Realistic or Modern Red Ledger: Part One

[Teh Frixz]

#21
-Apathy is a solution. I mean, it's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life. It's easier to steal what you want than it is to earn it. It's easier to beat a child than it is to raise it.-

A slap of wet fabric broke the immediate tension following the pitiable request for the release of death from the Hound. Former hound, Axelle thought to herself as she dropped top, soaked with water, blood, and ash to the kitchen floor with an almost purposeful amount of force. A dog whining like that, broken after what must have just been a gunshot wound? If the Hound had been a child like she'd been when she felt the first bullet rip through her body, maybe she'd have been sympathetic. Maybe. This woman was squealing and loud. The Chameleon and the Biohazard should have been shoving their poisons into her instead of wasting them on each other. Axelle looked to the walls of the safe house on both sides, trying to determine how thick they were. This was Prague, an old city and one thing Axelle knew about the country was that the adage Czech's don't trust Czech's must hold true. The neighbors would be nosy. Peeking in on the comings and goings of the multicultural group ensconced within.

She'd have to kill them. Probably tomorrow evening. She'd go and kill them in their sleep and trap their homes. Petrol and fertilizer and aerosols. Things inside sheds and sinks that had been drilled into her mind to exploit. If the ICA wished to setup a FOB in any of the nearby homes, they'd be greeted with explosions and fire. There would be no point to wasting time with alarms and the sort of peeping devices that the Scholar enjoyed. Just fire and death. Axelle continued staring at the walls, considering the population segment she'd need to reduce to enact the safeguarding of the house before breaking her gaze.

The burn on her shoulder let her know it was starting to heal, a nerve reconnecting and sending the familiar sense of pressure that had once been described as pain. Taking the burnt tissue in her fingers, she peeled off the blackened flesh and dropped it in the sink before pulling the sweater over her head, polyester fibers staining as healing tissue soaked the material instantly. The sweater was grey. Axelle wished it could have been pink. Leaving her mess behind she left the crowded kitchen, pushing past anyone in her way as she stood beside Silas and the mewling Hound. The breaking woman was a threat to them all, even if the others didn't realize it yet. She'd kill anything that was threatening to them. She owed them all that for the safety and freedom she'd been gifted. She tapped Silas on his shoulder to get his attention, signing quickly.

'Too Loud I Kill Quiet. Then Shower My Turn Next Please'

Her head turned slowly, looking back into the kitchen to make eye contact with the bickering poisoners, dead eyes staring as she signed at them.

'Too loud too'

calliope-3 snakeg0dd Vaalhalla honeycoves

 

[Fabrikator.Nova]

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4Ø4:the//scholar

Camilla Isabella Beltran

Location // Prague

Status // Hungry || Focused || Disassociated

Last Slept // 30hrs ago

Outfit // Casual

Mentions // Kyo ;; Sera ;; Boone ;; Silas ;; Maera ;; Yelena ;; Conrad;; Axelle

Camilla waited for Kyo to come to and continued to wait for him as he got a hold of himself before dropping the piece of candy unceremoniously onto his lap. Her expression was guarded– hidden from discernment as she checked off one of the three medical emergencies from her list and aimed to triage the other two. When asked an obvious question, her eyebrow quirked up and she blinked her large doe-eyes slowly to try and combat the eye-roll she was inclined to do instead.

“Suuuure did. I’d suggest getting some sleep but I’m not sure how anyone COULD with all the chaos happening at the moment,” 404 got up, a frown turned down the corners of her lips briefly. She turned on her heels in a fluid movement and, ignoring the pounding headache behind her eyes steadily getting worse, approached the fringes of the kitchen seeing how crowded it’d gotten. “You’re welcome by the way–”

Part of her blamed herself for even letting the IDEA of leaving her office cross her mind and she glanced to the coffee pot to contemplate putting one in her room as well so as to eliminate the need to leave barring strictly necessary functions. Overwhelmed wasn’t a feeling she typically had– rather it was a permanent mainstay of her entire personality but one that she handled well. Cold, calculating eyes surveyed the scene unfolding around her: from Sera and Boone attempting to poison each other in the corner to Silas doing his best to comfort Maera, Maera herself descending into hysterics while Yelena and Conrad discussed their special ‘book’ that she definitely knew about but spoke nothing of, then to Axelle who loomed ominously over Silas and the Hound and signed to kill then shower. All the variables to a larger equation that required addressing but by who?

Moving swiftly and silently through the kitchen like the shadowy wraith she was, 404 opened one of the kitchen cupboards as well as a drawer. From within the cupboard, her arm reached all the way to the back where she kept a small corked bottle of amber liquid at the same time her hands in the drawer closed around a couple protein bars. She placed the bottle down between Sera and Boone and pocketed the protein bars only to then immediately open the cupboard under the sink and pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide as well as a used spray bottle that was mostly empty.

“Tequila. Añejo. Enjoy.”

In the spice cabinet was an airtight jar of baking soda which was her next grab and it joined the other ingredients at the sink. Working with quick, surgical precision, Camilla emptied the rest of the water from the spray bottle down the sink, poured in the hydrogen peroxide with some generous glugs, sprinkled in the baking soda without getting the powder everywhere and added a couple small squirts of dish soap before closing it up and giving it a good shake. She didn’t need to check the mixing ratio of the contents as she knew they would be effective and continued on in her problem solving.

‘Primed and ready.’ The spray bottle hung off her belt and had barely settled before she was off.

Camilla reached into another drawer and yanked a sandwich bag from the cardboard container it sat in whilst closing it with a bump of her hip. She moved and operated in an almost disjointed fashion as her body and mind acted separately from each other; her mind issued the order, her body executed while she was already on another parallel process many steps ahead. She would address every need in the order of most expedient to one that required more attention and checked them off systematically in order to yield a desirable outcome. 404 placed a secondary smartphone she grabbed from her back pocket into the sandwich bag, sealed it, then grabbed the protein bars she brought with her and slipped both into Axelle’s hands. The song “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid started playing softly from the speaker but Camilla had already moved on before the third note.

404 was often quiet and had come a long way in forcing herself to speak to the others rather than resorting to her usual method of communication which was usually a brightly colored Post-It note addressed to the intended recipient. She didn’t find it very personable but it was efficient and so it was the preferred method as was the way with her. It was more recently that the insomniatic recluse involved herself with the others openly but old habits were hard to kill off, especially when she was made to be a supercomputer. Conceptualize. Execute. Conceptualize Execute. Watch for signs, identify the patterns, eliminate the threat, rinse and repeat.

404 wasn’t so much ‘Camilla Beltran’ as much as she was more aptly: A.I. in the flesh. Even after her own self-deprogramming and orchestrated escape from the ICA, her sole use was the generative program that solved problems no matter how complicated the problem itself was.

Input: query, output: solution.

Holding the spray bottle behind her as she continued on her way, she gave it a few sprays to cover the area where vomit had once been– now cleaned by Conrad. The spray bottle was used to administer the concoction of odor neutralizer which could be allowed to linger without the need to be wiped up later. Between Silas, Conrad, AND Yelena, Maera was taken care of so Camilla left them to it. As she passed them however, a bright pink Post-It note found itself posted over the hollowed out portion of the book Conrad and Yelena were holding. It read:

‘OFFICE QUIET. SEE SERA 4 SAFEHOUSE UPGRADE’

Teeth gritted, jaw tight, Camilla left the chaos and entropy behind as she walked out the back door that Conrad usually used to take his perch. She wouldn’t head up to the nest but the fresh, crisp air outside temporarily allowed her a moment to breathe while her pounding headache worsened. The incessant throbbing made her nauseous but at least it was quiet– one less stimulus to consider. With a shaking hand, Camilla tapped her pocket where she usually kept her cigarettes only to find it was empty.

“....fuck.”

@fluticasone

@fluticasone

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[honeycoves]

It's no big surprise you turned out this way

Boone frowned as the string of spit fell to the floor with a quiet plop. He turned to Axelle, who he wasn't even sure was paying attention, and pointed at the small, glistening spot on the floor. "Don't step on that." There was mounting evidence that his paralytic toxins could be dangerous when absorbed through the skin. The small amount compared to Axelle's size likely meant nothing. Not to mention, her regenerative ability might nullify it before it ever even took effect. He looked up at her. "Stuff's dangerous." He turned back around just to catch Sera imitating his voice and grating on his last nerve.

"For Christ's sake, Sera," He growled, "If you ever fucking LISTENED you'd notice I never said your voice was annoying. I said YOU were annoying. And you're still fucking talking." He raised his beer bottle to his lips, ready to take another sip, when he could hear a faint bubbling. Boone frowned. It shouldn't be foaming. He glanced back behind him, at Axelle, just in time to watch her drop a hunk of her own skin down the drain. His stomach flipped. "Not thirsty anymore." He mumbled, mostly to himself. Setting the beer down just as Camilla set down a bottle between he and Sera. The sound of the glass on the countertop reminded him of the chaos happening elsewhere as Cam rushed around. Maera was screeching about something, Silas was being held captive, Axelle was giving him a death stare—how long has she been staring like that?— Kyo still hadn't re-emerged, Yelena and Conrad prepped to provide medical care, and Camilla was rushing around trying to fix everything herself. He watched her disappear out the backdoor.

He turned back to Sera, his face darkened. "Do us all a favor, and fuck off for a few minutes, 57." He picked up her abandoned cup and spit in it, disappearing into Camilla's office with it in hand. He began digging through drawers for something. His fingers closed around a cool, glass vial. Perfect. He re-emerged, glass and vial in hand, and unceremoniously set both of them down onto the kitchen table in front of Yelena and Conrad. "It's the same shit we used on Sera. Makeshift sedative. Make all our lives easier." He glanced at Silas. "This is as openminded and receptive as I can be."

Boone stalked out the back door, following where he had seen Camilla leave.

"Mills," His voice was much softer now, losing the edge he'd had when speaking to Sera. He approached, his arm brushing against hers, and shoved his hands in his pockets. His fingers found a small box, and he smirked. "Do you have your lighter on you?"

search

boone hadley.

Tell me, where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun don't ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through

mood.

>:/

location.

Safehouse

mention.

Sera, Axelle, Yelena, Conrad, Silas, crew.

killing in the name by rage against the machine

© weldherwings.

 

[Fabrikator.Nova]

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4Ø4:the//scholar

Camilla Isabella Beltran

Location // Prague

Status // Hungry || Tired || Relatively Relaxed

Last Slept // 30hrs ago

Outfit // Casual

Mentions // Maera ;; Axelle ;; Boone ;; Sera

Eyes shut tightly with her face turned to the sky, Camilla focused on just breathing deeply while her mind got to work categorizing the various scenes and scenarios that had played out that morning. Every moment that transpired from the second she stepped foot outside her office was kept in a permanent vault of information that could be recalled at any given moment should she ever have the need– and there had been PLENTY to take in. Perhaps it would have been wiser to stagger the arrival of two new additions to their Anti-ICA Band of Wayward Souls but what would have been the point? If Maera had stayed any longer then she would have been terminated and if Axelle had remained any longer then there was no telling what additional horrors she would have to endure all because they made her into some nigh unkillable machine. If some chaos and headache was what resulted from freeing two slaves of Dr. Otto-Schmidt and his fucked up program then it was well worth it.

‘Then again…one of them swears they don’t WANT to be saved.’ 404 frowned at the thought. ‘She will certainly take some time to fully embrace the meaning of freedom and even then there’s no promise that she ever WILL. I suppose we still need to at least…try. What would we be if we just gave up on her?’

The sound of the back door opening snapped Camilla from her thoughts; she blinked to clear her blurry vision, released the tension in her jaw to mask her discomfort, and glanced over to see who it was. Were they looking for a place to be alone with their thoughts as well? She slowly let go of a breath she didn’t realize she was holding seeing that it was Boone. He came out to join her and sidled up beside her enough so that their arms lightly brushed against each other: a grounding technique. Though the headache remained, the tension in her shoulders relaxed once again with the welcomed company. It was quieter outside and Boone was quieter as well– it was rather nice not hearing him yelling at anyone.

“You know,” Camilla spoke so softly that it barely peaked above a whisper. “I’m sure you’d maybe be a TOUCH less stabbable if you didn’t try to provoke Sera? And…I don’t know…attempt to poison her in the SAFEhouse? I don’t recall ‘genetically enhanced pin-cushion’ being one of your abilities but perhaps I’m misremembering…” She knew it was in his nature to be…bristly but sustaining physical injuries, no matter how seemingly mild, was still compromising if not dangerous.

She reached into her pocket upon being asked and pulled out her lighter. Camilla gave it a triumphant little wiggle, the ghost of a smile tugging up at the corners of her lips, and flipped it deftly between her fingers to run her thumb across the striker. A flame hissed to life and gently undulated in the soft breeze that blew by; she lifted her other hand to cup around the flame and held it up for him.

“Of course.”