8FOLD: Darkhorse # 3, "Like a Window To Your Heart"

[Drew Perron]

On 5/22/2016 8:34 AM, Tom Russell wrote:

<snip>
>    Well, hate's probably too strong a word. She doesn't really hate
> anybody, even black capes.

Aw. <3

>    Because all those things are science, even if they're weird
> science, and science everybody can understand. Scientifically-enhanced
> super-folk have been running around, in one form or another, for the
> better part of a century and a half. Magic (real, true, inscrutable
> magic) is something else entirely, and that makes Melody's skin crawl.

It's always interesting where we draw our lines.

> (She didn't tell Rainshade that, of course. She knows better than to
> get sucked into that particular death-spiral. It's like discussing
> Ferguson on Facebook.)

Mmmm ``;;;

> It also doesn't help that none of the gosh-darn
> mancers have the plain simple decency to wear gosh-darn costumes or
> have gosh-darn codenames.

Ugh, seriously. C'mon, guys, be polite.

>    One of the two she's tangoing with this morning has some kind of
> vertigo-inducing control over ambient vibrational fields. For some
> reason, this also makes any projectiles he throws (or fires; the
> schmuck is gun-happy) unerringly accurate; they even bend and
> course-correct in mid-flight. What kind of goofball stuff is that?
> What do the two things have to do with one another?

Hmmmmmm. I'm going to assume a purely mental association with "twisting".

> (From what she could piece together, they're some
> kind of conspiracy theorists, ranting about a secret anti-mancer
> conglomerate called The Company, for which this office is a front.
> Yeah, right, and McDonald's is a satanic cult.)

D'oh!

>    The blonde pushes her away, angry and wild-eyed. "Get away from me!"
>   "I'm sorry, miss," says Melody. "I understand this was traumatizing..."
>    The blonde disappears with a flash of light.
>    "Wait, what?" Melody turns around and sees the blonde standing over
> the two dudes. She zips back, but is too late; the teleporting blonde
> and her fellow mancers are gone.

Yeah, see, maybe you should take that as evidence >.>;

>    "Yeah, I know what you mean," says Derek. "I miss it. I wouldn't
> want to eat it, but, you know, I miss it. Miss her. She'd be proud of
> you."

Derek you are so awkward.

>    "Medusa's predictive model has narrowed down the places where Kate
> could appear to fifteen 'hotspots' within fifty miles of the casino
> where Zero Below is playing in Sault Ste. Marie. Each hotspot is about
> a half-mile square. And Microdot's been tinkering with Wazowie's
> shrink rays. It should extend the time that Kate appears from two
> seconds to four."

Derek you're a lot less awkward when you're focused and you're in your 
specialization. <3

>    "Tampon," he says. "She was yelling at me, accusing me of being a
> pervert, and I was trying to talk around it, but I just couldn't
> think, and I'm terrible at lying, did you know that I'm terrible at
> lying?"

awwwww Simon. <3

>    "I told her that Darkhorse needed her DNA to save Kate. I didn't
> tell her, you know, what Kate does, or why you in particular were
> trying to save her. And when she started in at me about it, I got
> kinda flustered and clammed up, and that made everything ten thousand
> times worse.

Yeah, I know that one. :/

>    The music gets louder. "If you keep turning it up, you're just
> going to damage your eardrums, oh my God, did I just say that? When
> did I become old?"

*snerk*

>    "Of course I know," says Cal. "I've always known. The first time
> the new Metronome appears, it's in my house, couple days after my mom
> dies, after she tries to drown Kate in the bathtub, and this superhero
> shows up because a stupid little girl is afraid to go into the
> bathroom by herself? Of course it's Kate. I can put that much
> together, you know? But they think I'm so stupid. They think I'm still
> that stupid little girl. Her and Simon. She tells Simon, but she can't
> tell me? And she's gone for the last four months, he can't tell me?
> Everyone thinks she's dead, and he still can't tell me who the hell my
> sister is, what she died for?"

That's a *reeeeeeeally* good point. Like... I'm not going to say you should 
*never* keep secrets from your loved ones, but...

>    "But he didn't tell me!" says Cal. "So, what, it's okay that he
> lets me think she's dead? That's screwed up. That's so screwed up.
> Tell me that's not screwed up."
>    There's a cough at the door. "Yeah," says Simon. "Yeah, it's screwed up."
>    "A and B conversation, Simon," snarls Cal.

Heeheehee.

> She sniffles, and a sniffle soon turns into
> an involuntary sob, and a sob into full-blown waterworks. "It's like
> they think I don't worry every time she disappears? That I wasn't
> proud of her back in oh-eight? That I didn't deserve to know? That I
> didn't love her enough? I loved her! But she pushed me away. She let
> him in, but she pushed me away."
>    "I think you push back, Cal."
>    Cal runs her sleeve along her nose, carrying away fresh bubbly
> snot. "Yeah. It doesn't make it right, though."

Damn. Good on you, Cal. That's not where I thought this was going. :>

>    Melody shrugs. "It's like that song. 'The price you pay for loving
> me is you gotta let me go.'"
>    "Wait, you listen to Wazowie?"
>    "Not on purpose," admits Melody.

Heeheehee.

> "I like music with a melody." She
> smiles inwardly. "Like, Supertramp."
>    "Oh my God," says Cal. "I am so, so sorry."

XD

> Cardiff. The pretty blonde teleporter is bandaging her brother's broken nose.

Ahhhhh, okay. Honestly I thought she was picking them up *for* the Company.

>    Eira purses her pouty lips in thought. "You said it yourself:
> Darkhorse ruined everything. The long underwear crowd sticking their
> noses into our concern. This is about mancers, and should be handled
> by mancers. Us, the circle, whoever, we're never going to take down
> the bloody Company when we got them lot swarming around us."
>    "Agreed," says Gareth. "So what do we do about it?"
>    "We make an example," says Eira.

Guys, you're trying to do a good guy thing, use good guy tactics-- ehhhh they 
never listen >:/

>    Gareth grins, beaming. "I have just the thing," he says, rushing to
> the back of the room. After a bit of rummaging, he returns with a
> transparent piece of metal held between a pair of tweezers. "Ghost
> shot."

GOSH DANGIT.

Drew "THEY NEVER LISTEN" Perron