Day's End, Ends Meet

[Silence]

Mia told her about her name, not really answering her question much. Though Dana had not expected much more, after all, they were just getting to know each other. "Although the fact that the old lady knew it pretty much confirms she has government access of some kind. Or a good source from back home." Mia stated, and Dana was about to answer, as someone else chimed in, getting a drink for Mia, and being quite impolite to her, seemingly ignoring Dana altogether.

Then, she took matters in her own hands, after the guy had left the room altogether, as quickly as he had appeared. "There you go, girl. Whiskey's in front of ya." she said. Dana felt for it and quickly took a sip. Seemingly people had already realized what kind of an outsider she was even here. She heard Mia drinking and slamming her bottle down. "Woo! Six months sober down the drain! Totally worth it! Who cares, right?" she called out.

Dana smiled to her. "I'm not much of a drinker myself, but if there is any time for a drink, it is now." she said. "I'm still unsure what to think of all this, but if there is such a danger to us, and you are confirming that at least most of what she said is true, I guess I have to trust her.
The question is, what do we do now? Getting this cocktail quickly, then hear her 3-year-plan? If she's awake again by that time. Or ... I dunno, this situation is more shitty than I would have imagined." She took another, big gulp from the whiskey, already feeling slightly dizzy. "I thought Canada would be a good start to a new life, but not all what they say is true. Possibly nothing ..." she murmured.

 

[Captainguy42]

The question is, what do we do now? Getting this cocktail quickly, then hear her 3-year-plan?

" I mean we might as well get this treatment, what happens afterwards is up to us right? At least we won't be killed when someone hits a switch." He said to Dana, " But I've already made my thoughts clear, I'm staying and seeing this through, the bastards who cooked this plan up can't get away with it." While everyone else was drinking Octavio decided to abstain. It wasn't that he hated drinking, it's just that he had a tendency to get a little fast and loose with his powers after he had drank a few and he didn't feel like putting any holes in the place that seemed like it was going to be his new home.

"Also I don't think I've introduced myself to everyone, uh, I'm Octavio, call me Otto," He announced.

 

[Pm0n3y]

?...Just shift my gravity to be the surface of the road and suddenly by my perspective, I'm running downhill." Justin?s guise crumpled at the thought of such an action. Just thinking of the concept made him dizzy.

?That sounds disorienting.? He voiced his opinions on the matter. ?Then again, your whole powerset sounds disorienting. Looks disorienting, too.? He looked up from his phone?s screen in that moment, providing Vagari with some brief eye contact. ? Though, I'm sure you?ve had most of your life to figure it all out.?

Justin took notice of the others displaying themselves along the barstand. Emil seemed to be some sort of mass-shifter. Dana claimed that she could do things with her voice. ?Something like a sonic scream, if I had to guess.? The thought reminded him of a superhero from a comic his father had, as did Octavio?s claimed abilities. ?And Mia?s too busy getting plastered to do any power showcases.? Not that it was a bad thing. Enrique was on a page similar to hers, as he entered the bar simply to snatch a whole bottle of liquor for himself.

Once he threw some shade in Mia?s direction and exited, Justin turned to the ghastly looking bartender. ?Damn dude, you gonna let that man come in here and take your stuff? Just like that? Don?t be scared man, stand up for yourself!? He was instigating on purpose, but there was some genuine purity in that last little bit of dialogue. ?Didn?t realize the bar was that open.? He added with a condescending scoff before going back to his phone. He went back to overlooking some schematics, ensuring that the pictures he managed to get were clear enough to read. He mumbled and cursed to himself as he looked over some of the circuits.

?Fuck, some of those components were fucking rare.? He grunted under his breath. Granted, they were rare because they were old. He gave himself a mental note in that moment, telling himself to find a junkyard or a recycling center next time he went into town, as well as a hardware store. ?If the Awe?s gonna make a comeback, I'll want to get started sooner rather than later.? He decided.

 

[NeoAC]

"The question is, what do we do now? Getting this cocktail quickly, then hear her 3-year-plan?"

Mia was debating this question herself. The cocktail sounded like Hell on Earth. Or even worse, the Shore. But if it meant not being shriveled up, it was worth it. If Dana was thinking harder about it, Mia certainly wasn't getting a read thanks to those sunglasses. I mean, she's clearly blind with the whole feeling for the glass thing, but still, it's tough to tell what she believes. Canada really might be the best option for her.

"I mean we might as well get this treatment, what happens afterwards is up to us right? At least we won't be killed when someone hits a switch.

A new player appeared at the table. The kid who went all Captain Planet, Sesame Street Uprising after the Matron's initial speech. Someone who seemed a little wet behind the ears in the world. Claimed his name was Otto. Short for Octavio. Sure. OK.

"Mmmm-" the lady started before double checking herself. No alias to remember now. Cat's already out of the bag. "Mia," she finished. The first hit of pure gin was burning a bit as well, so she held off sending reinforcements down the tube. "And I dunno if I want to hear this whole three-year plan thing. I got a lot of plans myself for my next three years. Big things. Shinier things than my Audi. And I'm not about to give that all up just to become a poker chip in this lady's game. Nuh-uh. Not doing that." Wasn't fun the first time. "I'll take this nasty cocktail if it gets whatever shit the government put in there out of me, but after that, poof. Not staying here. Pretty sure this place was smoking pretty hard when everyone walked in. I've got better things to do than watch this sucker go up in flames."

 

[Captainguy42]

" Right, you've got fancy cars to drive and cash to make, all things that'll be super nice to have when mass genocide hits and the planet goes to war with an alien race. Gotta make sure you've got a ride fast enough to outrun the flying saucers and death rays." Octavio remarked, voice dripping with snark. " I mean christ! If we're not careful we might risk helping someone other than ourselves! We wouldn't want to do that. Might give us that fuzzy feeling deep down that reminds us we're human." His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

" I'd much rather say screw that and do... whatever ever the hell you do to get that Audi, given that you're awakened it probably wasn't legal, not that I really like most of the laws," He finally added.

 

[NeoAC]

Mia couldn't help but snort at the pep talk the kid was giving. "Help other people than ourselves? Dude, if I helped anyone other than myself I would have jack shit in this world. Sure as fuck ain't helping people who don't consider me human, not that I give them much of a chance to think otherwise." That Jersey mouth was in full force with the swear words flying.

However, she wasn't done. "And you're damn right it wasn't legal. But I'm using whatever I got to make my ends meet and then some. And it's a victimless crime. Unless you consider multi-billionaires and crime syndicates victims, which I sure as fuck don't."

Mia punctuated her last claim with another swig of gin, pounding the table with her free hand to fight off the burn. "I learned how to survive, dude. No, no I learned how to thrive! And that's what I intend to keep doing. At least once this shit is out of my system and the government can't track me." And the Pannuccis. And...whoever the hell Budget sends after me for that car.

 

[Pm0n3y]

"Uh oh, sounds like they're going at it." With a mumble, Justin looked up from his phone to engross himself in the lively conversation beginning to take form in the bar. Sounded like a simple clash of ideals that Justin could relate with. Mentally, he found himself siding with the girl currently throwing back drinks like her life depended on it. "It probably does." He thought, slowly rising from his stool.

"I'm surprised you even consider yourself to be human." He remarked towards Octavio as he began closing the distance. "I know I don't. And I know damn sure they don't. Hell, they spend years burrowing their propagandist bullshit into our heads, letting us know just how non-human we are." For the first time in the last half hour or so, Justin pocketed his phone. "And you know what really fucking sucked? When you try to just keep your head down. Not trying to get on anyone's list, not trying to garner any attention. When you tell yourself that your abilities aren't noticeable and that you won't attract attention from the feds. And then it goes and fucking happens anyway." Justin let out a low, defeated chuckle as he rubbed his temples.

"Oh man, that gets me riled up dude, don't get me fucking started." He laughed some more. "You...you just keep on drinking that kool-aid, Dudley Do-Right." Justin was smiling, unnaturally.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

"Define Human." Ari drifted over to the bar, eyeing the bottles behind it. "My alcohol experience is pretty limited to what I can get for five dollars and being decently good at running, which mostly means Maddog 20/20, so I'll have what they're having. All of them." She dropped into a seat. "Rationally, we're not the product of Evolution. We're not Homo Sapiens Exsomnis," She badly mangled the Latin. "Or whatever. No evolutionary process could result in the simultaneous development, all over the world, of hundreds if not thousands of different abilities, almost all of which in some way turn physics on their head, with no discernible new organs or any kind of physical alteration. At some point we've got to realize that there's some supernatural shit going on."

She took her drink and slugged it with a shudder. "Damn, that's a hell of an improvement."

"There's something we all need to think about, anyway - just because Old Lady's not bullshitting about them poisoning us doesn't mean she's not bullshitting about the rest of it. Doesn't mean she can be trusted. All the same, I don't know about you guys but I'm pretty fucking sick of running, and hiding, and sleeping in gutters, and living off of garbage, living just for the next time I can fix or get drunk. I figure we at least hear the old bat's plan, then decide if I want to find out if Canadian cops are more or less likely than American ones to decide being able to run up walls warrants the immediate use of lethal force."

 

[Captainguy42]

"I learned how to survive, dude. No, no I learned how to thrive! And that's what I intend to keep doing. At least once this shit is out of my system and the government can't track me."

" That's not going to matter when all hell breaks loose, you think you're living in a police state now? Wait until the governments pulls this shit off, and the world gets united against the greatest existential threat of all time, that shit's gonna make Nazi Germany look like Burning Man. If Thurgood could pick you out of thousands, the government will be able to pick you out of the dozen left with or without nannites. So it's live on your feet or die on your knees." Otto replied, "From where I'm sitting we are as good as dead if we don't stop their plan."

"You...you just keep on drinking that kool-aid, Dudley Do-Right."

" You know when I'm Dudley Do-Right in a group, that's usually a bad sign. I've gotta assume everyone here has got a rap sheet," He pointed at Mia, " I mean you basically admitted to stealing a car," then Ari, " You definitely know what it's like to spend a night in a holding cell," then Emil, "I'm gonna guess breaking and entering," then Dana, " drawing a blank with you," finally to Justin, " I don't know, is misdemeanor smart-assery a thing?"

He heard Ari express her remaining distrust and he had to concede, " I mean even if Thurgood's plan is crap it doesn't mean we can just give up, I mean if we can show people what we know that has to get some reaction, get people off their asses and see that they're being played."

 

[Silence]

"I would have liked some kind of peaceful revolution, but with what was done to us ... I don't think this is really possible. But I also have nowhere to go." Dana chimed in. "I guess my only crime is unemployment, but I have all but given up hope to find any work. Well, other than the offer the matron gave us." She took another sip from her glass.

"We could try and find our own plan, taking the matrons resources as we see fit, but not follow through with things we do not want to do. We still have no idea what she is actually planning.
And who is this Jacob? Who is supposed to experiment on us? Do you think we can trust him? Maybe we should look at what he does." she spoke more, before picking up what Ari had said before.

"I don't know if I would see my ability as supernatural. I feel it's more of an enhancement of what other people can do. And it developed in my teenage years, not before. My senses changed into something else, but that was it ...? At least as far as I have experienced it so far. After all, synesthesia was a thing before the awakening, that was not supernatural either."

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Not wanting to wait, Emil grabbed himself a drink and sat down to enjoy it, off-handedly listening to the conversations going on around him. He really wasn't interested in chatting at the moment.

Though Ari's comments about their powers being of supernatural in nature gave him pause. He hadn't given much thought to the source of his abilities...

Taking a gulp from his drink, he leaned back against his seat. "It all sounds crazy, don't it? Then again, reality pretty much went out the window when all this started happening..."

 

[NeoAC]

Mia resented the fact that this Otto kid insinuated that she would be so base as to steal a car. She conned her way into it. Big difference. Conning requires charm and finesse, not just having a brick. But either way, she wasn't going to let on that the Audi was likely hot. Or at least the plates sitting in a dumpster behind that Wendy's in the Box was hot.

"Look I don't know what the old lady is going to try to do against the government, but my dad had a saying. 'When the piper's men are after ya, run like hell until they can't find ya.' Didn't rhyme or anything, but it's worked for me so far. So I've got my plans. I'm heading for the islands that aren't complete swamped. That breakaway republic off Colombia sounds like paradise away from the assholes in Washington. So I get out of here after a vomit trip, get a plane and someone who can fly it and boom done. Hakuna Matata. Coconuts and wifi."

Sounded pretty good for something she just pulled out of her ass. But Mia was doubling down.

"Let the idiots nuke themselves into oblivion. After what they did to me and my family, I don't care."

 

[Lost In The Void]

Spoiler

written in conjunction with yorg

Enrique noticed the old man come out behind him. He was about halfway done his cigarette and he flagged the man over, ?Don?t sit by yourself mister, come have a drink. I can?t promise you too much though, gotta make the stuff last, but good booze is always best shared amongst comrades.?

The actual reason he wanted him over though, was to find out exactly who he was. He hadn?t said much and he looked to be the oldest of the group saving the Matron herself. He wanted to get some of this guy?s backstory, slowly learn what he could about everyone in the group. He took another long drag. He was going to have to slow down if he wanted to conserve the pack of cigarettes as well. Who knew when he?d have a chance to grab another pack.

Ryan looked the young man up and down before getting to his feet and approaching. He took the tequila from Enrique's hand as he sat down. After peering at the label he took a swig, holding the liquor in his mouth a few seconds before swallowing. A gust of wind blew some of the old man?s silver hair into his face, and he smoothed it back as he handed the bottle back to Enrique.

?It?s decent stuff eh?? Enrique said trying to gauge the man. He still hadn?t said anything and it was starting to unnerve him. The tips of his fingers were burning so he drew the heat from the cigarette and threw it behind him. He lit his next cigarette with the stored heat, hoping a slight show of hand might pique the man?s interest, ?I?d offer you a smoke too, but it seems this is my last pack for the time being, so I hope you are not offended.?

The old man only grunted in response. His lips were pursed in thought as his eyes studied the cigarette.

?Aye aye, you gotta say something my friend, I can?t merely talk to myself, people might think I?m crazy,?Enrique had his patience, but there was only so long one man could talk to himself. The old man seemed to be studying him and that unnerved him. He didn?t like people knowing who he was, how he thought. It was part of the reason he was so personable. If you kept up a sociable persona, then people wouldn?t dig deeper.

Ryan snorted and looked down at his hands, continuing to knead his palms and fingers. Eventually he spoke up. ?Fire, huh? Or heat??

?Ah there we go, at least my power seems to have interested you,? Enrique smiled that wonderful fake smile he had, ?It?s heat my man. I can pull it out of things and put it into others. Means I can cool things too, which is pretty handy let me tell you. It ain?t nothing special of course, but I mean you always gotta feel a little special when you have powers right??

He took another long drag of the cigarette, ?So what about you holmes? Anything of note? What got you noticed by our lovely host??

Ryan snorted again. ?It?s not interesting.? he spoke dismissively, but soon continued in a deliberate tone. ?I can change the physical properties of matter, and control its movement. To a point.? He lapsed into silence again, staring off into the forest.

?I see, I see,? Enrique almost scoffed, the old man was trying to keep his cards close to his chest, ?I?m not sure what I can do for you then old man, you don?t seem interested in talking.?

The older man took a deep breath and gave Enrique a sidelong look, but didn?t reply.

That was about it for Enrique. His cigarette was done anyways, ?Well I?m headed in then. Hope to see you on the other side holmes.?

Enrique stood up and stomped on his cigarette. He picked up the bottle and took a large swig and started towards the door of the house, leaving Ryan alone on the front steps.

 

[Pm0n3y]

"I don't know, is misdemeanor smart-assery a thing?" Octavio's remark made Justin snicker. It could've been taken as an insult to someone with a weaker constitution, but to the boy, it felt more like an acknowledgment. Even then, the conversation was moving faster than he could interject. "Ha! If that was the case, the feds would've executed me by now. Would've put two in the back of my head and played it off like it was a suicide." He thought. As the conversation proceeded, Justin sat back down. Figured it was better to opt out, rather than to say anything to rile anyone up. Seemed like Octavio was doing that well all by himself.

"...but my dad had a saying. 'When the piper's men are after ya, run like hell until they can't find ya.'" Mia made a mention that caught the boy's attention, a mention that hung separately of his thoughts. Like a subconscious tic, he brought his phone back into attention. He flipped through his digital photo album of personal schematics, before stopping upon one particular capture. Made the boy sigh, made his shoulder slump in mental exhaustion.

"What a mess I've gotten myself into, huh Pops?" He muttered almost silently as he felt his glasses slide down the bridge of his nose, performing a long, perhaps wistful stare into the picture.

 

[Captainguy42]

"Let the idiots nuke themselves into oblivion. After what they did to me and my family, I don't care."

"Well, uh, Mia, consider the fact that they won't be nuking themselves to oblivion, they will be nuking all of us to oblivion." Octavio said, desperately trying to keep his tone from becoming condescending, but at this point this woman's selfishness made it seem like she did not understand the gravity of the situation, " Thermonuclear winters don't tend to care who you backed and how nice you're part of the world is, provided you're on earth. There aren't going to be any coconuts for a while when the fallout blots out the sun. So forget a plane, if you want to out run this you're going to need a rocket and get your ass to mars. How confident are you that you can pull that off?"

 

[Awan]

The less attention was paid to him, the more Henry's anxiety began to subside; though it spiked with the intrusion upon his personal space by the barhopper, and spiked further when his cowardly quaking and freezing was called out by the youth, he had gone unregarded long enough to build up his voice to the point where he could speak. He cleared his through quietly, and firmly placed the shot glass he had been polishing on the bar counter, so as to silence the conversation and argument in the room while there was a beat to do so.
"I have no love for my mother, but I am inclined to suggest you listen to her plan," he began quietly, almost under his breath, having to stare at his feet to get the words out, "given that she has been planning this for magnitudes longer than you've been aware of the issue, and has vital information involved in the matter, it would be fitting to suggest rejecting her guidance is akin to defiantly walking towards the abattoir..."

With a mounting confidence, Henry strode down the bar, snatching up bottles, capping them, and restoring them to their places; this was one of the few places he insisted on order, after all, and he would not have these invading ruffians ruin it. Let them have any other segment of the house; leave the bar be.
"Though if you do wish to leave, I've no doubt she'd let you go. Despite her horrible crimes in the past and her vicious intent, she seems genuinely remorseful over her prior exploitation of the Awakened," he practically chattered, his tone growing louder, unreasonable loud, as if he did not even realise his own volume. He began to drum his finger on the bar, and where his fingers touched the lacquered surface, soot formed for a moment, before Henry wiped it away and began again.

"The cocktail is as vicious as the things it kills, if you're curious. I can only imagine that it feels how dying of the Spanish Influenza must have felt," he continued, practically shouting, eyes widening, before he caught himself, slapping a hand to his mouth, then looking at the assembled. He began to retract into himself, but forced himself back out, into courage.
"A long life has no intrinsic value I suppose; if you're all really so reticent you could all just leave here today recognising that you've got three years to make the best of. You may even find such a thing liberating," he mumbled almost incoherently as he began to lose the energy to speak, to think, to present a human facade and keep his inclination in check. He reached inside of his jacket pocket and pulled out a small hip-flask, which he swigged from, before turning bloodshot, grim eyes to the assembled.

"Or..." He began anew, "You could stop post-poning the inevitable, admit you are afraid of death, and descend into that dark, dank basement, and get started on purification."
With a heavy thump, Henry fell against the back wall, and slid to a seated position behind the bar, slipping the hip flask back into his jacket, and putting his head in his hands, calmly tap-tap-tapping on the back of his bald head, occasionally pulling at the fabric of his yellowed dress shirt. The only thing that penetrated the silence that followed his little demonstration was the gentle snoring of the Matron Thurgood from across the hall.

 

[NeoAC]

"So forget a plane, if you want to outrun this, you're going to need a rocket and get your ass to Mars. How confident are you that you can pull that off?"

Mia took another pull out of the bottle of gin and shook her head, pointing at Otto. "You've never seen me work, kid."

Just then, the bartender sprung to life and started going off on a variety of topics. He ranged from the Matron's code of conduct, to the cocktail to...well slumping back behind the bar. All Mia knew is that when he went to grab the gin, she pulled it back and made sure he couldn't reach it so she could continue to drink herself into a state of preparation for whatever was to come.

"I'll get started on downing that cocktail when I've downed enough of this cocktail...well, not a cocktail. Whatever, that was a clever line." Mia stood up from the bar, bottle still clutched in her hand. "And I'm not doing it because I'm afraid. I'm doing it because fuck the government. That's why."

She didn't know why she was answering Henry directly. He was in no state to offer a retort. But Mia was ready to get this thing over with. The sooner the junk was out of her system, the sooner she could start getting away again.

 

[Silence]

Dana was feeling slightly dizzy from the drinks she had and she found herself lose concentration to follow the conversation. In her mind, however, she started to rationalize taking the cocktail as soon as possible, not wanting to wait in uncertainty. Not confident in her echolocation in her current state, she took a folded white cane out of her jacket and folded it apart, before standing up.

"I don't want to wait any longer, I'm going downstairs." she said and made her way into the lobby and towards the basement, to the direction of a contortion of bile and disinfectants, already swaying and managing to keep down her own barf. "Anyone coming with me?" she called, turning her head, but continuing her path, before she felt the steps downwards with her cane.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Emil was beginning to feel a bit anxious, after what all that he had heard, he was starting to wonder if he'd had the nanite treatment too... he shook his head. The years spent on his own had left him with a nasty case of paranoia. Still... it couldn't hurt to get a check up, could it?

"I'm coming," he said, draining the last of his drink. "I just want to get this over with..." And with that, he got up to follow Dana to the stairway.

 

[Pm0n3y]

"Oh, so you can talk!" The dusty bartender's spiel captured Justin's attention, bringing him from the trance his phone would induce. The man seemed verbose enough, his flowery speech boiling down to "get the purifications, or find a hole to die in". Coming from the bartender, Justin actually felt a bit more willing to follow through with the Matron's treatments, if only because it wasn't coming from her mouth. "...He also doesn't like his mother." Justin found another thing he could relate with. "Same here, fam. Same here." The thought made the boy smirk a bit.

The air in the bar changed once Henry slumped back down behind the bar, scrunched into his uncomfortably focused position. "Sheesh. A moment ago I was just about ready to get the fuck out of here. Now here I am, still sober and actually taking this experiment into consideration." He began dragging his hands through his hair, and the dragging turned into rough tussling as he grew frustrated once more. "Ugh! It keeps going through my head! Fuck! God! Ugh!" He began regaining his composure as two of the bar's patrons (the blind girl, and the other one) resigned to their fates and began heading out. The cool girl opted to just finish the bottle she obtained.

"Fine. Fuck it." Justin rose from his barstool in a overacted huff. "Whatever. Fine. Let?s do it. Fuck. Geez. FUCK." He mumbled as he quickly outpaced Dana and Emil. Or, at the very least, caught up to the two as they proceeded into the basement. Dana, as she was a vision-impaired individual climbing down a stacked decline, moved carefully down the stairs. She was also the first of the three to head down the narrow staircase, meaning she was creating a bit of a line. Justin could also conclude she was at least buzzed, so she was most likely moving even slower than she might've regularly.

"By the way, who thought it was a good idea to give the blind girl a drink?" He questioned, his normal tone of voice easily echoing out of the basement.