[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Jared Caliber]
[Level: 2]
He was getting increasingly pissed off.
It just wasn’t fair. How come those two got to have their better halves beside them, while he was all alone, stripped of his strengths? Those two couldn’t even appreciate what they had.
“Watch out.” He called, poking his crutch into the ocean depths, “There are unsteady rocks down there. Easy to slip and lose your footing.”
Terry blinked, hurrying to his side, “Right. Do you… er… need a hand, getting over there? Asad can carry you if you need. Or…” He looked nervously where Asad was dipping his feet into the waters, his legs turning into the hind legs of a tiger, “Perhaps I could.”
Not what he intended to come from that comment. The outcome was supposed to be better. And give him a bit more status in this situation. But no, it seemed that terrain searching wasn’t his new special talent, either.
People-watching, however, was still up there in the roster, even if it didn’t have any of the benefits that it had before. He kept his eyes on Terry, watching his eyes flick over to Asadullah, lingering on the arms, where they usually fixated on… well, you could imagine. But this wasn’t a newly discovered hand kink. This was well-meaning concern. And what had happened to deserve such concern? Asadullah was definitely unaware that Terry knew, otherwise his body language would have given it all away.
But as they jumped from island to island, Jared kept a close eye on them, heavy suspicion thick enough to smother the numbing loneliness. The perfect distraction!
And the more he observed Asadullah, the more discrepancies he noticed in the boy’s abilities. Specifically, his shapeshifting. Which was his major talent.
Usually, Asadullah would be able to slip into tiger form, and easily swim between the islands. But now, the tips of his toes which he had transformed before were quickly glitching between human and cat forms. He wasn’t able to hold the added constructs. Even his permanent ear and tail add-ons were becoming static and stiff.
Was he sick? Losing his powers? …Was something wrong? Please don’t let this be an effect of immense emotional turmoil. He wasn’t good at that stuff like that. Especially without his Compulsion Card.
What Jared did know was that they were not going to be talking about this until things reached a boiling point and they all were backed into a corner.
Would it make things worse if he expedited the process and just asked him upfront? Or would that end up with Asadullah freaking out about the distrust and create more of a fuss?
He ducked behind a desk, trying to think of a solution for this. In his distraction, his foot caught in a sand, sending a huge cloud of sand washing in front of him, right onto Terry, who coughed and brushed frantically at his eyes.
“Shit, sorry!” Jared called out to the poor boy, “I didn’t mean to do...” He trailed off, looking at the swathe of land he had uncovered from that kick. It was sandstone, with an engraving inside, rough and almost certainly hand etched. Maybe with the use of a plain piece of metal? Either way, the message was easy to make out. A shaky script spelling out the words, ‘We Still Live.’
“Guys, read this. I think I found those humans we heard about.” Jared called forward.
Terry was still rubbing at his eyes as he stumbled forward, his eyes looking red and inflamed as he paused to pull his hands away and sign, “I do not forgive you. What does this say, Asadullah? I can’t read like this.”
“We still live.” Asadullah told him faithfully, “Wanna bust the rock down and hope there’s a cove underneath it just like ours?”
“How about let’s not break anything, or else they’ll think we’re a threat.” Jared replied, “Last thing we need is a repeat of the fledgling pit incident.”
“Has enough time passed for us to think of it as an ‘incident’?” Terry asked through signs, “It’s only been an…” Here he paused to count on his fingers, “Wow, a week. When did that happen?”
“Have a crisis later. Focus on the problem right now.” Asadullah comforted him, “How do we approach these last dredges of humanity who have somehow made it past the extinction level bomb that apparently wrecked their entire world?”
He made it sound so much harder than what Jared had been thinking of. It wasn’t fair to raise the stakes like that. But with the attention now on him, might as well give the people what they wanted.
Jared made a show of tilting his head, working the cricks out of his neck, “Let’s meet them where they’re at, shall we? Maybe they’ll be kind enough to open the door for their brethren.”
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“If we can find the door.” Asadullah added, thumping on the ground, “Can you hear me, brethren?”
“I think they need to be face to face with them if you want the subtitles to kick in.” Terry patted him on the shoulder in a rough whisper, “But good effort. Want to try looking for an entrance that is definitely at the edge of this islet just like it is at our cove?”
Jared thought it over for a second, before shaking his head, “Let’s just head back to our cove.” He decided, “Looking around might upset them, and right now we really don’t have the resources to deal with another fight.”
Asadullah looked upset but he nodded reluctantly, “Come on, then. We gotta make sure we remember this place and give good directions when we get back to the cove.”
“Count islands we pass?” Terry suggested.
“That’ll do.” Jared agreed, “Come on, guys, we were making good time before, let’s keep the pace up!”
The next few islets were tricky to traverse because they didn’t have as many rocks jutting out above the roiling waters for Jared to step over. Which meant that he had to half-wade, half-swim across the bigger gaps between rocks, all while his knees throbbed with pain.
It was fine, though, he promised himself. It didn’t hurt that bad. He’d survived long enough with only the braces and no support, he could do it again. If he had his braces on him. Which he did not. Because he had gotten complacent to Michael helping him cross the islands which he couldn’t. An oversight on his part, he’d freely admit.
Speaking of Michael, he wasn’t here. Jared knows that he sent the boy away, don’t be stupid, but he had done that with the understanding that Michael would return quickly. Which he hadn’t done. Something must be keeping him.
He could only hope that it was the team home needed some extra hands than anything serious.
These hopes were dashed as, in the dying day, they finally pulled themselves ashore onto the island that housed their cove and descended into the dark depths of their home temporary base. Everything was quiet, and that was what struck him as odd first.
All four of their waking members were there, and yet the place was shrouded in a funereal silence. The second thing that got him was that no one was even working, despite the heavy workload of tasks they had to complete. They were all standing, stock still, staring at the corner of the cove that had been turned into the medical section. The place that only Verity had been kept.
Verity, who currently had her hands tied together, even as she slumbered. Jared had an ominous feeling that he knew what this was about.
“What’s going on?” Asadullah asked, clueless to any of the intrinsic moving parts, yet still fiercely protective of one of his own. He stalked over to Verity, back turned towards her, his shoulders loose and holding himself like he was a lot bigger than he was. Or perhaps as if he was planning to get himself a lot bigger than he was.
A nice threat, but Jared knew that that would be difficult to back up right now.
“Jared, you’re going to want to take a step back.” Ben warned him, “You don’t know what happened.”
“She woke up?” Terry asked, his voice balancing on the line between excited and fearful.
“Yes.” Lucky agreed, “And unfortunately had some very startling confessions to make. Such as the status of her humanity.”
Michael started, as if thrown by that comment even though he was much more informed about the situation than either of them, “Are you sure that she’s not human? I mean, even if you’re a Harbinger, you’d still be human, wouldn’t you?”
“She’s a what, now?” Asadullah asked, protective stance dropping immediately. It made sense, Jared considered to himself. She was a very powerful, yet unstable person, with skills that no one had taught her, yet she’d been able to pull off easily. Eleanor had never taught her how to use a gun, but in the short year they were apart, she was able to easily shoot and maintain a large variety of weaponry, with no explanation on who taught her to do that.
Not only that, but the image of Verity on the table flashed in his eyes, Eleanor Monroe sitting over her with what he now recognized as the Console, wires leading to her brain.
That woman had reprogrammed her. Shut her out of executive functions and turned Verity into what she was now. He’d known that. He’d been complicit to it, as much as he wanted to spew flowery lies about it being a misunderstanding.
What he had never stopped to consider was what Verity had been before. Now he knew, he supposed. And… they were all looking at him. What had he done?
“You don’t look surprised.” Ben noted, cool as a frosty winter.
“Uhm, wowwwww? I’d have never guessed?” Jared said sarcastically, putting up a paltry defense that fooled absolutely nobody, “Okay, so I’ve been suspecting this.”
“You have?” Tench sounded outraged.
Jared put his hands up, “Listen, we were childhood friends! Of course I knew a lot about Verity and had all the time in the world to pick apart her life. Besides, I’m pretty sure I was there when she went from full-fledged Harbinger to… the dormant state she is now.”
“You were?” Another voice asked, but not from the half dozen people in front of him. This one was from behind him, soft and fragile and so, so distrusting. Jared spun around, looking at where Verity was looking at him, frowning as she tugged on the chains holding her hands together. She hadn’t even bothered getting up, which meant she was confident that they wouldn’t get the jump on her, even in this position, or she was resigned to her fate. And with that look in her eyes, he had a feeling that there wasn’t much fight left in her.
“…How much did you hear?” He asked.
“When did you wake?” Lucky added, easily the most defensive out of the bunch.
Verity blinked lethargically, “Hours ago.” She said, “Was faking being asleep because… well, you didn’t seem too happy with me.”
“Gee, I wonder why.” Michael muttered under his breath. Asadullah stepped on his foot, looking furious.
“You weren’t supposed to know.” Verity continued rambling, letting her hands fall again, “I don’t know why I just came out and told you like that. Or, well, I know why, because I was feeling really, really off-balance. Like the redsight was going to take me all over again and I couldn’t have that. And you were supposed to help me. Something you did was helping me, but now it isn’t, and I don’t understand-”
Jared had never seen Verity so openly afraid. Usually she’d discard it with anger or violence or defensiveness, but these were the ramblings of a fearful teenager. Pure, open fear. And he knew exactly how to stop it.
“You need to Compel her.” He told Lucky.
[Player Log End!]