Convergence

noyesterdaysontheroad​:

“Something a little dangerous,” Jackie admitted. “But I managed it before, back when I was like, nineteen?”

She stood, feeling the need to pace as she worked through what she was thinking. “The kind of rival we want is someone a little easier to get away from, likes to brag, but who won’t want to admit that they’ve screwed up. We could make it look like you led me right into a trap, then give them the slip and make it look like I’m dead.”

“Okay—and where would this rival come in?”

noyesterdaysontheroad​:

“Well.” Jackie crossed her arms loosely over her middle as she leaned back in her own seat, thinking it over. She was quiet for some time, expression turning slowly from thoughtful, to anxious, to resigned.

Finally, she let out a small sigh and met Qaz’s eye. “Do the Blackstone have any rivals?”

“Yes,” he said slowly, “though the count depends on your definition of ‘rival’.” He raised a brow. “Why, what do y'all have in mind?”

“Something a little dangerous,” Jackie admitted. “But I managed it before, back when I was like, nineteen?”

noyesterdaysontheroad​:

Jackie took a slow breath, let it out, and nodded. “Alright,” she said slowly. “I like the sound of getting off this rock. How do I help?”

“That’s what I’m trying to work out now—the signal smokescreen buys us time, but Blackstones need to think something’s happened to you beyond retrieval, and that I’m too far in the wind to be worth the trouble of fetching. Your thought of ditching the burner in space is decent, and we can definitely follow in that vein, but we have to make it make sense in the context of the smokescreen.

He leaned to rest his elbows on his knees. “Any thoughts?”

“Well.” Jackie crossed her arms loosely over her middle as she leaned back in her own seat, thinking it over. She was quiet for some time, expression turning slowly from thoughtful, to anxious, to resigned.

noyesterdaysontheroad​:

“Yeah?” She settled her backpack at her feet, and tried to wrestle her brain back onto the matter at hand. “And how does a stampede work for us?”

“They set up false positive signals to devices owned by a couple folks. We can take it and amp it up twofold. First,“ he held up a finger, “we can throw in a whole mess of other types of signals. And second,” another finger, and now he smiled, “we can throw it around with greater abandon. We can create a much larger and much more chaotic smokescreen, and get off this rock while it billows and doubles back on itself.”

noyesterdaysontheroad​:

“Building’s good,” Jackie said as she dropped into a nearby chair. “What sort of wheel are we talking about?”

“The one Zik set in motion yesterday morning—the false-positive moose chase?” He grinned. “We can turn it into a stampede.”

whatsinamultiverse​:

Doc set to work patching Qaz up, starting with a quick jab from an old-fashioned needle and syringe to take care of the pain, and then on to cleaning and bandaging the wound. “Would like to get some images, make sure there ain’t a fracture,” she sighed, “but the machine’s been broken three cycles now and we can’t afford the repair.” Just as she was tidying up, another child, this one older than Hype, came barreling into the room to announce, breathlessly, “Cappers just come in off the troible, Ma.” Doc’s features instantly hardened. “Take Hype and Steth and scram until they’re gone. Don’t want any o’ you talkin’ to them.” Soon as the kid took off again, feet hammering up stairs somewhere out of sight, Doc fixed Qaz with a stern look. “You best be truthful with them. You ain’t from here, you got nothing to worry about unless you go about telling lies.”

Like fardwocks he didn’t have anything to worry about. But Qaz squared his shoulders and nodded. “If y'all think I’m presentable enough, and there ain’t no use tryin’ to implore their patience.” He sighed, resigned, then waved in from the door. “Let’m come.”

It wasn’t long before they arrived. Doc met them outside, and after an exchange of sharp words, led them in. The cappers came in a pair, dressed in dark brown with flat caps dyed a bright red. They were older folk, a man and a woman both with gray-touched hair and lined faces. Much like the residents at the core of this settlement, they were adorned with piercings and amulets meant to ward off the Dancers. 

whatsinamultiverse​:

“Word is a Dancer-plagued family’s got more trouble coming to them,” Doc answered with a heavy sigh. “The girl’s like to be sent to dance, once they catch her.” She crossed the room to sort through her supplies. “Any drug allergies I ought to know of, before I do something about that pain?”

“No, Doc, but the consideration’s most kind.“

It wasn’t quite clear if “they” meant the people or the Dancers, but he didn’t like the notion of either. If those tadik wanted to go dance, that was their business, but he couldn’t let folk come after them. He’d have to do something about that.

whatsinamultiverse​:

“Kneecappers,” Doc answered as they crossed the threshold. There was a small waiting area immediately inside, furnished with four identical wooden chairs, and a swinging door to another room. Through the door they went, and Doc soon had Qaz on a small cot. “They’ll want to talk to you ‘bout the Dancer girl.”

Qaz swallowed hard as he sat back. “Can’t imagine there’s much to talk about.”

whatsinamultiverse​:

“Kneecappers,” Doc answered as they crossed the threshold. There was a small waiting area immediately inside, furnished with four identical wooden chairs, and a swinging door to another room. Through the door they went, and Doc soon had Qaz on a small cot. “They’ll want to talk to you ‘bout the Dancer girl.”

Qaz swallowed hard as he sat back. “Can’t imagine there’s much to talk about.”

whatsinamultiverse​:

“Hold still and try not to blink.” Her tone was firm, and she leaned in to shine her pen light in all of Qaz’s eyes in turn. “Probable concussion; you’re lucky it wasn’t worse.” Sighing, she stepped back, pocketed her light, and offered Qaz an arm out of the cart. “You can call me Doc. Come on in, let’s get you patched up before the cappers show.” 

“Cheers, Doc.” He hoisted himself up with her help, waited until his head stopped spinning, then followed along with her.

“How do you mean, cappers? Company expected?“

whatsinamultiverse​:

It was still decidedly rural on this rock, though nothing like the one Qaz had come from. Here there was at least something of a ramshackle town square, which gave way to more widely-spaced residential buildings.  It was to one of these more residential places that Hype took Qaz. A coat of whitewash of some variety brightened the front of the two-story house, with the ever-recognizable tri-swirl symbol of healing painted in blue above the door. 

Soon as he’d parked the cart in front of the building, Hype disappeared inside, shouting, “Ma! Brought ‘em like you asked!” A moment later a woman with an old model hydraulic leg shuffled outside. Her graying hair was tied up in bun, her face was stern, and her coat impeccably white. “You’re the fool done caused all the trouble, then?” she asked, already pulling a pen light from her pocket as she approached Qaz in the cart. 

“Unless there’s been a recent trend, then I reckon so.” He shifted forward to sit up better—even if he was banged up, the least he could do was try to look respectable.

whatsinamultiverse​:

Hype stumbled a bit under the extra weight, but managed to get Qaz into the cart. “You good, Q?” he asked, heading to the front of the cart to steer it through the rough streets. “Doc’s not far.”

Qaz couldn’t help a small smile. “Good’s a soul can be for gettin’ crain-clocked with a pipe.“ He steadied and settled himself, and as much as his balance let him he took a look around.

It was still decidedly rural on this rock, though nothing like the one Qaz had come from. Here there was at least something of a ramshackle town square, which gave way to more widely-spaced residential buildings.  It was to one of these more residential places that Hype took Qaz. A coat of whitewash of some variety brightened the front of the two-story house, with the ever-recognizable tri-swirl symbol of healing painted in blue above the door. 

whatsinamultiverse​:

“Tad’s good, or Hype,” the kid responded, easily ducking under one of Qaz’s arms to steady him and help him from the troible car. “You gotta safename?”

“Call me Q,“ he replied. The step down from the troible jostled him more than his balance wanted, so the ground slowly started tilting, and he leaned more on Hype.

whatsinamultiverse​:

“Doc ain’t on the main rock,” the kid said, gleefully accepting the coins and stashing them in his own pockets. “S’on this rock. Sent me t’fetch ya.” The kid stepped back. “Heard you took a good knock. Gotta cart outside, if’n you need a sit.”

“Yeah.” With some care and more effort than he’d have liked he stood up. “Yeah, I reckon a hand getting over’d be good—be rude to keel over before even coming in.

“What can I call you, tad?”

noyesterdaysontheroad​:

Jackie just about cried with relief. She nodded, her throat too tight with emotion to speak, and disappeared with all her belongings into the bathroom. She thought about leaving the door cracked open just a bit, so she could hear if anything unexpected happened in the apartment, just in case, but that would mean Qaz could hear her, too. Judging by the way her eyes were already stinging, that would be mortifying, so she shut the door with a quiet click. 

The all-too-common predicament of learning unfamiliar shower controls and the rush of warm water were welcome companions, but soon the quiet let her thoughts overtake her. She scrubbed until her skin was raw, stifling ragged, broken sobs as she tried to purge the memory of Simon. 

And underneath it all floated a sick feeling, a twisting anxiety that curled in her gut over the similarities between this situation and the one that had sent her running so many years ago. Everything about it felt like a trap, or some cruel joke of the universe, all of which left her, in the end, leaning against the shower wall with her head bowed until the water ran cold.  After what felt like an eternity, when she had cried herself out and resigned herself to yet another nightmare, she reëmerged to join Qaz. “Alright, hero,” she said quietly, with a small, tired smile. “What’s that big brain of yours come up with?”

By now Qaz had settled at a desk in the main room, and it already looked like he had been working there for days—the holographic screens were up, and a tablet was plugged into the base. Beside this array was the stiff pouch, empty, and the burner palmtop resting under what looked like a glowing colander. The rest of the surface was strewn with paper. Qaz was scribbling in a notebook as she came out, but smiled as he looked up.

“It’s found that we’ve got a wheel in front of us, and we can build on that.”

noyesterdaysontheroad‌:

Qaz’s reassurances did little to ease Jackie’s anxiety, and the thought of food made her stomach turn. But she knew she needed to eat something if she was going to be more than dead weight, so she held her tongue and simply nodded again.  “Okay,” she said softly. “Yeah. Breakfast sounds great.”

They ate in relative quiet, Qaz only speaking up to remind Jackie to keep drinking water.

When they got moving again, Qaz kept the SEP generator in hand, and led them through a winding maze of alleys until they emerged into another neighborhood, this one with cleaner, more rigid lines than the others. After a few streets they came to an unassuming mid-rise building. Qaz tapped briefly at his palmtop, then turned the screen to a reader next to the door—it chirped, the door clicked, and he pulled open the door to usher Jackie into a hallway of what appeared to be an apartment building. Up a flight of stairs, and halfway down the hall, he flashed the screen at another reader, and the door opened into a modest, clean apartment, furnished but empty.

“Kelaino owns the place,” he explained once he locked the door and set down his things, then he nodded to an ajar door. “Take your time, I’ll keep busy thinking.”

Jackie just about cried with relief. She nodded, her throat too tight with emotion to speak, and disappeared with all her belongings into the bathroom. She thought about leaving the door cracked open just a bit, so she could hear if anything unexpected happened in the apartment, just in case, but that would mean Qaz could hear her, too. Judging by the way her eyes were already stinging, that would be mortifying, so she shut the door with a quiet click.  The all-too-common predicament of learning unfamiliar shower controls and the rush of warm water were welcome companions, but soon the quiet let her thoughts overtake her. She scrubbed until her skin was raw, stifling ragged, broken sobs as she tried to purge the memory of Simon. 

whatsinamultiverse​:

Qaz was shaken awake some time later, by a scruffy youth with wide eyes and a too-large flat cap. “You dead, mister?” he asked as he prodded Qaz’s shoulder again. “Cuz’ if’n you dead, I hasta take ya farther an’ I oughta get what’s in your pockets as pay.”

Qaz startled awake, but his head started aching again immediately. He winced at the poking, but managed half a smile.

“Ain’t dead yet, tad, but sure do feel like it.” He fumbled for his pocket and fished out a couple full-credit coins to give the kid. “We back to the main rock yet?”