savetheearth | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Everyone who is interested in delicious information about Thunder Corp.
Where: A meeting room in Emmanuel's church, same spot self-defense lessons are held
When: Thursday August 15th, around 5PM
What: A gathering of folks from the network to make plans and disperse information.

[Tamara had really hit paydirt when she got a hold of a particular email exchange. It had been a risky stunt on her part to infect computers at Thunder Corp but it had been worth the risk to get something this good.

Yeah, she was being a bit paranoid, but the whole comment about superpowers made her wonder just how much did they know about the people on here. The chances of a mole were small, but it was present. And like she told others, it did not good to have this information if they didn't act upon it and they would need resources and organization to do so. She didn't like speaking before large groups, but something had to be done. She had stopped by earlier to provide Emmanuel the information for anyone who couldn't make it that may show up throughout the day, then she'll show up later to give it out to the general group that was coming.]

[OOC: Going to have a few threads here. Stuff for mingling before and after the meeting and the meeting itself. Also a sign in thread so that the muns can track who was here and just note in it if they showed for the meeting or came by to get the info from Emmanuel even if they don't do anything more than get the info. The only required bit of info to give is going to be their number, names and such are optional. And since it was suggested that we get an idea of what people can contribute, that will also be included in the sign in thread.

Assume another post went up giving the time and also mentioning that Emmanuel would be around most of the day to relay information while he did paperwork so people knew when to come.]

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Vanessa had slipped away after the meeting when everybody had been wrapping things up and getting ready to go home. She wasn't quite ready to head home yet, though, and ended up wandering out to the main room of the church and sat down in one of the back rows.

She wasn't a religious person by any stretch, but it was quiet and she just needed to get away for a little while to think.

What the hell was she doing here? When all this had started, she'd been trying to avoid getting involved and now here she was, going to strategy meetings and thinking about breaking into a possible conspirator's house just to see if there was anything to find.

It was idiotic, suicidal, and not her goddamned responsibility. She should be leaving... she had at least enough to take a bus out of town, if not to actually get a place to stay, but that wasn't a problem. She'd made it on the street before and she could do it again. She could just write herself a note, telling her to never come back to Locke City. Just forget everything, ignore it, and go back to just worrying about keeping herself alive. Just run away from it. No more stupid memories, no more monsters.

At least not until this crap went beyond this city. Which she could only expect it would.

She drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, resting her head on her knees. She didn't know what to do.....

It's no easy thing to stomach, learning that all the effort, and the information, and the last of their hope was built on nothing more than an idle lie. Disbelief had gusted through him, swiftly replaced by an anger that simmered all the way down to the tips of his fingers when Tamara had broken the news.

Square one.

At least there had been an opportunity to share more of what they were capable of, which he finally had, after harboring reservations about it for so long. He'd spun it in the best way he could — Um, I don't know what a 'Newtype' is, specifically, but... — well, he knew one thing. He could predict danger. Sense it. If that could be of use, he had no right to keep it to himself, even if that wasn't all it could do.

Banagher becomes aware of that again when he makes his way towards the back of one of the aisles of the church, drawn in by a presence he recognizes, if only just a little.

"Hey," he ventures.

For once, Vanessa didn't even notice that somebody was coming toward her. She was just too wrapped up in her own thoughts. All her life, it had been simple: find what she had to do and then do it. Don't focus on the problem, only the solution to it. That rule had gotten her through some of the toughest times. It had kept her fed and relatively warm and safe but now it was failing her. For once, she couldn't find a way out.

Running was out of the question. At most she'd get one city over and how long would that help? The other... well, she had names now and it wasn't that hard to find somebody from a name. For a second, she thought back to her first Echo and the flash of that sheer, desperate instinct to escape, to survive no matter what it cost. That knife was still sitting in her apartment too. A murderer's knife.

She hadn't mentioned the weapon in the meeting.

She didn't get much further along that line of thinking before Banagher interrupted her thoughts, and her head snapped up a little too quickly when she realized how close he'd come.

"... Hey." She finally answered, after a second or two of quiet.

Visibly, he tenses up at the abruptness of her reaction, a sudden sharpness that wasn't so easy to read, but it lasts only as long as it takes her to respond in kind. Letting go of the gulp of breath he'd unconsciously held, his gaze turns towards the front of the church where the pulpit stands, empty.

"Even just going home doesn't seem so easy anymore, does it?"

Each time they left, each time they shared the scattered bits and pieces of themselves to whatever end, they risked returning even less like themselves. A path laden with choices.

She spots that sudden tenseness and mirrors it herself, wondering for a second if he had seen something in her face that gave away what was going through her mind at that moment. But then he lets that breath out and she relaxes as well, as much as she ever does anyway.

She folds her arms on top of her knees, staring at the back of the pew in front of her.

She shrugs. "I just figured that if I'm going to sit up all night anyway, I might as well have a change of scenery."

It helped a little that nobody was waiting for her there. The only people who would notice if she didn't make it back were all in this building with her.

The mm noise he makes in response is somewhat noncommittal, but honest. Since he hadn't been trying to sneak beforehand anyway, he takes the plunge and moves forward to slip into the pew. He keeps a healthy distance, since he doesn't look too certain about the action in and of itself, but it doesn't stop him from voicing what's on his mind, anyway.

Plenty of people sought solace in churches, but right now he's just biding time until he feels normal enough to go home and look his mother in the eye. Until he feels like he hadn't just told a bunch of people he was psychic, or whatever equivalent his other life had for it.

Now, it was just too real.

"You asked for information on the people who said they made up everything. About the sage. What are you going to do?"

It's a big enough pew and she picked a spot close enough to the middle of it that there was plenty of space for the two of them. She doesn't complain.

She'd been to church a few times in her life. One foster family in particular had felt it was important and to be fair, she had learned something from it. Charity was smiled upon, rewarded and that family, people who took in children with no place else to go, were treated with respect there. Yeah, she had learned something alright. That was how she learned that everybody had an angle.

"I don't know. I was just thinking that maybe we'd find something in their homes. Work they brought home, notes or... or something." A weak point, leverage. Even people like this had to have families, right? As much as the thought of actually going there made her feel a little sick.

Banagher can't help the somewhat alarmed look he casts at her, even when it's dulled by the virtue of the atmosphere. His voice doesn't raise, but he does shift uncomfortably, shoulders pressed flat against the wood at his back.

"Are you talking about breaking in? That's impossible."

His reaction isn't really a surprise. She hadn't expected a plan to break into the houses of some of the enemy to go over all that well, which was at least partly why she'd kept it to herself for the time being.

"It really isn't." Her expression is even when she looks over at him, better to keep her own nervousness at the idea to herself. "Risky, yeah, but a lot easier than trying to break into their offices."

"It's more than just risky," Banagher starts, partly out of concern and partly out of morbid curiosity that he's not curbing very well. At the very least, he's making it obvious he doesn't intend for the idea to leave the space between them, however ironic it was for the setting.

"Every corner we take, they've headed us off. The werewolves, the mines, the water, all of it. Someone got killed just for going to the police, like anyone would before we knew about any of this." It was the first thing he saw, and now he can't wipe the image out of his head. "So what happens if you get caught?"

She looks away again when he asks that question, not feeling any need to actually answer. She knew what would happen if she got caught and so did he, no need to actually say it. She remembers that video too.

"That's the point. They're closing in on us a little more every day, and we can't do anything about it." She sighs, leaning back against the bench and looking up. "I'm not a fighter and I don't know anything about computers or stuff like that. This is the only thing I can think of to do. It's the only thing I can do."

In truth, there's no room to argue with gaining even an inch on their enemies. But he's still having a tough time thinking in those terms, when they were so alien to him in and of themselves. The one thing he does know is that they're in no position to go waltzing onto their playing field.

"But there has to be a better way that we can think of," he says, not sold on acting out of desperation. "Rather than just putting yourself in danger like that."

It would be a lie to say she had fully settled into that way of thinking either. She isn't a soldier or anything, she doesn't know how to fight a war. She can't say if this is the right move, or even if it's a smart move.

What she does know, what has been hammered into her head over the years, is that being afraid isn't a good enough reason not to act. And that sometimes, when not acting was just as bad as making the wrong choice, you just had to go with your gut and hope for the best.

"Believe me, I don't want to do it. I don't want to have to deal with any of this." She sighs and looks over, maybe a little hopefully. "So if you've got a better idea, I'll listen."

Though he doesn't move much aside from meeting her near-tangible gaze for a moment, he's unnerved by the sudden focus, when really, it was inevitable with the way he's been talking. His immediate silence speaks volumes: he has nothing. Though he hasn't been consciously running from their predicament, he hasn't been standing up to it, either.

"I don't have one," he admits. Forget fighting, he doesn't even know what it's like to have an enemy. "I just know that if we keep backing ourselves into a corner, thinking... that we don't have a choice but to be willing to risk everything, justifying it like there's nothing else, we'll burn out. Especially like we are now."

His expression furrows.

"There has to be something we're not seeing."

She'd expected as much. That wasn't any kind of judgement on Banagher, either, she knows her idea is just grasping at straws. But that still put her right back where she was a minute ago. They had to make a move but they couldn't until they had a better idea what they were up against, and how they could act. She sighs, looking forward again.

"It sure feels like we're backed into a corner right now." There it was again, that feeling of being stuck. Hell, speaking of burning out, she wasn't sure when the last time she'd got a full night's sleep was, but it was hard when she was still jumping at noises and half-expecting cops or faceless stormtroopers to kick her door in and drag her away.

Goddamnit, she hated this.

"What's the point in acting like we're not? People's teeth and eyes are falling out. I'm waking up in the morning with somebody else's memories of almost getting killed! Fucking monsters are coming after us! People have died! And I don't know how to deal with any of this!" Her voice rises a little higher through her rant as more and more of weeks of frustration bubble up, until finally, some part of her decides the back of the bench in front of her has to go and she swings at it with her left fist, forgetting about the wounds still on it in her frustration and the oddly numbing effect of pewter.

"Ow!" She hisses in pain, yanking the arm back and cradling it to her as she clenches her teeth from the shock of pain in her arm. "Shit--"

All he does throughout her rising anger at how hopeless their current situation seemed is listen. In part due to his similar feelings, and in part due to the fact that he knows there's no way to assuage them in good conscience. She's right, and he knows it. You couldn't explain it away so easily, or ask someone to simply cast aside their fears and think logically about what they could do in the time being, provided they even had time to work with.

If someone asked him to do the same, would he be able to?

When her fist collides with the wooden seat in front of her, Banagher physically starts, though it's not away from her.

"H-Hey!" he stammers out, looking as though he wants to reach over. A brief flicker of hesitation flashes across his face, stalling him mid-motion. He couldn't even do anything if he did.

"I don't think you're wrong, but," he chews on his words, watching her hands, "If we act recklessly then what do you think is going to happen if you get captured, or injured again, or if you get killed. It's not like you're by yourself in this, or no one's going to be affected if that happens!"

That really hurt. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, holding her bandaged arm as she grits her teeth against the sudden throbbing. Mentally, she's already berating herself for the loss of control. Damnit, she knows better. She can't afford to lose it like that, she doesn't have the luxury of being hurt, or afraid, or anything. She has to be able to deal with it, because nobody was going to come along to make everything alright. Nobody ever did before and it was just wishful thinking to hope that would change now.

She looks up when Banagher starts forward, about to snap off a remark that she was fine, but it dies off before she manages it when he goes on. For a second, she's at a loss for words and she looks down again, all of that anger from a moment ago running out of her.

"I can afford to take that risk." She slumps back in the pew, holding her arm gingerly. "The only person who would notice if I didn't make it back is my landlord when he has to clear out my stuff."

Thinking better of completing the move he'd made to reach out, Banagher eases back into his own seat, brows furrowed and expression dark. She hadn't even needed to snap at him for him to feel it pooling there in the air, waiting for the livewire to set it ablaze and hurl it at him.

"That's what you really, truly think? That if you just up and disappeared trying to do something like this, no one would notice? Or care?" It'd sound judgmental if he wasn't genuinely curious, as if the mere thought of something so hopeless had never even occurred to him.

That was it, she'd said too much, and there was no going back. Was that what she really thought? Well... yes. She'd never had a family, just a father she couldn't do much as put a name to and a mother who, the last time she'd seen her, had been so lost in her own fantasy land that she barely knew she had a child to lose.

After that, the families who had taken her in... they had been good people, that much she knew, but it wasn't the same. Somewhere, deep down, she'd always known it wasn't real. She hadn't been family to them, not really, more of an obligation.

Except, that night, people had come to help her. Chris, Isaac, Miria, John. Even the guy from Starbucks she'd given nothing but trouble to. But what would have happened if she hadn't made that post? She would have been just another stranger who passed in and out of their lives like a thousand before.

"Not everybody has a family waiting at home." She's quiet when she finally answers his question, that dangerous energy was gone and she doesn't look up, just shakes her head almost immediately as if that was enough to dismiss the rest of the conversation before it even started. "Look, it's not important, I'm just tired and thinking out loud."

Edited 2013-08-25 10:26 (UTC)

Though her anger hisses and drains away like a tide, Banagher remains looking about a convinced now as he was at the start of the conversation. It's softened only by the 'I'm sorry' that lingers there unspoken, about as unspoken as her confession to being alone. It's new, for him. As new as it was to be able to feel it in others, sense it just on his peripherals. Just the isolation brought on by the existence of the the numbers and everything that followed them was enough to make him feel like a fish out of water — looking his mom in the eye and lying, hiding this, hiding everything, never knowing who or what was going to spring up out of the darkness next.

"It is important. There's still not that many of us, and a life is a life. Even just one is precious." But that's just him saying his piece. Eventually his gaze picks itself up from where it'd fallen to the space between pews, looking back towards the pulpit. "I'll go with you."

She wouldn't have accepted an apology anyway. She figured he was sorry because everybody always was. They were sorry she didn't know her father, sorry her mother hadn't been able to raise her, sorry she didn't have any other family.

Truthfully, she was sick of sorry.

She barely pays attention to his piece about life. It's just a little too perfect and naive for her to believe. Not every life was precious, some were forgotten or shuffled aside and ignored, and some others were shuffled aside and treated like an irritation. His offer, however, catches her off guard and she looks up suddenly, her eyes widening just a little to make it clear that she hadn't expected that even if he could probably feel it.

"You don't have to do that."

"You can't go alone," is all he says. Of course, he's aware that she probably could, and would if given the chance, but he can barely stand the thought, so he stays level about it. Unyielding, or as much as he can be. Which probably isn't very impressive in its own right, but now that he's voiced his intention he won't let it simply get away from him.

"You heard it, didn't you?" he starts to explain, forcing his natural reluctance down. "If something were to happen, I'd know. Soon enough to get out of there in time."

She absolutely could and, really, the only reason she's running into so much uncertainty about it is because of what taking a step like that could mean. At the very least, it meant making a direct move against the enemy and that could cause them to step up their game. Which was even worse with the chance that anybody who went could be identified, and that was the least of the worst possible outcomes.

So, she's about to refuse outright but... he does have a point. She had a pretty good instinct for trouble but some kind of actual psychic danger sense? That would be a pretty good thing to have. ... If it was as good as he said it was.

She looks across at him for a second, considering, then sighs and looks down at the floor. Just for a moment, before she suddenly crosses the gap between the two of them to jab an elbow at his ribs.

When she says nothing, he's about ready to protest again on principle, just to get through to her that this was ridiculous. But in lieu of words, something else unique to her bursts in his synapses and drags across his mind like a streaming flare.

Move.

Banagher isn't a fighter. He barely even knows how to defend himself on a good day, so the arm that shoots up to block hers is awkwardly placed, but well-timed. Too well. Holding her elbow at bay with the flat of his arm, he looks nothing less than incensed, as if he was more concerned with the fact that she'd just tried to take a swipe at him out of the blue rather than the sudden measure he'd taken to prevent it.

"What the hell, Vanessa?!"

(The point.

Banagher.)

Damn, he wasn't kidding. Vanessa's no great fighter herself but she learned a few things the hard way, enough to stick up for herself. Enough to recognize that reaction was way too quick. She briefly considers trying again, but she shoots that idea down as soon as it comes up. That was enough proof for her and she isn't actually looking for a fight, so she backs off.

"I just wanted to see it for myself, that's all." And that's the closest he's getting to any kind of apology from her. "I guess you'd make a pretty decent lookout."