Two Parter-Visual, on a reflective surface, 19:04

[thewalkingdork]

[The 'video' of Paul is a little blurry, being broadcast from slightly dirty white tiles. Fortunately just enough dirt to write his number in, as he has been stripped of everything except his clothes. No phone, most certainly. The room he's in is uniformly composed of white tile on all the walls and a similar floor. It looks like it's meant to be a sterile environment, but has been neglected.

Guys, you gotta help- I... I couldn't take it any more, those weird animals and all this, I thought they would help, the cops, and they said they had to take me somewhere and put me in this van and ohgod-

[The young man has to stop to try and relieve his panic, clasping his hands to his head and breathing frantically. When he starts again, it's apparent he hasn't succeeded.]

I'm gonna die!

[Roughly five minutes later.]
[ Interrupted in his network pleas for help, Paul spins around to the door as it opens. A large bald man enters, and before Paul can speak a word the man has thrown something into his hands. A gag. Paul opens his mouth to protest when he's cut off-]

Kid. Put it on.

[The authority of the man is unquestionable and Paul complies. The pair are joined by another man, this one sweating and nervous. The two might be known to those watching already. The first is General Terrence Miller, the commanding officer of Fort Turner. The second is the Chief of Police for Locke City, Simon Edward.

The General places a hand on Edward's shoulder, solemn.]

He wants to see commitment, Simon. The rest of us are giving our all and you what do you do? Jeopardise this location by bringing the kid here. Your orders were to deal with witnesses, not hand them our secrets.

[Paul meanwhile has backed up against the wall, muffled whimpers escaping him. He doesn't have the presence of mind to think of removing his gag. It's Edward that speaks now.]

I can't just kill him, he's a kid damnit!

[At the word kill, Paul finally snaps and tries to run between the two men. The general simply catches him by the throat and lifts the boy with obviously inhuman strength, not even looking away from Edward as he tosses Paul back against the wall with a crack that has him dazed.]

It's good you can think like that. This invasion will be the bloodiest conflict in human history. He-

It's an IT, not a he. You have to be alive to be a he.

Lets not debate, Simon. The point is, we need men who don't want to kill, don't want mankind to go extinct. If you're replaced, it'll be by some sicko who would get off on this. Kill the boy and remember the reasons. Albero will make it look like an accident, and you'll make sure it's not discovered otherwise.

I'm the Chief of Police, not a beat cop. I don't carry a gun-

[With a quiet noise, Edward is handed Miller's gun. The name Albero is almost definitely a reference to Vincent Albero.]

We both know you don't need it any more.

[Still dazed, Paul barely manages to stand, just as Edward apologises under his breath and shoots the teen three times in the chest. As Paul dies, his number ceases to work and it all goes black.

And indeed, as General Miller surmised, Albero did cover up the crime. By staging a fire at Paul Ben's house. The next day the news will tell that the entire Ben family, mother, father, son and five daughters died in the fire. The incident is not being treated as suspicious.]


((Alas, poor NPC. We hardly knew ye. Yes, Paul Ben is dead and gone but he has left some vital clues that will surely get the ball rolling.

Please make it clear if your character is replying in the five or so minutes before Paul's death, or in reaction to his death.))

Comments

In reaction.

[scramasax]

[Anthony gets to viewing the broadcast too late to make a difference.

Only to see someone he's seen before - always had spotted in school from time to time - frightened, trapped, and helpless, being prepared for execution. He didn't know him, personally, with their being at least a grade spart, hadn't even known that he had also had a number until this, and he finds himself sickly and madly regretting it, because if he only had, perhaps he could have done something - helped him escape, blocked whatever had happened off before he could've been taken away; and if this was about the disturbances and strange things happening since the beginning of the month, the numbers, the warped animals - he would have been obligated to. Had Paul had visions, too? Been jumped by the rats creeping near the school?

He hears the officers' talk about the extinction of man and a bloody invasion and cannot lift his head above water to understand it, or what it could possibly have to do with this, as far as he could remember, awkward but perfectly good, harmless band student - and then the shots blast out. Anthony is surrounded by cold, and a scream fills his head. All that carries out of him is a weak and quivering "no-o-o."

And then he seizes just as he did when the numbers had come to him and what strike him are fragments and fragments at a time of stories. Who knows where he heard them, or read them, he can't imagine for his life, but they're as complete as if remembered. Once there was a soldier named Pious Augustus, who went questing for an artifact holding the power of a god and was bound to its source. There was a dancer named Ellia who went looking for adventure in a temple and died a guardian of its deity.

Oh, God, they read like cautionary tales - along with that vision of a scroll covered with arcane runes glowing to a flash and the image of a robed corpse in a coffin with his chest burst open.

Then is that what the visions and numbers have been? Warnings of some threat, a conspiracy threatening to catch the careless on its edges and then pull them in to swallow them whole?

Or were they marking them for a role in it all - or for the culling for its sake... or for both, just like the girl named Ellia in the story of indeterminate origin?

Anthony can't pick an answer - his whole mind is already exhausted, in pain and in shock. He half-collapses against the nearest wall, breathing quick and shallow breaths, head hot and spinning, phone held loosely in a hand trembling at his side.]