Thirtieth PSI

[a_gentle_boy]

[action, dated back a few days]
[He'd heard from Rin that both Roshian and Giriko had gone in a single night.  Though he wasn't very fond of them himself, he remembered how distraught Luke had been for those few weeks when his 'mother' had been droned, and how happy he'd been to have her back.  The two of them . . . They were obviously important to his friend.

He isn't surprised when he rings the doorbell to be greeted by Roshian's smiling face.  She pats him on the head.  'Luke was upstairs.'  Evidently, she still remembered that they were friends.  They were the same age, after all, in the same classes.  And if he thought about it . . . Luke was the first real friend he'd made here and still his closest.  He nods to the drone, quickly hurrying up, a jigsaw puzzle tucked underneath his arm, a small box of chocolate held in his hands.  If Luke felt even half as badly as he had when the Netherlands had gone, or Margot . . .

But the moment he walks through the bedroom door to be greeted, his face falls.  No cap.  Nothing blue.  No trace of that interesting way of speaking Luke had.  Around the room . . . No Gizmo.  No home pictures.  And now that he thinks about it . . . no funny robot on the front lawn.

It is suddenly very difficult to swallow.  He carefully walks to the desk, setting his presents down, barely capable of doing so without trembling.  His hands . . . Lucas shoves them into his pockets quickly.  As he backs away, a small box set atop the desk catches his attention out of the corner of his eye.  "For Lucas".  Turning to the drone boy to ask in a casual manner, he is greeted with mild surprise.  If it had his name on it, certainly, it was for him.  Once again, his shaking hands can hardly grasp ahold of the object, but he manages it in the end.  And when he turns to leave, he doesn't even apologize as he accidentally sweeps  a stack of books off the desk.

He stumbles down the steps and out the front door, clutching the box to his chest.  The heaving of his chest as he runs . . . He can pretend that it is because of the exertion that his chest has become so tight.  Not because it has become so hard to breathe.  Not because of the tears that flow, unwanted, from his eyes.

  . . . Goodbye, Luke.  May you solve every puzzle that arises to challenge you.]

1. Alone in the park, Lucas finds the most isolated bench he possibly can and eases into it, still holding the box to his chest.  He has an inkling of what's inside.  The same reason he had shown Luke where he kept his box . . . Now, though, he simply sits.  And allows himself, after a few futile moments, to cry softly.

2. He has calmed down enough to go through the things that had been left to him.  Just as with the Netherlands, just as he himself did, Luke had kept notes.  Lucas dries his tears, looking through each piece of information carefully.  It's hard for him to understand right now, but . . . He will go through everything again when he's in a less harried state of mind.  The Westport notes.

3. It had been too late for Luke.  But it didn't have to be that way for anyone else.  Not if he hurried up with this.  Lucas is too shy to take pictures of people, but late into the afternoon, he is in the park with an ancient, half-broken camera, practicing taking pictures of trees and squirrels and snowdrifts . . .

((A bit deliberately less accessible than the usual entry, so I'm going to ask that no more than 3-4 people respond to the first prompt.  Thanks.))  

Comments

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

To the Queen . . .

[He was 'Princess' Kumatora's best friend, but somehow, Queen seemed a lot more impressive.]

It sounds like your family is really important. But, you know . . . Even if that's so, you don't have to put too much pressure on yourself, either. I mean, I don't know if you do, but . . . that was something someone had to tell me.

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

[[Theta smiled when he was obviously impressed. She missed having a reputation, and she wasn't such an innocent and nice person that she didn't like having her ego stroked in such a way. Nonetheless, she shook her head at his gentle advice.]]

No, it's not so much pressure that I can't stand it. Man is meant to put himself under some amount of pressure, though, or else he will never learn to excel.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

That's true. And sometimes the pressure is put on for you.

[Lucas could think of few people who knew that better than himself.]

I think that's how it is here, too. If Mayfield weren't so awful, people wouldn't work as hard to try to get out.

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

That's it! That's it exactly. If man did not have goals to impose upon himself, he would never discover the lengths to which he can reach. Man may not be meant for the power of God, but in so reaching for such a lofty goal, he will find his hand in places he never even dreamed!

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

Er.

[Lucas is taken aback momentarily by the fervor with which Elizabetheta speaks, but after a few moments, he smiles a little.]

Right. You never know what you can do if you never try. So . . . We all have to try as hard as we can to fight against this place.

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

[[Yes, Theta does rather take any opportunity to wax poetic and ham it up terribly. One of these days, someone ought to tell her to stick a sock in it, but if Lucas is polite enough to listen, it'll be hard to get her to stay quiet. She nods, though, smiling cheerily for him.]]

Have you a copy of the list of anomalies this town has thrown at us? I have a list that was originally written by Germany, as well as my own notes where his left off, if you need one.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

I've been keeping my own notes as well. I don't have anything before last February, though . . .

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

My notes go back a bit further than that. I'd be happy to show them to you, if you'd share with me anything that you have.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

[Lucas pauses for a moment and the box that he had held in his lap the whole time is suddenly remembered.]

Um.

[He slowly opens up the top. He hadn't even looked at it himself yet . . . ]

In here. This is everything Luke and I found in Westport that time.

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

[[Theta thinks for a moment, thinking about the phonecall she'd once listened to.]]

You...read all this over the phone, didn't you? I copied down every word.

I have a list of the strange occurrences going back nearly two years, and a bit of information about Maipole.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

[Lucas shakes his head.]

That was Luke. I told him some of it, but it was Luke who was reading it to everyone.

[And that thought is eliciting those emotions again, so Lucas jumps to the different topic after a moment or two of quiet.]

This person you said you got the information from . . . How long has he been here?

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

Ah, I believe actually it was a collaborative effort of note taking from multiple sources. But it's serviceable enough.

[[She doesn't miss how he goes quiet and sad, but that's precisely why she doesn't dwell on it, either.]]

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

I see. That's probably the best way . . . I'm not sure who's been here the longest, but they probably have a lot of things they could tell the rest of us.

I'd like to know if anyone's figured out anything about the Russian man. Mr. Sergei.

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

Ah....my....friends and I were there when he was taken. [[She doesn't actually seem that traumatised about her death, which had played out on the phones, but she does seem rather angry about the whole incident.]]

I've been over it so many times, but I wouldn't say I figured out anything. I'll tell you what I know, if you like.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

That was you?

[Lucas stares for a moment or two, his instinctive reaction to ask 'Were you OK?', but that was dumb. Of course this person had been punished.]

I don't want to make you think about anything unpleasant, but . . . I would. Only if you don't mind.

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I'd rather have someone to go over it with before I forget yet more of it. My friends and I were all there, so...it's not been something we could see from another perspective.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

We heard part of it, actually. Someone must have knocked over the phone near the end, and then after that . . . all we knew was that the hazmat men were gone.

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

Mm, I...hope I didn't hurt anyone's ears. It must have been glorious to listen to, though... [[Theta, your lack of sanity is showing...]]

We all went down ~fighting~. Except for me. I got shot quite early on because Grady broke all my fingers and lit me on fire. [[And her sum total reaction to that is...to sulk. Not really traumatised. But she does start pulling herself back out of the vicinity of crazy and calming down again.]]

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

[Please don't sound so pleased about it, mister. Lucas's reaction is to grow more and more troubled as he continues.]

I'm sorry, mister. . . . To put you through something like that. A lot of people died then, but torture is just . . . wrong.

How did he find out?

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

[[Successfully redirecting Theta away from how interesting death is.]]

I think by that point they were destroying all the houses. We...happened to be the ones hiding him.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

I see . . . It was just bad luck, then. You know they hung him up later, right?

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

[[Tensely:]] Yes. I...saw that.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

. . . For Mr. Sergei's sake, too, that we have to keep on.

Um. Well . . . Thanks for letting me know about that. Grady didn't say anything you think might have been important then, did he?

[ergaleomancer.livejournal.com]

No, nothing that I remember. He just kept asking where Sergei was. We were...more interested in defending than finding out information, but... [[more sheepish than anything else]] I died first.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

T-That's not something to be sorry for. I shouldn't have asked, sorry. You probably barely even remember . . . I know I wouldn't.