was not worth the effort. Out of their earshot, the Chapals called Tama and Kenichi Slut Two and Slut Three. Aubrey was and always would be Slut One.

But as the month passed, the visibility of a single person in the bar increased. The Langley skyscraper sat in Iosethep as a needle in the side of Section Eight, and word had spread into the sector that a situation had gone down there as the tower had not seen in years. The staff had vacated it, but it was locked down from the inside. No one came out, and no one had tried to get in for a while. Chatter from the normally obnoxious Lux II had muted suddenly. Iosethep knew that, fourteen years ago, he had become some kind of physical horror, and now the rumor was that his mind had finally gone the way of his body. He had gone berserk, it was said, now a pure monster loose in the tower. No one would go near it within blocks. Even the city watch was on guard around the premises—no one could see inside the building and know for sure.

Section Eight largely scattered, except for the Londons (The Chapals? Londons enough.). This was attributed to their familial bizarreness and not taken as a sign that any one of them, perhaps, knew more of the truth.

With one hidden hand, Deva summoned Nitya through their earpieces in the early evening about that month after the skyscraper had locked itself down. Visitors to the bar after dark had dwindled to the point at which Kenichi had enough space to lie on the floor on his back unobstructed by any crowds.

Bar depopulated or not, this was still Section Eight, and to chat with her sister would have been too lax, as the two of them were the heads of security here. A wordless ring would be transmitted into Nitya’s ear that both knew to mean “come here”.

Deva sat in her usual place behind the bar, next to Tama. No one was currently there to serve, but she was a comfort. Deva had managed to know her for five years without becoming more than an acquaintance. Deva saw nothing about her than what she had learned in their first five minutes together—or nothing else that mattered to Tama. Inconveniently cuter than her sister, Deva could scarcely escape learning more about people than she wanted to, and in the middle of them, Tama was a safer place. There was more to Kenichi, but she didn't want to know, and he didn't want to share. It was all she ever wanted from anyone new.

"How many shots has he had?" It was a good thing Demetrius was patient, because no matter what the number was, Deva was not going to make him wait any longer.

Kenichi answered for Tama, visible to she and Deva as only a pair of feet coming sideways from the other side of the bar. "Oh, I haven't had anything." He crossed his ankles. "I just like the ceiling." It was still pretty.

Tama giggled, Deva's least favorite sound. She would have immediately lit a cigarette if it were not her sister's pet peeve indoors, and if her sister had not just appeared over Kenichi.

Without a word, Nitya lifted him into view by his hair.

Kenichi did not have a chance at struggling; Nitya was inches taller than him and apparently strong enough to lift him. They had never spoken more than single words to each other—the scarier of the sisters, she had never denied the rumor that, aside from her sister, she had only ever had one friend. Kenichi stammered, "Was I in the way?"

Tama had stood. "Please put him down..." she begged through a mouthful of nails.

"Gentle, sis! Gods. You can smack her, Zimmer." said Deva, her voice narrowed around the cigarette she was lighting. She knew he wouldn't do it.

Nitya dropped Kenichi onto his feet, and he backed away a few steps, rubbing his head.

"I almost bloody stepped on him." She never answered his question. "You're not going anywhere for a while. Demetrius wants a word with you."

Kenichi paled another shade. Was obstructing the walkway that bad? "W...what for?"

"Seems it's for him to tell you, not us." It was not the first time. "Have you had any other dealings with him?"

"I've never seen him before." He glanced at Tama, more sickly still. If it was not the walkway, he could only think of one other thing Demetrius had to do with him, and he could not say it aloud here. Only Tama knew about Lux, and by the glance she returned to him, she also thought that the child might be in danger.

Ce ne pas un post.
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#284: Aug 16th 2010 at 12:36:13 PM

Hmmm. It's getting complicated. I'm still well and truly hooked, and enjoying it.

harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#285: Aug 17th 2010 at 12:38:29 AM

What kind of complicated? Is it something that needs to change, or are you having trouble following the story?

Ce ne pas un post.
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#286: Aug 17th 2010 at 12:47:28 AM

No it's not anything that needs to change. You're clearly starting a set of new threads that will weave in to the tapestry from here on out. Not a bad thing at all. Just an observation.

harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#287: Aug 17th 2010 at 1:11:56 AM

Well, that's certainly true. I've been taught to make things as explicit and clear as possible, though, so that's always on my mind.

Another update is in progress now.

Ce ne pas un post.
harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#288: Aug 17th 2010 at 2:32:43 AM

Kenichi thought of inventing an excuse to run, but that would give away everything.

Demetrius was barely older than Lux. How could such a little kid—more so, a reclusive little kid—be influential enough to frighten Tama wit hthe idea that he knew something about Lux? Only a child...Kenichi reminded himself.

Oh, yeah—he could be scary like Lux was scary. Also the spawn of strange blood, Demetrius could be different, too. With Lux, it had not had to mean dangerous. He and Kenichi were best friends now, but Kenichi knew, mostly because Tama had reminded him so much before meeting Lux for the second time, that he was a powerful kid, in mind as well as birth. If he had gone bad, he would have gone very, very bad. Demetrius had reasons to want all of the Langleys dead, more than Lux II's staff and anyone in Iosethep.

Deva saw Kenichi's fear and laughed. "Calm the fuck down."

The stream of fear behind Kenichi's eyes had to slow down before it stopped. Lux had never done anything to deserve to die...he was so different from the Lux his father's staff knew...everything that was the opposite of "cold". Kenichi prepared himself to do anything, knowing Lux would do the same for him.

"Demetrius wouldn't hurt a bloody fly," said Deva. "He probably just wants you for a 'client'."

Tama did not add to this; the Chapals didn't know.

"Wha—client?" Kenichi wondered, tilting his head at Deva like a puppy. "Isn't a he a little young to be a lawyer?"

"A little young for a psychologist—I was joking. All he has is a metric fuckton of misfits who like to talk to him. I'll bet he is 'concerned by your inability to understand seating conventions.'" Deva softened her voice to affectionately imitate Demetrius.

"But I thought he didn't see anyone..."

"But anyone sees him. Fuck, he has these five girls upstairs twice a week..."

"Oh," Kenichi relaxed a bit. "I wonder why someone so attractive would hide up there, then—"

Tama stated tape over his lips, but it was the mortal chill that fell over the Chapals' faces at the word "attractive" that shut him up.

"Not like that," said Nitya, dropping blocks of ice on Kenichi's vocal cords with her tone. "This way."

She trapped him with her arm and dragged him up the stairs behind the bar with her as Lucrezia had long ago, as easily as the cyborg had a child. The last he saw before deja vu surrounded him completely was a look from Tama that said "Don't tell him anything."

Same door—Nitya took him to Aubrey's old office, which still looked so nondescript and undecorated from the outside. The only change now was the retinal scanner locking the doors. Someone had drawn all over its aluminum in pen a while back; the lines were scratched, but the toothy designs still betrayed Aubrey's hand.

Still gripping Kenichi's arm, which had gone numb, Nitya spoke into the machine. "Demetrius?"

"Nitya." The voice that replied through the intercom was the opposite of his father's voice, which had been deep enough to drown in. If Kenichi had not known that Demetrius was older than Lux, he would have estimated him a few years younger by sound. It occurred to Kenichi that he had no image or idea of who was on the other side of the door. "You have Kenichi," Demetrius chuckled. "I hear him breathing." The kid talked about Kenichi like an even younger child, not a murderer's accomplice. "Tell him not to be afraid—a hopeless gesture from me."

"One minute." Nitya switched off the intercom and did not do as she had been told. "When you see him, do not say anything." She pinched Kenichi's arm tighter. "No matter what you see."

Kenichi started now, nodding silently.

"We don't know what's wrong with him—that's enough without trouble from you. Not a word."

Kenichi waited to be unceremoniously shoved inside, but after a pause, she only spoke one more thing.

"Tell him he has nice eyes." The sharp edge had left her voice, leaving only love for her little...nephew, that worked. "I don't care if you don't swing that way. He needs to hear that he has nice eyes."

Kenichi understood, and for a second in the musty dark of the stairs, they were both the same thing, charged with an unusual case of a child and wanting only the best for him even if they were to be split into warring sides.

Then she unceremoniously shoved him into the office.

"Here's the mouth breather," she said as coldly as Lucrezia had presented him before.

Kenichi stumbled into a pile of notepads on the same desk he remembered hitting before, knocking the notepads over into the lap of...well, the first thing he saw was white hair. Chin length, feathery. The desk's pointed edge bisected him. "Sorry..."

"You asked for him."

Demetrius did his eye-smile. "Leave him to me."

Kenichi did not have to be shown where his chair was this time. He fell into it. It was too late not to look as alarmed as he was—it was plain why Demetrius was never seen out of this room. Nitya dug her fingernails into his shoulder on her way out.

"Nitya," Demetrius began, in a matter-of-fact tone that Kenichi remembered hazily, "cares nothing for manners. If she wishes to take you back downstairs, try ice for your arm."

Kenichi shook said arm, which had lost feeling entirely. Pins and needles began to creep up his fingers. Anything to distract his eyes from Demetrius. He feared that if he opened his mouth, something along the lines of "What the fuck?" would slip out.

"So, firstly—what are you doing here with your little Langley to take care of?"

Ce ne pas un post.
harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#289: Aug 21st 2010 at 8:27:17 PM

Just posting to say that yes, I am working on the next update. It's just very hard because it relies a lot on exposition through dialogue (in b4 KILL IT WITH FIRE), and while that can and has been done effectively, it takes more than just a keyboard. Only having a keyboard, I am more than a little stumped. But it's in the works.

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harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#290: Aug 22nd 2010 at 4:01:45 AM

This update was a lot of work. If anything got lost in it, let me know.


"You were so difficult to catch, even here under our noses," said Demetrius. "But why, when you have one of Iosethep's largest complexes to watch over alone?"

Kenichi looked into the biggest pair of grey eyes he had ever seen. They were proportioned like a much younger child's and retained one's curiosity as they scanned up and down, then settled on Kenichi's own eyes. Unsettling, like two mirrors placed across from each other, but with only Kenichi's shooting down into infinity while Demetrius's looked through him from an opaque surface. Demetrius's eyes were an anchor for Kenichi's sight, the only part of Demetrius he could make heads or tails of.

Demetrius’s body was a hive of black material of every kind—blankets and glimpses of patchwork, repeatedly reshaped coats, anything and everything more shapeless than himself. Nowhere on the other side of the desk was untouched, and his wrappings even covered some of the desk. They blended near perfectly into the dark—the light was three times as dim as it had been when his father had inhabited the office—but what dim outlines Kenichi could see had no beginning or end. Frankly, they traced a body far too large for his head. To identify Demetrius as fat would have been as explanatory as calling Nitya scary. Something in his core strained his skin to get out, pulling it translucent and minimizing details like limbs with its force. The result, embryonic. If Kenichi were to see beneath the desk, Demetrius’s feet would have looked like footnotes, too small to be consequential. If he were to move from this spot—Kenichi couldn't picture it. Too many variables. Demetrius seemed to pull in the shadows of the room with his mass, mostly hiding him but for his powdery hair and his eyes. More than anything, he was a pair of patient eyes.

"Do you know?" asked Demetrius after a moment of silence from Kenichi in response to his question. He tipped his head a bit, to Kenichi’s confusion. He had not been around Demetrius long enough to discern his expression from his eyes alone; the fabric tides covered his mouth and half of his nose. He knew that he startled people. Kenichi's ears reddened guiltily, and time dilated. The best he could do was follow Nitya's order literally.

Look at his eyes, Kenichi had to remind himself. Only his eyes. They really were gentle eyes.

"Kenichi?" Demetrius raised one eyebrow, but his other turned the other way, concerned.

By now, Kenichi had forgotten the question. He guessed that it had something to do with being here. "Nitya said you wanted me?"

Wrong. Demetrius waited, and he tried again.

"What did you—"

Everything moved on Demetrius's side of the desk, and then there was a pale hand, surprisingly dainty, lying on Kenichi's, coming from Demetrius's mass of blankets like an appendage that had just grown there. It felt warm, not anxious.

"It is all right—that can wait." Demetrius hollowed out Kenichi's eyes again, and then his closed halfway. His temples gave a certain kind of twitch. "We can get this over with first."

"What?" Kenichi pretended not to know.

"I know. I can explain." This seemed to be routine. Demetrius's face did not shift one hue in embarrassment; in fact, he explained away his appalling form as placidly as he might have explained why most of his notepads were green. "You know who my father was, do you? My mother left me with him, and she never showed herself again, never gave him any hint to who she was except that she knew by my hair that I was his. I remember her, but what was interesting about her was not what I remember." Demetrius shrugged. "As varied as the occupants of Section Eight can make themselves, there is no known genetic treatment here powerful enough to be passed on to a child, not even in a corrupt way. If such a one has not been invented underground my mother carried something quite interesting on her own, and did not show itself very neatly in me."

Kenichi fidgeted. He had failed Nitya, and the penalty for it looked high. "I—I'm sorry. I didn't know that you were ill—"

"Shh—" Demetrius quieted Kenichi with an abrupt pat to his hand. "My intention is not for you to pity me; it is for you to feel at ease. I'm not ill. Just weird." Demetrius's hair became twitchier, and his eyes narrower—it became unmistakable; he was smiling. "When I was fresh from my mother's, no one sensed anything amiss about how I looked—a touch wider in frame than most, but what London was not? When I was four, one year after losing my father, the first sign that there was something different about me manifested itself with radiating, mostly superficial pains throughout my torso, though they went deeper when I moved too quickly. My cousin is a doctor, and the Chapals granted her permission to perform a full body scan."

It was too scripted. He had memorized this. Kenichi paled as he imagined Demetrius reciting the same spiel to everyone who ever got a look at him. Everyone horrible enough to be like Kenichi and choke when they saw him...so lost was Kenichi in that image that he did not see how much Demetrius enjoyed himself, particularly as his story took a turn for the macabre.

He went on, squinting like a cat, "There was nothing wrong with me, she found, at all. My pain was that of pressure only. The scan revealed that I have two of the majority of my internal organs—of a couple, three, and no space for them to mature. My bones grew onefold, but the rest of me, twofold. When the pressure cracked one of my ribs when I was eight, we knew that the something had to be structurally changed. As all of the duplicates were, besides crowded, functional and normal in every measure, we deemed it too dangerous to touch them. Instead, the bones. With several surgeries—breathe, Kenichi; I did not think they were so painful at all—we recalibrated and adjusted them to my expansion, and when a couple could stretch no further, removed them.

"Correct? Who knew if it was? We have played this blindly, improvising every step. I was alien to my cousin and every doctor she knew. If this ever happens to anyone again, may what is going to be done to them be decided more than a few days in advance. I became quite unwieldy where the duplicates were concentrated, but still ambulatory and still optimistic that that was a sustainable state.

"At your little Lux's age, I sought out and contacted Miyagi, a mechanical designer at the lighter end of Iosethep, for a procedure of my own design. I could not forget that I occupied the center of Section Eight, and I was an easy and vulnerable target for any enemies my father left behind, clumsy and with vital striking points straining just beneath the skin. With my bones doing little inside me, I felt that an external set was necessary. The exoskeleton he made for me was a light version of Lucrezia's, which he had designed when my father was alive. The design was meant to contain me rather than rebuild me, just rigid enough to give me some semblance of a shape and perhaps a greater range of movement. He was, however, no doctor, and I had not brought him into contact with my cousin for fear of overworking her. He miscalculated, I grew into its unbalanced design, and to shorten a very long explanation, that is why it is difficult to hazardous for me to move from this room. Innocent human error only, on my part and his."

If Kenichi had not been too sickened to move, he might have picked up the nearest writing utensil and disemboweled himself in shame. The time he had thought Professor Watson was flirting with him when she was not and ended up slapped across the face had nothing on this. He just had to know one thing before he died an honorless shell. "Are you...is your body still...?"

"No," answered Demetrius, predicting the question. "I am seventeen. According to my cousin's measurements, my adult size has stabilized."

"Why...?" Kenichi croaked. He clung to his edge of the desk, almost shrunken beneath it. He wanted just one black blanket to hide his face with.

"I heard Nitya tell you." Demetrius raised a mischievous eyebrow again. "She thinks that this old room is soundproof. But she knows correctly that we have no answer to me—I have less visible attributes that point nowhere, and we can only guess a mutation sent from my mother. My cousin has sent a piece of my hair for further tests, but we have heard no answers back."

"I—I'm so sorry..."

"Feel no need to be. This is quite routine for me. If I dismissed everyone who was startled by me at first sight, I would have no friends. Take one deep breath Kenichi—" Demetrius waited for Kenichi to do it. "Like that, and again. You will find that we can talk for more easily with your greatest question dispelled. The elephant is now out of the room." He smiled.

And he was right. Kenichi's voice was already steadier. "I'm still going to be a little sorry. Why not? I'm a bloody nurse, and I can't wrap my head around what you've been through."

Demetrius almost protested again, but walking into it was the chance he took. "You're a sweet one, aren't you?" He did not notice himself blushing. "Of course you are. I know a lot about you, and I know the real reason why the Langley skyscraper is locked down."

Kenichi's expression hardened. This was something else. "You can't have Lux. He isn't anything like his father—that's only what they wanted him to be!" He gripped the arms of his chair, stuck with a thought that threatened to make him run from the room and back to the skyscraper in question. "Have you done anything with him?"

Demetrius was unaffected. "Nothing, but if you are so worried about him, why is it that you are visiting Tama with increasingly greater frequency?"

"Lux told me himself that it was pretty damn impenetrable when locked down, but it looks like he missed something. How did you find this out?" Kenichi felt sweat accumulating in his hair. He had a folding sword concealed in his shirt; he could not let himself forget.

"How much more direct than you were a month ago," Demetrius mused. "I see you two have had the influence on each other that I hoped you would."

"How?"

Demetrius kept staring through him, impressed.

"We shut off all of the damn security consoles—how? And what do you want from us? This Lux never did anything to you..."

"I know. After all, I watched. A little bit. Enough to decide that all I want from you and and Lux is assurance of your safety. That is why I brought you here—ah—breathe again, Kenichi. That is why I wanted to see you so much sooner."

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harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#291: Aug 22nd 2010 at 11:19:50 AM

Oh, and here is my painted Demetrius: [1]

Source drawing and source drawing I didn't end up using, in case you decided not to click them earlier.

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LuckyRevenant ALMSIVI from The Flood Since: Jan, 2001
ALMSIVI
#292: Aug 22nd 2010 at 9:03:40 PM

Now I need to know what Demetrius brought him to see.

I've been reading through this thread somewhat steadily for the past few days. I really like what I've seen. I wish I had some sort of constructive criticism for you, but at the moment I can't think of anything.

Also, Demetrius is huge Body Horror to me.

"I can't imagine what Hell will have in store, but I know when I'm there, I won't wander anymore."
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#293: Aug 22nd 2010 at 9:18:08 PM

A very pragmatic and perceptive young man, Demetrius, to dispose of the elephant by making it dance. I almost said "wise" but I don't know about that.

You've started the new threads cleanly and tightly and the weaving begins anew. I like it.

harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#294: Aug 23rd 2010 at 2:20:07 AM

@Lucky: Hence the challenge—making a deconstruction of [INCORRECT TROPE EXPUNGED, CORRECT TROPE = SPOILER] sympathetic. Apparently, I hate myself and want to deprive myself of sleep working on characterization.

@Madrugada: Just wait.

No update tonight, but a random thought: if Lux III looks like Spock, and Demetrius talks like Spock, clearly Lux + Demetrius = Spock. surprised That explains everything!

edited 23rd Aug '10 6:47:16 PM by harmattane

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harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#295: Aug 24th 2010 at 2:54:23 AM

"What do you mean by that?" Kenichi had felt like questioning thing more since he had begun taking care of Lux. Having anything less than certainty concerning Lux's safety was so uncomfortable, and sometimes he kept doing it to everything, unconsciously, when Lux was not on his mind. He fell back into his chair, but his eyes still did not let Demetrius loose.

"It was only out of concern for the safety of the Chapals and myself that I had surveillance planted in the Langley skyscraper. You know what is between the Langley family and mine. A major upheaval in the house concerned us." Demetrius's eyes did not say enough, however he felt about speaking of this. Kenichi needed to see the rest of his face. "Do you understand?"

"But I thought we killed all of the bugs, didn't we? How long were you able to watch us?"

"You did not get ours. We did not leech off the security consoles; those were not thorough enough. I know an Inspector Takei, what he called an eternal acquaintance of my father's. Upon discovering that a collection of Lux II's former staff was to return and 'clean' the building—"

Kenichi flinched at the term, and Demetrius touched his hand again sympathetically.

"—Takei volunteered to infiltrate the party and plant our own recording devices while they planted traps. Do not blame yourself for not finding them. Miyagi made them to be very small, just for us. If you survived the incident, we would need to know what was going on. Yes, in your terms...we stalked you."

"But didn't you see there was nothing to worry about?" Kenichi was blushing now. His beginnings as Lux's right hand officer had been better off unseen.

"Yes," Demetrius answered quickly. "Yes, I realized that Lux III was not a threat at the same time you did, having traced you to the reactor level—what a functionless place. Thank you for helping to disable it. Lux may not have performed so efficiently had he been alone with his fear."

"Oh, gods." Kenichi covered his burning face. He bit his lip shut; if he didn't, either laughter or a gasp of horror would come out, and he could not predict which.

"I was laughing with you, Captain. A very archaic suit they left you with, you poor thing. That day was when I requested that Takei shut the bugs down. I knew enough. And the footage—"

"Deleted?" Kenichi asked hopefully.

"Archived. It may save you again someday. There is a possibility that Takei left one bug online because of the effort he put into them. Do not bother yourself about it. As long as he knows how I feel, and as long as you and Lux do not suddenly develop murderous intent, he means you no harm.

"But I could not forget you two, either, and the undeserved danger Lux's bloodline put you in. You're afraid that I might hurt Lux to avenge my father—the least satisfying way to go about it. Much better to keep Lux II's only heir alive and in an environment where he may not grow up like the rest of his family. I want to keep him safe with you. So far, it has gone well."

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harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#296: Aug 25th 2010 at 3:08:13 AM

No update tonight, but I did reread the first chapter to see if something I suspected was true—it might be. Is it just me, or has the tone totally changed since then (not desirable, may need changing)?

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Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#297: Aug 25th 2010 at 11:01:15 AM

No, the tone has changed. But I don't think it's a bad thing, or that it needs to be "fixed" it changed because the viewpoint characters changed, from Lux II and Aubrey, to Lux III, Kenichi and now Demetrius.

Lux II was demanding and overbearing, and Aubrey seemed to have a default operating system of "keep 'em off-balance and guessing". So the parts of the story they controlled involved a lot of back-and-forth pulling between them as to "how is this going to play out? My way or his way?"

The younger three are much more tentative and flexible — none of them are wrenching me along with them.

It's changed from Clashing Titans Shaping The World to Youngsters' Discovery and Exploration of the World And Where They Fit.

Or to use a different metaphor, Lux II and Aubrey were having a tug of war with the plot and the reader as the rope; Lux III, Kenichi and Demetrious are surfing on the plot.

edited 25th Aug '10 11:06:03 AM by Madrugada

harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#298: Aug 25th 2010 at 3:30:39 PM

It's changed from Clashing Titans Shaping The World to Youngsters' Discovery and Exploration of the World And Where They Fit.
Yes, true. I just don't see how such a shift can be a good thing—or at least anything but an unsettling, jarring thing. How can the latter make sense in the world of the former? When I looked back at the first chapter, I felt like I had betrayed the darker tone of that with the rest, or perhaps started writing a whole different story that didn't fit with it.

And when you say that the current set of characters isn't as wrenching, how can that be done without the emotional impact going down, or the characters becoming less engaging? I'd rather it be more inclusive than just watching them passively.

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Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#299: Aug 25th 2010 at 4:09:26 PM

They aren't wrenching at me. Lux II and Aubrey were both using the world they lived in and, by extension, the plot and the reader, as the rope in a huge tug-of-war. Reading it felt like they expected to control me as much as they expected to control the world. I had a hard time emotionally investing in either one, because I was fighting them, trying to not be pulled into their control.

The boys aren't doing that; they're discovering and exploring their world, and testing how much they can control it, but they aren't trying to extend that control to the reader — I've seen them being weak, and silly, and scared — things that Lux II or Aubrey (the Aubrey of this story, anyway) wouldn't have allowed. I'm more emotionally invested in the youngsters because they don't demand it of me.

How can it make sense? Easily: the world wasn't what Lux II or Aubrey thought it was. They saw only what they wanted to see — Lux II couldn't conceive of a world that he wasn't in control of, that wasn't his to make or mold or destroy, just for shits and giggles. Aubrey saw a world to be manipulated and tricked rather than bullied and frightened, but he was just as incapable of seeing that his area of control was much smaller and insignificant than he thought it was.

edited 25th Aug '10 4:12:55 PM by Madrugada

harmattane X_X from Location, location Since: Jan, 2010
X_X
#300: Aug 25th 2010 at 4:53:01 PM

I see what you're getting at now. That's not the first chapter I know as the writer, which is what alarmed me at first—there is a considerable story behind that first scene that drives everything. There is a serious reason why the Langleys are messed up and so much more to know about where Aubrey was coming from. But no one is supposed to know the whole story yet; it's still just starting. Right now, that first chapter should stick out after all, and things there should seem to be different from what I know they are.

Thanks for your help—see, this was the problem with doing all of my previous work in isolation. There was no way for me to know anything about a reader's perspective when it might differ from the writer's.

edited 25th Aug '10 4:54:17 PM by harmattane

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