ArchivedLogs:Myriad

Myriad
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jackson, Parley, Flicker	2013-11-17 (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <NYC> 603 {Greyhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village and <NYC> 403 {Geekhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a small living room. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom. The decor in this apartment is eclectic, an odd jumbled mishmash of found items that seem to bear little relation to each other. Here, a newspaper article is clipped and pinned to the wall with various lines highlighted in pink and orange highlighter, here an advertisement, here the label off a beer can. The furniture is eclectic, too. A milk crate for a table, a soft (orange!) suede ottoman (with no armchair to match), a very /bright/ magenta vinyl couch. Someone has helpfully affixed a sheet of paper to the wall over the couch, with the label 'COUCH' and an arrow pointing downward. A combination corkboard/whiteboard near the kitchen entryway more often bears odd scribbled drawings than helpful information. With the acute food drought in the city, and many people not allowed or not /able/ to get to the only places where food is still being flown in, the starvation death toll is slowly adding more numbers to the losses already coming from disease and dismemberment. In the Lofts, though, at least, the daily circuit by Jackson or others on his team have become a regular thing. It's only one meal, but one hot meal a day is still one hot meal a day. In attire Jackson has returned, somewhat, to his more colourful pre-apocalyptic style. Sky-blue UFOs, a purple and silver tank top beneath a black fishnet shirt, his sparkly purple Doc Martens newly cleaned of their coating of blood and grime. The small chipping on his also sparkly-purple nailpolish suggests it's /real/ and not illusioned, as does the fact that it isn't matched with his usual other touches -- heavy scarring visible, face pale and somewhat hollowed out. He's been out and about most of the day in company with Joshua, as he often is these days, but at the moment his ferretportation has been passed off to Liam, Somewhere Else in the world. He's dragging a trolley cart behind him as he stops outside the door to Greyhaus, mustering scattered thoughts into some semblance of order and then some semblance of /quiet/ as he knocks on the door. Despite possessing a key -- though in /this/ case it's one he's never actually used. As is often the case, in crisis or not, the lives of busy people more often intersect in second and third degrees of separation, the overlap of comet tails free of celestial impact. Parley has been rarely seen in the following days since he'd vanished from the Mendel clinic, but evidence of his brief comings and goings have been frequent enough. Food delivered to his apartment corresponds with cleaned dishes returned outside the Lighthaus door the following day. Occasionally, packaged food items, a bent box of mac and cheese, a package of broken noodles – those with meat or dairy within somehow managing a vague apology – at times joined these dishes, to consolidate what resources the complex might be pooling from. It probably doesn't need to be tangible, but Parley allows it to be, when he flutters a faint scan of the mind visiting his door, shortly after opening it. No longer wearing the all-too-familiar scrubs of the clinic, he's in broken in jeans, barefoot, black shirt, blue and gray flannel. "Jax-san." Beyond a small crack in the side of his glasses and the general signs of wear the average New Yorker carries – leaner features, bruisey smudges beneath the eyes, that general scrape-knuckled rattiness to somehow suggest the brick walls and back alleys – he looks generally healthy, if a touch under-washed. He runs his eyes up and down Jackson's more honest, un-illusioned (disillusioned?) physique while moving back to open the door further (maybe with a bit of haste – even a hallway feels a bit exposed these days), letting out a thoughtful cut of air, "Interesting how the times change, isn't it? Every time you see someone alive again it feels like a novelty now." He'll sneak a peek at Jackson's cart as well. "Sometimes I half think that's why we make these rounds. As much to keep tabs on who's left as to /keep/ them alive." There's a tired weight in Jax's mind with these words that doesn't quite resolve into actual memories -- too /many/ points of exhaustion around the city these days for any one to be particularly of note. Dinner today is much as it is many days; there's some kind of chickpea stew with rice, onions, canned tomatoes, garlic. But also there is a plate of /fish/ today, fresh-caught and fried up crisp. Jackson dishes out rice and stew once he's inside the apartment, the small serving of fish relegated to its own separate plate. "Brought the kids back to the school," he explains with a mingled touch of cheer and worry -- safer, there, but even before leaving the Lofts Shane's rapidly deteriorating state was becoming all too evident. "Lake there's still teeming. An' not mucked up with rot an' bodies waiting to snatch you." As is the current state of New York's rivers. "They say I'm cured." This is his next statement, quiet. "I mean, actually from the meds, this time. Did a whole lot of scans to make sure, but -- me an' Micah both. Dusk. Io. Flicker." Kind of a terrible sample size, but it's what they currently have. Though not diving in to take a deep whiff of the food, there's a certain eager flaring of nostrils as its portion, a /fixing/ of eyes - Parley holds a plate ready, receiving a moderate helping though holds up a staying palm to discourage any more, "—they caught this?" Shh, he's going to pick at a piece of fish with his bare fingers, tucking it in through teeth so slightly /sharp/ at the canines, closing his eyes /tight/ at the feel of fresh /flesh/ melting on his raspy tongue. He rushes to tuck that private moment of communion away, swallowing hastily and pressing the back of a wrist against his mouth, muffling, "…tell them thank you. And," he lowers his plate, "Congratulations, that's a very real relief." His eyes settle at the center of Jackson's brow, "One that's come to you at a very high cost. – they wouldn't have been able to pull it together half as fast, if it weren't for you." "B an' Micah had kinda a day of huntin' an' fishin'. Brought down a buck an' a pretty healthy catch. Shane's --" Jackson gives his head a small shake that sends multicoloured hair flopping down over his eye. He pushes it back with a palm, his hand brushing quickly back over the scar in the center of his forehead. "-- not quite up to huntin' just yet." His hand drops to curl his arm against his chest, fingers closing around a bicep that is far less fleshed-out than it used to be; there's still muscle there but it's spare and ropey, his accelerated metabolism dealing with the citywide famine better than his /children/ but less well than the average New Yorker. "Don't think there's many around here as haven't paid a pretty high cost," he says, wryly. "They're doin' a last round of testin' but if it holds clean they're goin' into production. An' they wouldn't hardly have been able t'pull it together without you, neither." His fingers scrub through his hair again, eyes dropping to the plate of fish and then lifting back to Parley. "Now that things are getting a little -- well, now that there's a moment to breathe, I -- ain't sure how you're feeling lately but I could kind of use your help." "Father-son hunting day," Parley muses, if distantly – timed against the news of Shane's current state may or may not be a reason for the neutrality. His gaze inventories Jackson, moving back and forth between his arms, his face, his posture, attending these signs of wear with compressed lips, admitting frankly around another forkful, "Well. I was more audience than participant. Front row seat, to witness a fair and consenting harmony between mutant perception and medical technology – It makes a fair headline, doesn't it? Does it hurt at all?" He reaches up a hand, to hover fingertips over the faint scar at Jackson's forehead, studying it while he chews. The chewing pauses. It's a short journey to drop gaze back to Jackson's one good eye, either of Parley's dark and steady. He swallows his bite, "What do you need?" "Not how Luci tells it," Jackson says, but it's quiet and musing and he doesn't press the point further; there's an inward quiet wondering if it actually /bothers/ Parley to take credit for his own achievements. "-- Heh. Does kinda make a change from before. An' some good's come of it, too." His forehead wrinkles up as he lifts his eye, as if /he/ could see the scar there. "Does, kinda," he admits. "Itches sometimes. Aches. Don't know if that's real or just in my head." His shoulder lifts in a quick shrug. "It's Hive," he says after this. "He's been in a real bad way for a while now. Too many people in his head he ain't lettin' go of -- an' this time he /said/ he was gonna let 'em go an' he didn't so I'm kinda worried he can't, even. I don't know how to --" << (if we even can) >> "-- get him back." There is a wry twitch at the side of Parley's brow, as he delicately traces a thumb over Jackson's scar – whatever else it might be in response to, what he's murmuring is, "Possibly both – there's faint scarring to the outside, it wouldn't be a shock if it was internal as well." Observed like he /wasn't/ talking about brain damage. Adding lightly, "Though. You're not really lacking for things to have headaches over." He lowers his hand, to resume eating, smaller bites now, and slower. "We've felt him," we, in this case, could be any number of his roommates, couldn't it. The corner of his mouth lifts, "It's almost an early warning device, in a way – you know something is likely happening, when Hive-san's mind goes myriad." Nudge, he uses a spoon to drown an onion, dunking its head beneath the soup surface, adding slower, "I can talk to him." There is, faint-shimmering, a deeper meaning to 'talk', adding layers of scionic undercurrent that suggests he will probably /not/ be using his voice. "I've had a lot of experience," he looks, briefly, towards Mirror's bedroom, "with pinpointing the line between interwoven minds. Clarifying it. It's possible." He looks back to Jackson, "But only if he wants to. Or is /capable/ of wanting to. I should tell you that now – I can guide. But I can't compel." Jackson's head tips just slightly forward, the little circle of scar pressing more up against Parley's thumb with a quiet 'heh' of laughter. "Not runnin' short on ibuprofen, just yet." He stops to dish out two more servings of meal, to leave on Parley's counter. "I think he's wanted to. At least when we manage t'talk to him he's sounded like -- well first he sounded like he wanted to. Now he just sounds /confused/ like he don't even remember he's /not/ just himself." He puts the lid back on his soup pot, once meals have been left for Parley's roommates as well. "Thank you. I gotta go get the seventh floor s'well. Can you stop by Hive's -- whenever you got the time, he ain't really goin' nowhere." "I have time now, actually," Parley admits, tipping back the bowl with a hand cupped neatly beneath to take in the last few dregs of soup. The fish plate he's bringing /with/, collecting it up with a speed that might just /faintly/ suggest a concern it might be taken prematurely if he didn't claim it. And proceeds to /pick/ at it again, savoring its fresh fishy-fiber texture tiny-bite by tiny-bite. He opens the door, propping it open with a foot to allow Jackson to more easily cart his way out, "It might be a welcome change from the dead minds I've had running through me. – what's different?" Flat comment transmutes into open inquiry between the two sentiments, glancing to Jackson, "He hadn't been this bad, even after the last raid." "It's been too long," Jackson answers with a small shrug. He checks the hallway reflexively before heading out, even though the Lofts building has been clear of dead for days. "The longer he holds on to them the harder it is to let go. An' when we used to do this he didn't /need/ to keep 'em more'n a day or two but --" His brows furrow deeply. "... an' this time he wasn't just holding on to the folks we got out who needed their chips out. He had a whole mess of Prometheus workers he wasn't willing to let go because he --" There's an uncomfortable flutter of guilt in his mind, "-- was lookin' for Anima's body." Drifting along semi-behind Jackson, first to close and lock his door and then to gather his right wrist into the hook of his left hand resting them over his tailbone, Parley's eyes have drifted softer, underpinned by something else more concentrated, as he scans the apartments they pass for – signs of change, in general. Marking who is home, who isn't. Habitually, he feeds this tally to Jackson's mind. "Anima?" On a brief delay, he looks to Jackson, brows raising and pulling nearer, "Has hir occupying other bodies become that much of an issue in the complex?" Jackson actually stops at this, giving Parley somewhat a look of disbelief. "... Yes," he says with quiet patience, "weirdly enough we /do/ kinda have an issue with the serial murderer we unleashed. But /stopping/ hir taking people means killing hir, too. So we promised we'd look for hir body, seems the best way to get out of this without /no/ more deaths. And we were. Lookin'. But then ze threatened to kill me," this is said in the same bland non-tone, "and Hive took it on himself t'ramp up the search 'fore ze could make good on it." This comes with another unhappy twinge. "Was a /lot/ of people. For a long time. Even after he agreed to stop I guess he jus' -- couldn't." He makes his way to the elevator, keeping only an absent acknowledgement of the tally -- he's already fed this floor and is heading for the seventh. He presses the elevator button, other hand clenching tight around the trolley handle as his weight sinks down against it. "-I meant issue enough to throw away one of your most valuable team members on the project," Parley clarifies calmly, not seeming to may much mind to Jackson's. He settles out of the cart's way in the elevator, some mote of tension pulling along his hairline. "For all that ze has to do to survive, Anima isn't homicidal, Jax. Flippant, yes. I don't know whatever ze said, but ze's ridden me often, in /and/ out of the labs. I know hir mind. And ze knows you, /alive/ and with a /full effective team/ is hir greatest chance. – Sss. It's unlikely ze even knows ze's /caused/ this." He raises a hand and presses the palm hard against his own forehead, breathing in slowly, then out. And admits, softer enough to be nearly to himself, a hiss through his teeth, "I dearly wish you had said something sooner." And, at length, even quieter, even more gritted. "Sor-… I apologize. For all of this happening." "It wasn't exactly my /decision/, Parley," Jackson says in the same toneless voice. "An' killing people is killing people. If I thought ze was just /rampantly/ homicidal I'd do it a different way. I'm well /aware/ what ze needs to do to survive, which is why we're tryin' to help hir not have to /murder/ people to live. And it is murder, whether or not ze /wants/ to be doin' it." Jackson pushes the cart heavily into the elevator, still leaning against it as he goes. "/You/ ain't caused this." Now he's just clipped, exhaustion heavy in his tone. "Thank you. For lookin' into it." He presses the button for the seventh floor once he's inside, returning his weight to the cart as the doors slide closed. "I was more," Parley lets his hand fall from his face to instead rub at the back of his neck, taking up handfuls of the loose skin there and kneading it. His unblinking eyes have slipped down to watching Jackson's hands, Jackson's weight bearing down on the cart, shifting along the lean tensile pull of forearm tendons that accomplish it. "--referring to the unlikeliness of hir killing /you/." He's watching Jackson's weary arms when the doors close them off from sight. "Ssss." He heads for the stairs. <NYC> 403 {Geekhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village There's kind of a college-dorm feel to this place, though some of its occupants have left college behind. Entering the apartment finds visitors greeted by the perpetually messy living room, a mismatched assortment of couches and chairs (and milk crates) surrounding the wide table in the center. The wall holds a range of posters; some political, some sporty, some from video games, and a string of white lights strung over the kitchen doorway might be a holdover from Christmas. A widescreen television stands against the wall opposite the couch, shelving beside it holding a host of video games from different consoles. More shelving beside the windows on the far wall carries stacks of board games, as well as sourcebooks from various RPGs. The kitchen adjacent is just as cluttered, its table unfit for eating due to its perpetual covering of books, papers, cereal boxes, projects; the fridge is usually sparsely populated. Ketchup. Beer. Not a lot of food. There are two bedrooms here and one bathroom situated between them, split between the three people who live here. Parley arrives at the Geekhaus door, the universe conspiring for a punchline involving a broken telepath repairman. He softly raps the back of his knuckles against the wood with a simultaneous mental reverberation rippling across what minds might be inside, alerting them to his presence even as it counts them. Sonar blips. There are many minds inside; as with Lighthaus much of the space here has been commandeered to house what scattered friends and family /were/ once spread throughout the city and are now taking shelter in the relative security of the Lofts. It's Flicker who answers, though, taking a moment to check who is outside the door before pulling it open to let Parley inside. "Hey," he says, reflexively quiet even though the building is free of dead who might be attracted by the sound; enough time spent out in the city makes it a good habit to be in anyway. He gestures Parley inside, also habitually uncomfortable with leaving the door open long. "What's up? You get dinner?" "Jackson stopped by," it can't be said Parley doesn't /hustle/ a trifle to get into the apartment; hallways feel a lot more exposed than they used to. He looks over his shoulder at Flicker, shrugging out of his flannel, "I hear you're fixed." Like a broken /toy/. "You live up to your name, dodging in and out of death sentences." "Oh, good." Flicker closes and locks the door again, its many locks thunking and clicking and rattling back into place. He's meandering back into the apartment already, resting up against the back of the couch (occupied, by Rachel perched on one arm with her large wings draped over the side; Scramble beside her, in comfortable pajamas, half-drowsing, Reed -- who of late has more /stringently/ opposed the nickname 'Zombie' -- tucked into the other side with his laptop, only half-watching Stardust playing quietly on the television) where he can better keep an eye on his bedroom. Not that Hive is currently doing much in need of watching, but he's watching /anyway/, for lack of much else to do until he's relieved of Hive-duty and back out on the streets. "Not dying seems to be the one thing I'm good at." His mouth quirks into a quick smile. Kind of amused, if wryly so. "-- Though, uh, only barely." "You only need to survive long enough to procreate," Parley ties his flannel around his waist, "to be considered evolutionarily successful. Why aren't you married yet." He follows Flicker's gaze towards the bedroom, "--I'm actually looking for Hive. He's there?" "Because there's not really many women in my church interested in marrying someone who's been disfellowshipped," Flicker answers with simple honesty. He nods, pushing off from the couch to move back into his bedroom, swivelling his desk chair around to sit in it backwards. He crosses his arms on its back, elbows draped downwards. "Physically here, yeah." Hive is in bed, at the moment, or at least /on/ bed, glassy-blank eyes staring at the ceiling. His mind is oddly /quiet/ for how many people it holds, a large enough crowd that the voices all fade into indistinct white-noise with none really predominating. Parley follows, exchanging a few glances with one or two people in the living room - those that had looked up earlier, and continued to follow with their eyes. The few that had turned back to what they were doing possibly don't mark the passing, a settled organic order returning in his wake as he passes into the bedroom. "...Jax thinks I may be able to help him." He runs a slow consideration over the shape on the bed, rolling back his sleeves after a moment to a comfortable place just above the line where the fur dusting the outsides of his arms fully terminates. Ghosts of rosettes lurk here, to be smoothed with a palm as he locates a spare portion of the bed to sit on. When his eyes swivel Flicker-wards, they're steady, if hazing to loosen up mental muscles, "...you know his mind well?" The white noise of Hive's mind is that of a solid glacier wall, felt where he allows it to press up against the soft mist of his own. And a hidden shiver ripples through him, for the size (majesty? yes, perhaps, a terrible legion majesty of it as well.) << (so many…) >> He whispers into it, reaching towards it to carefully allow into himself a faint trickle. A few droplets of melt water, for his parched and calloused throat. Flicker's eyes flick to Hive's face, and then to Parley. He watches Parley with a small compression of lips, and an inward shiver of his own at the remembered feel of Hive's mind, sharp and abrasive against his own. "Better than my own, maybe. I don't /feel/ my own the same way as I feel his." There's not a lot of response here from Hive's mind; a faint rustle of his myriad-mind, withdrawing instinctively at the feel of a foreign mind in his own. Stirring back to poke at it with a faint trickle of curiosity. When it's drawn, Parley allows a few drifting sheets of his own mind to loosen, like shedding skin, and leaves them behind to be taken. Climbing out of it like a pair of shoes stuck in the mud. Fluttering back a returning series of light prods that skate across his surface like a waterbug. To keep it roused. Keep it curious. But his attention is, for now, more on Flicker. Who he appraises more thoughtfully now, nodding. "--that's a very neat way of saying it." And then, without apology or shift in tone, "Has he scarred you?" Flicker exhales heavily, his eyes drifting half closed. "I can't imagine he hasn't, the amount of time we've spent attached. What is mental scarring, anyway? He's changed me, probably." Though now he's struggling to remember /how/. The thing about chaos is after long enough you adapt to it; surely there was a time when his mind was fully his own. But it was long enough ago now that -- after a pause he just shrugs. The prods eventually get /swatted/ at, an irritable shake-flick that thwaps out to shoo the fluttering touches. But then just as readily reach /for/ them, sharp mental claws that, with the weight of hundreds of minds behind them, are so keenly honed they likely wouldn't be /felt/ if Parley were not already paying attention. Reaching out to snap closed like a trap around the prodding touches. "Probably." Parley shifts to rest his back to against the wall, shifting his hips to put bare heels up on the bed, lessening the weight bearing down on tailbone. "--occipital lobe. Cerebellum. Cerebral cortex. The brain has a consistent anatomical system, while the mind…" His opened fingers hover lightly over Hive's head, over his open, vacant eyes, "... is galactic. It changes by force as much as consent, by what we take in. What we /won't/--" His eyes subtly widen, as he fills up his lungs with air, holds it, curls his fingers into the bed sheets. His mind has no hard shield; no defensive shell. Only a thin cushioning membrane sensitive to pressure, even the deft /keenness/ of this trap. Trained, aware, it does squirm (his spine reflexively shifting with it) but only shortly and then he just lets out a kind of shaky breath that's not a laugh but might be if it were happier. And shakes his head, "--damn. He's inexorable, like this. I'll have to see what I can," his head tips one way, then the other, shoulders shifting, the fur faintly bristled, "do from here." His mind is, when taken, a barren wide world of mirrors. They refract and prism, breaking up what pours into him into stark, brilliant spectrums and shimmering arrays. Flicker's mind can be felt where it faintly dusts one parameter, winking quick-sharp like a thrashing candle; other minds in the living room clamor and fragment, all caught in drifting auras like colored lights winking in a silvery rain. So full of minds, it's almost hard to remember - this is, in itself, a mind as well. The thoughts are there, send out down long ravels; motivations and intentions and (hatred, anger, /hope/) emotions, lost amongst the rubble. For now… it all lays low. Watching the myriadmind within. And to Flicker, he creeps a finger-walking thought. << (show me)(his)(scars.) >> Somehow, 'scar' in this sounds beautiful, in a way - it's signature and mark. It's love, too. And fear. Imprint, like a stamp imprints in snow; imprint like a child imprints to its mother. But it's burn, as well. And tear. And rip. Bite. Rend. Claw. Because it is also ugly. "Does it change the brain?" Flicker is genuinely curious, at this, quiet and wondering. His fingers trace against the side of his head, old scars there buried beneath his dark hair. "I mean, can you look at the actual physical -- everything and tell where there's been psionic poking, does it leave --" He shrugs uncertainly. "His fingerprints stamped in there." In Parley there are fingers moving, curling out to grip in deep. To pry, to riffle through thoughts like the pages of a book. Learning this new mind, as Hive molds it to the amalgam of his own; for all the intimate /depths/ he plumbs his touch is so distant as to be impersonal. Cataloguing. His touch brushes out /through/ Parley towards the other minds he can feel, poking sharp hungry claws towards them as well. Flicker just shivers out a sigh, resting his chin on the back of his chair and closing his eyes. He turns his thoughts inwards, tracking back to periods he's been joined to Hive. In him scars aren't so much spiderwebbed knots of dead tissue so much as simply /void/. Patches of memory empty, written to /Hive's/ mind rather than his own and vanished from recollection when the connection severed; patches of /connection/ empty, hollow but aching like a phantom limb. "I wonder." Parley's eyes have glazed over, concentrating inward – it doesn't seem to harm his ability to speak. Or at least in any practical sense; his tone has dropped into a listless mumble, but his mutation does a fair job of naturally tidying it. "Long term disciplines have been documented as increasing activity in different parts of their brain. I'm not sure studies have been done yet, to study the long-term effects of psionic manipulation. It probably depends on the frequency and –," he teeth line up tighter behind his lips, "-strength of the psionic being." There's no pain in it, but the /discontent/ at the fingers combing through his mind is real enough. A million snapshot sling past; emerald green grass under sprinting cleats, a soccer ball caroming off a goal frame; laboratory walls, full-body seizing on a tile floor while his bladder releases in a warm wave; an array of steaming shower stalls and white towels; a child's high clear voice waking him with a coaxing, "Ni-san!", pouncing in to join him on a loft bed overlooking a rural autumn treeline. When touched on, they flare up vibrant, with colors and textures and temperatures and smells and the instant released they fade back to gray shreds and dissolve. << (such) a (hungry mind…) >> Parley braces and allows it, to focus on other things. The rest of his mind is an unstable ground to occupy. Where Hive isn't actively focusing, it softens like a mire, sinks and loosens and rots away beneath his feet, as Parley seeks to undermine the connection. There's few solid handholds; careworn and frictionless from many passing mental hands and feet and claws over time, groomed over and fortified. << (don't.) >> He murmurs, shaking his mind harder ( << you were not kidding, were you, jackson… >> << he makes anima's control seem fragile >> ) when Hive reaches out through him towards the other minds beyond. Through him, they will be all the easier to claim; like joining droplets of water, falling into the connection. And to the outside, Flicker will feel him touch down. Feel him trace intimately, the broken, gouged holes Hive had carved into him. He'll pour into their hollows and drink them, << (hive.) >> he murmurs, as though reading the name from braille. The name makes them glow, silver over and shimmer, coiling into responsive, recognizable shapes of << Hive. >> And he curls away with it, stretches it into his own, a clear and permanent /sample/ of what he to look for. And he shines it like a beacon into the amalgamate mind occupying his own. << /Hive/. >> He shakes, sloughing off another layer of mind. A new one roils up from the center to replace it. << (do you remember?) >> "Would be a hard study to run." There's something wry and darkly amused in Flicker's mind, here: "You'd never get it past a medical ethics board." Hive's mind ripples outward through the room; outside of his bedroom it doesn't even cause a stir, his touch so quick and silent that the rest of the occupants of the house don't notice a thing. In the large pool of his current hivees it causes barely a swell, just tiny new trickles of stream washing in to join a deep ocean. The vibrant memories stirred up by Hive's exploration are taken, touched on in sequence and then left to disperse again. A trespasser, breaking in to leave the house intact but leave dirty footprints on the floor, smudged fingerprints across all the family portraits. Flicker's breath grows shaky at the mind rifling through his own. There's an instinct that he quashes to pull away, sever the connection with a quick blip-jump, slip it like he slips Hive's frequent touches. But he stills, calm and quiet though his fingers curl down harder against his chair, both Parley and Hive's minds permitted into his own. Hive clamps down. Shakes and worries at Parley's mind as it starts to slip his grip, bites in deep at each new toothsome piece that rises. << Remember, >> echoes back to Parley in soft uncomprehending chorus, many-voices of which Hive's is all but drowned out by the others. It pokes at the sample offered it, turning it over and over in slow scrutinizing. << We have this. >> Any response that might have been intended for Flicker fails - The shaking and worrying rips Parley right out of his concentration, drawing a quiet numb gasp - his seams pull loose, leaving him grasping for purchase as all that is this /legion mind/ soaks in; he finds only /Hive/ available to cleave to. A very cold, very sudden thought comes to him. << i can't fight him like this. >> << he'll tear me apart >> The undermining ceases altogether, going smooth and squashing beneath the weight, Hive's impersonal rifling bubbling up the bits and bobs of a person like a tar pit; the taste of a woman's coppery mouth; a warm ray of sun warming the pages of a book; a steel man's face plate with no mind at all behind it; a man's voice chuckling "I haven't decided if I'm going to eat you yet". Suddenly sharp and clear and perfect: Mirror delicately touching the surface of a painting in their living room, sunlight pouring through the windows behind hir to halo hir hair. And while these are inventoried, Parley is instead soaking in Hive now; he ducks down his head and buries himself beneath, gulping in Hive's mind with all the hundred colors to take their colors to blend in. It strains, for so many/so much to pour through – his own hands are curled tightly into the blankets as well now, breathing deep and slow. And his voice is there yet, beneath it, soft and insistent, << (you have)(too much.) >> The minds freshly taken; those unsuspecting in the living room, easier to pick out for having /watched/ them are, are pushed forward, indicated -- << (these are not yours)(these are not you.) >> He pushes forward the sample, from Flicker, and uses it as a beacon to illuminate small glass-shard of Hive's own mind lost in the jumble. << (this is you.) >> A blush of bright golden light; a winking candle flame; a glint of ruby; a snarl of plant roots. All encircling the steely sample like a ward. He sets about softly rasping some course mental tongue at the hair-thin crack, where Hive's mind meets up against one of the minds in the living room. Seeking to massage it loosen it, as though it were a muscle. << (they're worried.) >> << (let this one go.) >> When Parley stops struggling, Hive's claws stop /tearing/, no longer scrabbling for purchase and only sinking deep heavy anchors in past the bubbling memories floating up. Spared of this battle, his multitude of attentions are all free to rivet onto the words being offered him. He butts gently up against one offered mind and then another, touching on them with a kind of lax /indulgence/. There's not even a tone of argument when he responds so much as just quiet affirmation: << This is ours. >> << This is us. >> Drifting from one mind to another, curling just this much tighter over bright glimmering, around deep bloodred jewel, twining through plant roots. << Ours, >> is warmer. Almost pleased. It causes a small discomfited shiver, that slow massaging. He doesn't fight it so much as puzzle over it. << Us, >> is put forward, like he's /explaining/ this to Parley. In answer to worry he offers a feel of the static hungry minds of the dead, forever now crowding around the edges of his perception. << They worry. >> Delicately, Parley takes that dead-static brain-noise and translate it into a visual of blanks (static) eyes, dark and staring. And then pulls back and away to show Hive an image of his prone form. Of Flicker sitting by on guard. << (they have reason.)(they miss you.) >> For a moment he hangs back, quieting, as this mind entwines with the light and the bloodgem, the roots and its central disembodied world, thinking for a moment of worry beads, counted off through the fingers. He thinks of monuments, too. And he thinks of graves. He devotes the majority of his attention silently to continuing to rasp along that hair-thin line between Hive and one of the fresh minds just taken (Rachel? He does not know the name, but he's gradually locating small fragments that are hers alone, and they make an identity independent of a name.) The friction-rub of it generates a warmth, felt clearer as he levers at it, shows Hive the faint lip where the mind diverges into a concept of independence. << (...they need)(you.) >> And, thoughts naked, he considers. Flicker's words 'does it leave his fingerprints stamped in there?' How long has Hive been holding these minds? It did Mirror in, when ze was finally released from it - for how many government workers Hive may have taken by now, would they piece together a connection if they all collapsed at the same time from a similar - what would the best word for it be. Psychic scarring? /Can/ they see that sort of lingering mental evidence in an MRI? << well. with the plague also being (semi-psionic) there is probably never a better time to (obfuscate) the cause. >> << (do you remember?) >> He asks Hive, again. This time, hinting at something akin to… peeling apart two sides. Trying to coax him to the crack while he massages it, pressing in with a sort of awkward care to bump in against the side that is pure Hive. And press flush there. << (you told him you would.) >> And what of you, Hive-san. How much of this scarring will all of this cause yourself… << We are here, >> Hive insists again, in answer to his friends missing him. But this time it's with confusion, stirred by the mental image of his own inert body in the bed, of the thought of Flicker and Jax's entreaties to return. << -- We are here. >> Flicker slips out of his chair, quiet. He moves to the bedside, perching at the head of the bed to brush fingers lightly against Hive's forehead. "... if many of his people are around New York," he ventures, slow and thoughtful though there's a quiet underlying horror to it, "he should get them somewhere -- inside, first." And in his mind he's thinking of people collapsing around the city like dominoes, and the dead surging in to tear them apart. << We told him, >> Hive agrees, and there's confusion here too. He does remember, the always-warm vibrance of Jackson's vivid mind. << -- We did -- >> Beneath Flicker's fingers, his brow creases into a very small frown. His head tips back, against the touch. And now /he/ teases at that crack, worrying it apart with a growing uncertainty. << Us >> and << Rachel >> are hard for him to extricate, but with the slow teasing-apart comes a slowly growing sense of distinction. Almost experimentally, he pulls further, until it comes apart with a shudder that prompts a quiet startled gasp from the next room and a faint rippling shudder from Hive. First turned towards the sound of the gasp in the other room, a turn of neck directs Parley back towards Flicker, a letting of air from lungs the only mark of this small success - nodding grimly for the suggestion. "He responds when you touch him," he comments, absently - not sure if this is surprising. Or relieving. Or significant at all, really. He shifts mentally to spread out a feathery assessment of what strange mental surface area of Hive's mind, where Rachel had been joined to him. Curious, to check for rawness, for gouges or lines, but also simply buffing it, preening over it to massage at the shred of purely Hive-ness - spikey-sharp and /deeply/ grounded, seeking to rub warmth into the area as though its circulation had been suffering. Other tendrils lurk along the parameters, teasing at other crevices with small nudges, explorational levering - the fresher one, easy to match with those in the next room, like following threads raveled into a tapestry. And trying to familiarize himself with those that are purely Hive. These, he collects. Channels. Hones like blades. And these blades, he guides by feel back towards towards the cracks he finds. Encouraging the telepath's own mind's muscle memory remember the work. Flicker nods, his fingers tracing against Hive's forehead still. "He ignores most people. But --" He shrugs, brushing back the shaggy mop of hair off of Hive's face. Hive's head turns a little bit further, pressing still into Flicker's fingertips. He no longer responds to Parley's touches with discomfort -- they register now to him as his /own/, no need to withdraw from what is essentially part of his own mind. Rachel, taken in only a few minutes before, leaves little trace behind past a quiet ripple that's already smoothing out. The crevices he nudges at prickle spiky-sharp too, though, bladed edges shivering along the tendrils Parley ventures near. Another thread follows Rachel's, neatly severed by this sharp blade. Hive curls inward after this, discomfited. << … us, >> is a little bit less than pleased, still /feeling/ the minds in the adjacent room, fingers already reaching to reclaim them. << (not)(us.) >> Parley can't push with force, but he can /prod/, trying to retain Hive's attention. And what he prods with is memory snippets - of Hive playing games with his roommates, Dusk's wings open to casually brush his back, cards spread out on the table; smoke drifting up against the city skyline where Hive smokes on the roof top. Hive sitting in a truck that smells of blood and fear, his mind glutted yes but /sharp/ still. /Aware/. Prioritizing. And over all of it, he lays out what he sees. Hive vacant on the bed, turning his head into Flicker's hand. << (them.)(yours) but (not you.) >> Strained harder, like unhinging ones jaw, distending ones throat, to channel further, he's grooming more steadily now. Rasping little heated strokes at those crude silver veins that are Hive to polish them sharper. Some foreign minds are polished too, by happenstance - vibrant with their unique colors and smells and winking movements. It makes the cracks show, in between. << (for them.) >> << (ours.) >> << (us.) >> Hive says this with a tense unhappy edge to it, affirming it fiercely in the face of these other memories. << /Ours/. >> << /Us/. >> But it's not really these other minds he focuses on so much as the mental images; Flicker sitting beside him. The worry on his best friend's face. The vacantness in his own eyes. << Ours-us-ours-us-ours-us >> tumbles chaotically through his mind. It's the shard that Parley took from Flicker that he focuses inward on, though. A quiet undercurrent of << (mine?) >> << (me?) >> that whispers more uncertainly beneath. Sharpening those blades the more it comes into focus. The mental images well up something sharper still inside him, fierce and bladed and /proud/, somewhat sickened, too, as very /abruptly/ it isn't teasing away from the other minds within him so much as /tearing/ away. Ripping free of them like roots from earth, /shaking/ off the lingering clods of other-people's-minds that remain tangled in his own. Like tearing roots from earth, it leaves him with little firm to hold /on/ to, little to draw from by way of strength or sustenance. Spiking through his mind there is a wrenching sharp knifetwist of pain. And then there is silence. Externally, there is little to mark these changes, save that his glassy eyes have closed and his breathing now slowed, deeper but even. Internally -- it might be near as hard to find /Hive/ as it was before. But instead of a myriad of other-voices drowning him out, there is only a deep yawning void. Parley doesn't look away – nor tell Hive to stop. Nor tell him to slow down, or be gentler. His eyes remain steady, breathing even, something firmed in his jaw and leaving open a dark front row view for Flicker to witness the moment with him. Because someone should, maybe. They play vigil until Hive's mind goes silent, and Parley's eyes close – though whether to block out the visual or to look /closer/ is unclear. Shortly a shift of weight through the mattress, and he leans over. Fingers of one hand splay open, not quite touching Hive's brow but lingering as though a mind were a thing that could be felt with fingertips like a hearth fire. Then his hand returns to himself fit the heel of his palm into an eye socket. And sags against the wall. Flicker tenses, through this shared moment, his teeth clenching and a sick sense of dread blanketing his emotions. His fingers splay out against Hive's forehead afterwards, tracing down to one cheek as his own forehead bows to touch against Hive's. There are many questions bubbling, in his mind. And maybe soon he will ask them. But for now he just closes his eyes, hand resting against Hive's chest as if to assure himself of its continued rise and fall.