September 27, 2012
The jail’s meeting room for inmates and their attorneys was painted an industrial, almost military-inspired shade of green, though flecks of paint were peeling off of the wire mesh near the door to the cell. The room’s three pieces of furniture - two heavy and scarred wooden chairs and an equally beat-up wooden table - had been bolted to the floor. Also bolted to the floor were a pair of heavy iron loops that were starting to rust. The floor itself was plain white tile, scuffed and streaked black in places by the scraping of the soles of countless lawyers and prisoners.
The room was currently occupied by two men, with a third man dressed in guard leathers wielding a wooden baton standing outside the cell with a bored look on his face. Inside the cell, Rob sat facing the door and the guard, while his attorney sat with his back to the entrance. Jail had shaved a few pounds of muscle off of Rob’s frame, and the intake guards had shaved his head, leaving him with just a little bit of stubble on his skull. They hadn’t bothered to shave his face, though, and the beard he was growing as a result was starting to overwhelm his cheeks and chin, like weeds overrunning a vacant lot. His right eye had been freshly blackened, and a purple-black bruise spread out over his left cheekbone just below the eye. Below the table, his leg irons had been cuffed to the large iron rings there, and he was in handcuffs as well.
The man sitting across the table from Rob leaned as far back in his chair as he could. He seemed to shrink inside his brand-new charcoal pinstriped suit, which was easy since it was at least a size too big for him. He had been running late for his meeting with Rob, so his black hair was unkempt and his tie hastily tied into a fat, asymmetric knot. The attorney was nearly the same age as Rob, possibly younger, and spoke quickly and quietly to his client.
“...so the D.A. is telling me if you plead guilty, they’ll knock the charges down to...our world’s equivalent to second-degree murder in your world. You’ll be sentenced to life in prison, but you’ll be up for parole in 25 years. Right now, you’re looking at life in prison, no parole, minimum. The jury could easily decide to just *kkkk*-” Rob’s lawyer dragged a finger across his throat to accompany the sound.
“...I didn’t do it.”
“You keep saying that, but I’ve seen the evidence the guard has. It’s very damning, Rob. As your counsel, I would strongly recommend you taking this deal.”
“...Can I see the evidence?”
The lawyer began nervously scratching his head. “Ah, the guard and the judge and district attorney said it’s confidential. Classified.”
“Not even a copy?” Rob tried to lift a leg up higher in the air, but the chains attached to the iron loop pulled him back to the floor.
“I’m sorry, Rob.” The attorney made a show of shuffling his papers on the table, as if preparing to leave. Rob tried to stretch his cuffed hands across the table to reach him, a gesture that made the lawyer pause.
“Can you - can you please get them to put me in another cell? With...I don’t know, the less violent offenders or something? I-I can defend myself, but not against six or seven guys.”
Rob’s counsel shook his head, frowning. “I’m sorry, Rob. But you’re considered high-risk. Violent. They won’t put you in with the general population.”
“I didn’t do it!” Rob banged his metal-clad wrists on the table, and tried to jump to his feet, but again, the rings in the floor yanked him back into his seat. The attorney looked nervously to the guard, who banged his baton against the bars.
“Oy! Mind yer manners!” The guard unlocked the cell and opened the door, letting the lawyer scurry outside, and let Rob stew in his manacles for a few more minutes before unshackling him and sending him back to his more permanent cell.
October 26, 2012
“We, the members of the jury, find the defendant Robert Pulk III guilty of all the aforementioned charges.”
“Thank you, Madam Foreman. Sentencing will be held in one month.”
November 26, 2012
“Upon consideration of both the defense and the prosecution’s presentations and statements, I hereby sentence Robert Pulk III to be put to death, at a time to be determined later, by a method to be determined later, pending appeals.”
“I DIDN’T DO IT! I DIDN- *crack*”
“Mr. Pulk, you are out of order! I have been diplomatic throughout the course of this trial, but your behavior now leaves me no choice. Your crimes - both those you have been convicted of and those that our prosecution still suspects you of committing - are among the foulest this court has ever seen. Despite your repeated, insistent pleas, you have been convicted of these crimes, and your sentence has been meted out. Save your energy for your appeals, for all the good it will do you. And may God have mercy on your soul, though I sincerely doubt you deserve it.”
“But, but...god dammit. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t...*mmmph*”
“Thank you, bailiff. That will be quite enough from you, Mr. Pulk.”
What Are The Odds?
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Anvil Crawler
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Re: What Are The Odds?
One hand will wash the other
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Anvil Crawler
- Adventurer
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Re: What Are The Odds?
December 14, 2012
Well south of the city, south of even Cadentia, sat the North Equatorial RhyDin Correctional Facility. The prison designers decided early on in the brainstorming process that the number one priority for their new prison was accessibility. Or lack thereof. They wanted to place the facility in the most barren, the most remote, the most inaccessible place they could find on RhyDin that would still keep their prisoners alive, without costing them an exorbitant amount. The deserts south of the city served the purpose well. A day's walk or drive in any direction would not change the scenery observed one bit. It was miles and miles of sand dunes, broken up sparingly with a cactus here, a tumbleweed there. Seeing a living animal, other than the vultures circling high overhead, was like winning the lottery.
Rob had been surprised to find himself placed in a classic prison cell, almost like something out of the Wild West, only dirtier and filthier. The ceiling, walls, and floor were painted white. A bunk bed that was more like a slat of wood nailed to the wall with the thinnest mattress and sheets they could find was his only furniture. And the classic iron bars stood between him, the hallway, and freedom. At least on Death Row, each inmate got their own cell, but there were no janitors to come by and clean up if the toilet stopped up or the faucet stopped working, both of which happened within a week of his arrival. The steps he had to take to work around the nonworking plumbing facilities shamed him at first, but shame soon became a secondary emotion to him.
The guards were draconian in their demands, and ruthless in their enforcement of those demands. If Rob was not awake at 5:30 a.m., they would open the door to his cell and beat him until he woke up with wooden clubs. Even if he managed to rouse himself from sleep before they arrived, they would still punish him if he was not standing sharp and at attention in his cell when they came. If he did not finish his meal? That was a beating. Not in bed at 10:30 p.m. precisely? A beating. Exercise one minute too long during the mandatory exercise sessions (or skip out on the sessions from soreness from previous beatings)? A beating. Rob’s skin began to resemble a rotten banana, black and purple from fresh bruises with mottled yellow from ones that were fading away.
It was almost as if the facility was designed to pummel all hope out of its prisoners -- although Rob had no way of knowing whether or not his experiences were shared by the other prisoners. His only interactions were with his jailers -- he slept alone, he ate alone, and when he went to shower once a week, he did so with only the guards watching and laughing and making crude remarks about him. The food was barely edible, always cold, and seemed to come in just two colors: gray and white. The forced exercise, the beatings, and a steady diet of mashed potatoes, gravy, and Salisbury steak stripped the muscles from his bones quickly.
Eventually, the stopped-up toilet overflowed, leaving an inch or so of fetid water on the floor of his cell. It didn’t take the guards long to notice.
“Oi! You rotter! What in hell’s name you do?” The guard pinched his nose as he stood outside of Rob’s cell, flattening the words he spoke. Rob did much the same, from his perch in his bed above the foul flood.
“I swear, I didn’t do anything! I told you the toilet needs fixed, but you didn’t do anything!”
“You did this! You clogged it up, to get back at us!”
“Why-why would I do that? I have to sleep here!”
“You accusing me of lying, boy?”
“No, I-” Rob cut himself off, as the sound of the guard’s keys in the lock seemed to boom inside the cell. He threw the door open with a clattering crash, and sprung inside the room wielding his club. Rob tried to hold up his arms to protect his face, but the guard grabbed one with his off hand and swung wildly at whatever parts of the body Rob left exposed -- his chest, his stomach, the left side of his face. Soon, it became apparent that this wasn’t like the other beatings, where they would strike him once or twice, yell at him some, and let him go. No, this guard just kept swinging and swinging, rage pink on his face. He was going to beat Rob to death.
“NO!” Rob shouted, as the air began to hum and sing with energy. His uninjured arm, which he kept pinned to his side and away from the rain of blows, suddenly lifted up and pointed at the guard. Electricity shot from his fingertips, penetrated the guard’s leather armor, and sent him dancing away from Rob. His body jerked and twisted, pulled by an invisible puppeteer’s strings, before the lines went slack and the guard collapsed in one of the larger puddles of waste water. Still cringing, it took Rob a moment or two to realize the other man was down. He pulled his hand away from his face, eyes still squinting in fear of the next blow, and surveyed the room. No guard. The door was open. Now was his chance.
He cursed under his breath as he hopped off of the bunk bed. He was bruised, battered, and the smell of his own shit was now mixed with electrocuted flesh. He came across the unconscious guard, paused for a split-second, and sighed as he knelt down as close to the man as he could without dipping his knees into the filth. He touched his fingers to the man’s neck. It was faint, but he could still feel a heartbeat pulsing insistently in the guard’s veins. He stood up suddenly, sloshing water around the cell, and began running.
Well south of the city, south of even Cadentia, sat the North Equatorial RhyDin Correctional Facility. The prison designers decided early on in the brainstorming process that the number one priority for their new prison was accessibility. Or lack thereof. They wanted to place the facility in the most barren, the most remote, the most inaccessible place they could find on RhyDin that would still keep their prisoners alive, without costing them an exorbitant amount. The deserts south of the city served the purpose well. A day's walk or drive in any direction would not change the scenery observed one bit. It was miles and miles of sand dunes, broken up sparingly with a cactus here, a tumbleweed there. Seeing a living animal, other than the vultures circling high overhead, was like winning the lottery.
Rob had been surprised to find himself placed in a classic prison cell, almost like something out of the Wild West, only dirtier and filthier. The ceiling, walls, and floor were painted white. A bunk bed that was more like a slat of wood nailed to the wall with the thinnest mattress and sheets they could find was his only furniture. And the classic iron bars stood between him, the hallway, and freedom. At least on Death Row, each inmate got their own cell, but there were no janitors to come by and clean up if the toilet stopped up or the faucet stopped working, both of which happened within a week of his arrival. The steps he had to take to work around the nonworking plumbing facilities shamed him at first, but shame soon became a secondary emotion to him.
The guards were draconian in their demands, and ruthless in their enforcement of those demands. If Rob was not awake at 5:30 a.m., they would open the door to his cell and beat him until he woke up with wooden clubs. Even if he managed to rouse himself from sleep before they arrived, they would still punish him if he was not standing sharp and at attention in his cell when they came. If he did not finish his meal? That was a beating. Not in bed at 10:30 p.m. precisely? A beating. Exercise one minute too long during the mandatory exercise sessions (or skip out on the sessions from soreness from previous beatings)? A beating. Rob’s skin began to resemble a rotten banana, black and purple from fresh bruises with mottled yellow from ones that were fading away.
It was almost as if the facility was designed to pummel all hope out of its prisoners -- although Rob had no way of knowing whether or not his experiences were shared by the other prisoners. His only interactions were with his jailers -- he slept alone, he ate alone, and when he went to shower once a week, he did so with only the guards watching and laughing and making crude remarks about him. The food was barely edible, always cold, and seemed to come in just two colors: gray and white. The forced exercise, the beatings, and a steady diet of mashed potatoes, gravy, and Salisbury steak stripped the muscles from his bones quickly.
Eventually, the stopped-up toilet overflowed, leaving an inch or so of fetid water on the floor of his cell. It didn’t take the guards long to notice.
“Oi! You rotter! What in hell’s name you do?” The guard pinched his nose as he stood outside of Rob’s cell, flattening the words he spoke. Rob did much the same, from his perch in his bed above the foul flood.
“I swear, I didn’t do anything! I told you the toilet needs fixed, but you didn’t do anything!”
“You did this! You clogged it up, to get back at us!”
“Why-why would I do that? I have to sleep here!”
“You accusing me of lying, boy?”
“No, I-” Rob cut himself off, as the sound of the guard’s keys in the lock seemed to boom inside the cell. He threw the door open with a clattering crash, and sprung inside the room wielding his club. Rob tried to hold up his arms to protect his face, but the guard grabbed one with his off hand and swung wildly at whatever parts of the body Rob left exposed -- his chest, his stomach, the left side of his face. Soon, it became apparent that this wasn’t like the other beatings, where they would strike him once or twice, yell at him some, and let him go. No, this guard just kept swinging and swinging, rage pink on his face. He was going to beat Rob to death.
“NO!” Rob shouted, as the air began to hum and sing with energy. His uninjured arm, which he kept pinned to his side and away from the rain of blows, suddenly lifted up and pointed at the guard. Electricity shot from his fingertips, penetrated the guard’s leather armor, and sent him dancing away from Rob. His body jerked and twisted, pulled by an invisible puppeteer’s strings, before the lines went slack and the guard collapsed in one of the larger puddles of waste water. Still cringing, it took Rob a moment or two to realize the other man was down. He pulled his hand away from his face, eyes still squinting in fear of the next blow, and surveyed the room. No guard. The door was open. Now was his chance.
He cursed under his breath as he hopped off of the bunk bed. He was bruised, battered, and the smell of his own shit was now mixed with electrocuted flesh. He came across the unconscious guard, paused for a split-second, and sighed as he knelt down as close to the man as he could without dipping his knees into the filth. He touched his fingers to the man’s neck. It was faint, but he could still feel a heartbeat pulsing insistently in the guard’s veins. He stood up suddenly, sloshing water around the cell, and began running.
One hand will wash the other
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Anvil Crawler
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- Joined: Wed Oct 14, 2020 3:25 pm
Re: What Are The Odds?
((Trigger Warning: Torture))
Left. No, right. Jesus Christ. *cough* Goddammit. Goddammit, which way? I’m-I’m sorry, Lord. Please, Jesus, just let me get through this. The showers. Which way do we turn? Left. Left!
They’re shouting. I can see them shouting, yelling, grabbing the bars and rattling them. I can’t hear them. Why? I could reach through the bars and touch them, but I can’t hear them. Why can’t I hear them? Wait. He’s pointing - he’s pointing down the hallway. Not left. Right. *whump*
“Halt!”
No, I can’t stop now. You’ll beat me to death. You’ll beat me. The other way - shit!
“Stop, or I’ll-” *crack* “-Aw, fuck, my nose, my-” *thud*
Can’t stop to check on him. The other guard’s coming!
“Stop, you sunuva-” *thwack*
The door’s right there -- open and shut and -- general population. I’m on the second floor. How do I get down? Where’s the exit?
“Watch out!”
*oof* “Aaa-”
“Thanks.”
“Hurry, man, hurry!”
He’s pointing down the balcony-way -- there’s stairs there. Stairs down. The blood’s rushing in my ears -- I can’t hear my feet on the concrete. Wait...I’m not even wearing shoes. Where’s the door? Where’s the next goddamn door?
Where’s the next goddamn door?
Where’s the next goddamn door?
I’m almost out. I’m almost out. I’m almost out. I’m out...
What the fuck?
“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE! YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE! DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU’D ACTUALLY GET OUT, YOU META-HUMAN PIECE OF SHIT? ON YOUR KNEES. ON YOUR KNEES! ON YOUR-”
***
“I said,” the executioner casually backhanded Rob as he spoke, “are you ready to talk?”
“What -- what do you want me to say?” Rob’s voice, nearly ruined by dehydration and abuse, had been reduced to a quiet croak.
“You killed those women -- you slaughtered them. You tortured them with electricity, and then-”
“I-”
The interrogator backhanded Rob again, and he tasted blood in his mouth, trickling down his chin.
“You killed them! Why won’t you admit it?”
“I...didn’t do it. I keep telling you that.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why? Why don’t you believe me?”
“The evidence points to you. The witnesses point to you. The motive points to you. Only you insist it wasn’t you.” His teeth clicked together as he ground them, before he pulled the gag back on over Rob’s mouth. “One way or the other, you’re going to tell us the truth. You’re going to confess. You’re going to give us every last detail of what you did, and then you’re going to die. And when we kill you, you’re going to wish you’d just told us what you did in the first place.”
The executioner twisted the cap off of the bottle of water and let it drop to the rubberized floor, where it barely made a sound on impact. He draped the stained rag over Rob’s mouth and nostrils, before crouching down beside his head.
“One way or the other, Rob...You. Will. Talk.”
Left. No, right. Jesus Christ. *cough* Goddammit. Goddammit, which way? I’m-I’m sorry, Lord. Please, Jesus, just let me get through this. The showers. Which way do we turn? Left. Left!
They’re shouting. I can see them shouting, yelling, grabbing the bars and rattling them. I can’t hear them. Why? I could reach through the bars and touch them, but I can’t hear them. Why can’t I hear them? Wait. He’s pointing - he’s pointing down the hallway. Not left. Right. *whump*
“Halt!”
No, I can’t stop now. You’ll beat me to death. You’ll beat me. The other way - shit!
“Stop, or I’ll-” *crack* “-Aw, fuck, my nose, my-” *thud*
Can’t stop to check on him. The other guard’s coming!
“Stop, you sunuva-” *thwack*
The door’s right there -- open and shut and -- general population. I’m on the second floor. How do I get down? Where’s the exit?
“Watch out!”
*oof* “Aaa-”
“Thanks.”
“Hurry, man, hurry!”
He’s pointing down the balcony-way -- there’s stairs there. Stairs down. The blood’s rushing in my ears -- I can’t hear my feet on the concrete. Wait...I’m not even wearing shoes. Where’s the door? Where’s the next goddamn door?
Where’s the next goddamn door?
Where’s the next goddamn door?
I’m almost out. I’m almost out. I’m almost out. I’m out...
What the fuck?
“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE! YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE! DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU’D ACTUALLY GET OUT, YOU META-HUMAN PIECE OF SHIT? ON YOUR KNEES. ON YOUR KNEES! ON YOUR-”
***
“I said,” the executioner casually backhanded Rob as he spoke, “are you ready to talk?”
“What -- what do you want me to say?” Rob’s voice, nearly ruined by dehydration and abuse, had been reduced to a quiet croak.
“You killed those women -- you slaughtered them. You tortured them with electricity, and then-”
“I-”
The interrogator backhanded Rob again, and he tasted blood in his mouth, trickling down his chin.
“You killed them! Why won’t you admit it?”
“I...didn’t do it. I keep telling you that.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why? Why don’t you believe me?”
“The evidence points to you. The witnesses point to you. The motive points to you. Only you insist it wasn’t you.” His teeth clicked together as he ground them, before he pulled the gag back on over Rob’s mouth. “One way or the other, you’re going to tell us the truth. You’re going to confess. You’re going to give us every last detail of what you did, and then you’re going to die. And when we kill you, you’re going to wish you’d just told us what you did in the first place.”
The executioner twisted the cap off of the bottle of water and let it drop to the rubberized floor, where it barely made a sound on impact. He draped the stained rag over Rob’s mouth and nostrils, before crouching down beside his head.
“One way or the other, Rob...You. Will. Talk.”
One hand will wash the other
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Anvil Crawler
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Extraction
The North Equatorial RhyDin Correctional Facility was a textbook example of "the middle of nowhere." The nearest inhabited settlement, an encampment of Bedouin herders and desert guides in simple canvas tents, was a day's journey east. In any other cardinal direction, it was an even farther trek to the nearest signs of civilization. No one from the area knew quite how far, for none of the caravans, guides, or other area residents had even taken a trip in those directions and ever returned.
The thick concrete walls of the prison had been sand-blasted by the same winds that formed the dunes surrounding the building. Though prematurely aged, they stood tall and imposing over the nearby desert, watching out for any escaped prisoners. There were no visible fences along the prison's perimeter, just a series of tall guard towers that were designed to make sure criminals stayed in, as well as to keep out anything particularly nasty from the desert. There wasn't much animal life to see out there, but the guards and prisoners were always spreading rumors about the massive beasts that might lurk beyond the horizon -- gold-skinned desert dragons, sand worms taller than three men and longer than a city block, mutated scorpions with pincers sharper than steel and poison that would kill a man in seconds. That no one had seen any of these creatures yet did not diminish the prevalence of the rumors.
The spotlights from the guard towers shone brighter than the moon that night, crisscrossing the terrain immediately outside the facility. The guards in the towers had night-vision binoculars to look deep into the desert for any signs of trouble. The night-time drop in temperature, combined with an increase in wind, meant many of the guardsmen wore light jackets over their uniforms.
There was no shortage of monsters in the world of RhyDin. That any of these might have been invented spoke to just how unforgiving the endless desert was: whatever nightmares lurked beyond the dunes, the prison guards had no interest in venturing out to find them.
But the Bedouin had. Their traders spoke of mechanical vampires, metallic beings that struck the lonely settlements much further south and stealing flesh for sustenance. It was rumored a spaceship had crashed into this desert decades ago, that the crew had survived the harsh conditions by converting themselves into cyborgs, harvesting fresh blood and organs from the living to keep their mechanical hearts pumping. But they were tall tales as far as the wider world was concerned, much too far from the city of RhyDin to worry the citizens.
It was also rumored the raiders were moving north.
They drove into the wind to disguise their approach as long as possible, but soon the drone of their engines and the rising dust cloud announced their presence. Four buggies broke over the tallest dune and raced down into the prison complex. Machine guns mounted to the back whirred up to speed and opened fire, peppering the top of the towers with .30-caliber rounds and letting off a high-pitched shrill, wildly inaccurate but enough to send any reasonable human being scrambling for cover.
By the time the vehicles tripped a perimeter sensor, the watchtower guards had already heard the vehicles coming, seen the sand and fumes they kicked up. Before they had a chance to radio the central security station within the prison's walls, the machine guns had opened fire upon the tower, and it was all they could do to duck out of the way. Precious seconds ticked away before one of the braver guards lunged for his walkie-talkie and frantically radioed his boss.
"We're under attack!"
"What do you mean, under attack?" the crackly voice on the other end asked.
"You can't hear that?" The guard kept the radio on, hoping his supervisor could hear the whine of bullets and the thudding sound they made as they struck concrete.
"How many?"
"I don't know! I'm not sticking my head out to see!"
"All right. Reinforcements are on the way." The walkie-talkie clicked off, right as a siren began whooping. A handful of snipers got into position on the main building's roof, and approximately three dozen guards began forming a perimeter around the facility. Most of them looked nervously to each other as they prepared for the assault -- most of them were armed only with batons, and none of them had more than leather armor to protect themselves. These men had been taught to keep people within their walls, not prevent men from breaching them.
There were two weapons on the back of each vehicle, the .30-caliber machine gun and what appeared to be a small mortar on a swivel. Thoomp! Thoomp! Gas grenades landed in the towers and around the perimeter as they raced around the complex, emitting thick clouds of stinging smoke. Rifle fire ricocheted off of one of the vehicles, and it seemed to be retreating back to the dunes while the others fired the gas grenades towards the main building beyond the walls, trying to land on the rooftop among the snipers.
When the lone buggy stopped in the dunes, a figure climbed out of the passenger's seat -- a figure with what appeared to be an exposed metal skull and a gas mask with bulbous red eyes, like his brethren -- and aimed what looked like a harpoon. He stared down the reticle at the main building just beyond the walls and kicked a lever at his feet. It was a harpoon with a pulley attached to the end, and it buried itself in the wall of the main building. Three seconds later it fired again, back at the buggy, a magnetic tip guiding it back into the harpoon gun. As soon as it was ready the figure latched onto the metal cable and shot off the ground, followed moments later by the driver.
As soon as they were over the wall, each man pressed a button on his harness. A thinner cable dropped them halfway to the ground, then snapped. They rolled through their landing and sprinted to the main building.
The raiders were inside.
Pandemonium ensued when the raiders launched their gas grenades. The guards in the towers, already low to the ground from the previous attacks by the buggy-mounted machine guns, were caught by surprise when the canisters landed. Coughing and choking, they abandoned their guns and their posts, fleeing for the stairwells and fresher air. The guards milling in the space between the towers and the main building panicked when the thick smoke enveloped them, and most of them ran blindly for the safest spot they could think of -- inside the prison walls. The braver ones stood their ground, hoping the cover would protect them from the raiders' guns. That bravery, though, meant that the snipers couldn't fire on the intruders in the perimeter. The leather-clad, baton-wielding guards were no match in hand-to-hand combat for the raiders.
One of the snipers watched in horrified fascination through his scope as the metallic-skulled figure stepped out of his vehicle, some way off in the distance. He put the gun down and picked up his radio, shouting into it, right as the harpoon struck the wall.
"Dear God, they were right. Cyber-vampires!"
"Locked," one raider said when he reached a reinforced iron door. The other stepped away and right into the path of the nearest guard stumbling through the smoke, clubbing him in the face with the butt of his shotgun. He ripped the keycard from his lanyard as he fell and swiped the door open.
The pair knew what they were doing, twisting their way through the hallways from the floorplans they had carefully memorized. Every camera they saw, they smashed. Every guard they encountered was beaten unconscious or, if unlucky enough to be armed and encountered at a distance, shot -- with rock salt.
They reached the cell block they needed in under a minute. The door was locked and the keycard didn't grant them access, but a breaching round did. They blew the door open with a loud bang and stood off to either side in anticipation of return fire.
The prison's metahuman wing looked like something out of an insane asylum. Reddish tiles had been put down on the floor, but the project hadn't been completely finished. In some spots, the original stone floor could be seen. The bottom half of the walls was painted a sickly green color, with flecks of paint gouged out in places, showing the original white color. The top half of the walls, as well as the ceiling, were also white. The cells had no windows to the hallway, and were protected with heavy steel doors, mechanical locks and a biometric reader of some sort.
There were a couple of regular correctional officers waiting in the hallway, but when they saw what they were up against, they turned tail and fled in the opposite direction. A moment or two later, one of the doors swung open, and a large man in an executioner's robe and hood stepped out.
"What the-" Before he could finished his thought, he dove back into the cell he'd previously been in, desperately attempting to lock it back up. No one could know what they had done in there. No one could know who they had kept incarcerated.
"Take him," one of the raiders -- the leader apparently -- growled through his mask, and the other wordlessly obeyed. He reached through the bars as the executioner struggled to lock the door, grabbing a handful of his robes and yanking him forward into the bars. The leader proceeded down the cell block, searching for Robert Pulk.
Grabbed by the robes, the executioner desperately reached down towards his right boot, hoping to withdraw the thin blade he'd stashed in there for emergencies. Inside that same cell, a man lay blindfolded on a tilted wooden platform, his arms and legs tied fast and his mouth gagged. The man had heard the sounds of gunfire, the sirens, and the raider speaking, and he struggled against the ropes that bound him in place.
There was no one who seemed to match the images they'd found of the young man, but as the leader looked over the other prisoners in the block he was reminded of what war and imprisonment did to the fragile human body... He returned to the first cell, and as the executioner finally reached his knife, the leader changed his mind about the man's fate.
"He'll do."
The prisoner was spared direct sight of what they were doing to the executioner, but he could hear and smell it: the raider who had a hold of him tore open his belly with a knife, picked a kidney and removed it. He was dropped to the floor, where he lay in a growing puddle of his own blood. The leader pushed the door open and stepped around the gory mess, paying no attention to his comrade stashing the organ in a satchel. "Mr. Pulk?"
Rob was still gagged, so his attempt to answer verbally was garbled and unintelligible. He did, however, nod his head enthusiastically, before another torrent of incomprehensible speech erupted from him.
The figure stepped closer, took a look over his shoulder... then carefully raised his mask. He appeared very much human, a man in his late twenties or early thirties. The metal "skull" was a simple prop held into place with a strap. "Listen to me very carefully," he whispered as he removed the gag. "We're going to get you out of here, but this has to look like an abduction. If you struggle I'll knock you unconscious, and that'll leave quite a fucking lump."
"One minute thirty seconds," the other said through his mask. The leader glanced back again with a frown, and returned his gaze to Rob, scrutinizing him carefully.
"My name's Alain DeMuer. Do we have an understanding, Mr. Pulk?"
Rob's chapped lips were the least of the injuries that had been inflicted upon him by the guards. Much of his face was yellowed by fading bruises, while fresher ones across his torso stained his skin purple and black. Where he wasn't bruised, there were keloid burn scars and thin, narrow marks that were clear indicators that he had been whipped. His mistreatment had peeled most of the muscle from his frame, but the moment his blindfold was lifted, it was impossible to deny that it was Rob. As tired and frightened as his eyes were, they were the same heterochromatic color in his profile: both were green, but the top half of his left eye was brown.
"I..." Rob's voice rasped and cut out, and he swallowed deeply in an attempt to get it back. "You're not going to kill me? You're not with them?" He suddenly shook his head violently, almost thrashing against his bindings "I-I'll tell you what you want to hear, just...stop. Please."
"Two minutes," the man by the door reminded him.
Alain let a sigh out through his nose. They didn't have time to make sure Rob was talked down, and frankly could not take the risk of him becoming uncooperative during extraction. "Sorry," he whispered, and struck him over the head.
"Wha-" The last syllable was cut off as Alain's fist crashed against his skull, and his head slumped down towards his chest. His entire body went slack as he fell unconscious.
"Can't catch a break," Alain grunted as he slid the man onto his shoulders. It was lucky for him that Rob did not weigh as much as he used to. He left the cell block, where his comrade lingered to use the wall-mounted comm.
"RhyDin Port Authority? Oh thank God! This is North Equatorial Prison, there's been an attack! God help me, they're coming this way!" He raised his shotgun and fired a round into the executioner's lifeless body.
The next one went into the comm.
((Edited, adapted and written with Alain DeMuer's player, with many thanks!))
The thick concrete walls of the prison had been sand-blasted by the same winds that formed the dunes surrounding the building. Though prematurely aged, they stood tall and imposing over the nearby desert, watching out for any escaped prisoners. There were no visible fences along the prison's perimeter, just a series of tall guard towers that were designed to make sure criminals stayed in, as well as to keep out anything particularly nasty from the desert. There wasn't much animal life to see out there, but the guards and prisoners were always spreading rumors about the massive beasts that might lurk beyond the horizon -- gold-skinned desert dragons, sand worms taller than three men and longer than a city block, mutated scorpions with pincers sharper than steel and poison that would kill a man in seconds. That no one had seen any of these creatures yet did not diminish the prevalence of the rumors.
The spotlights from the guard towers shone brighter than the moon that night, crisscrossing the terrain immediately outside the facility. The guards in the towers had night-vision binoculars to look deep into the desert for any signs of trouble. The night-time drop in temperature, combined with an increase in wind, meant many of the guardsmen wore light jackets over their uniforms.
There was no shortage of monsters in the world of RhyDin. That any of these might have been invented spoke to just how unforgiving the endless desert was: whatever nightmares lurked beyond the dunes, the prison guards had no interest in venturing out to find them.
But the Bedouin had. Their traders spoke of mechanical vampires, metallic beings that struck the lonely settlements much further south and stealing flesh for sustenance. It was rumored a spaceship had crashed into this desert decades ago, that the crew had survived the harsh conditions by converting themselves into cyborgs, harvesting fresh blood and organs from the living to keep their mechanical hearts pumping. But they were tall tales as far as the wider world was concerned, much too far from the city of RhyDin to worry the citizens.
It was also rumored the raiders were moving north.
They drove into the wind to disguise their approach as long as possible, but soon the drone of their engines and the rising dust cloud announced their presence. Four buggies broke over the tallest dune and raced down into the prison complex. Machine guns mounted to the back whirred up to speed and opened fire, peppering the top of the towers with .30-caliber rounds and letting off a high-pitched shrill, wildly inaccurate but enough to send any reasonable human being scrambling for cover.
By the time the vehicles tripped a perimeter sensor, the watchtower guards had already heard the vehicles coming, seen the sand and fumes they kicked up. Before they had a chance to radio the central security station within the prison's walls, the machine guns had opened fire upon the tower, and it was all they could do to duck out of the way. Precious seconds ticked away before one of the braver guards lunged for his walkie-talkie and frantically radioed his boss.
"We're under attack!"
"What do you mean, under attack?" the crackly voice on the other end asked.
"You can't hear that?" The guard kept the radio on, hoping his supervisor could hear the whine of bullets and the thudding sound they made as they struck concrete.
"How many?"
"I don't know! I'm not sticking my head out to see!"
"All right. Reinforcements are on the way." The walkie-talkie clicked off, right as a siren began whooping. A handful of snipers got into position on the main building's roof, and approximately three dozen guards began forming a perimeter around the facility. Most of them looked nervously to each other as they prepared for the assault -- most of them were armed only with batons, and none of them had more than leather armor to protect themselves. These men had been taught to keep people within their walls, not prevent men from breaching them.
There were two weapons on the back of each vehicle, the .30-caliber machine gun and what appeared to be a small mortar on a swivel. Thoomp! Thoomp! Gas grenades landed in the towers and around the perimeter as they raced around the complex, emitting thick clouds of stinging smoke. Rifle fire ricocheted off of one of the vehicles, and it seemed to be retreating back to the dunes while the others fired the gas grenades towards the main building beyond the walls, trying to land on the rooftop among the snipers.
When the lone buggy stopped in the dunes, a figure climbed out of the passenger's seat -- a figure with what appeared to be an exposed metal skull and a gas mask with bulbous red eyes, like his brethren -- and aimed what looked like a harpoon. He stared down the reticle at the main building just beyond the walls and kicked a lever at his feet. It was a harpoon with a pulley attached to the end, and it buried itself in the wall of the main building. Three seconds later it fired again, back at the buggy, a magnetic tip guiding it back into the harpoon gun. As soon as it was ready the figure latched onto the metal cable and shot off the ground, followed moments later by the driver.
As soon as they were over the wall, each man pressed a button on his harness. A thinner cable dropped them halfway to the ground, then snapped. They rolled through their landing and sprinted to the main building.
The raiders were inside.
Pandemonium ensued when the raiders launched their gas grenades. The guards in the towers, already low to the ground from the previous attacks by the buggy-mounted machine guns, were caught by surprise when the canisters landed. Coughing and choking, they abandoned their guns and their posts, fleeing for the stairwells and fresher air. The guards milling in the space between the towers and the main building panicked when the thick smoke enveloped them, and most of them ran blindly for the safest spot they could think of -- inside the prison walls. The braver ones stood their ground, hoping the cover would protect them from the raiders' guns. That bravery, though, meant that the snipers couldn't fire on the intruders in the perimeter. The leather-clad, baton-wielding guards were no match in hand-to-hand combat for the raiders.
One of the snipers watched in horrified fascination through his scope as the metallic-skulled figure stepped out of his vehicle, some way off in the distance. He put the gun down and picked up his radio, shouting into it, right as the harpoon struck the wall.
"Dear God, they were right. Cyber-vampires!"
"Locked," one raider said when he reached a reinforced iron door. The other stepped away and right into the path of the nearest guard stumbling through the smoke, clubbing him in the face with the butt of his shotgun. He ripped the keycard from his lanyard as he fell and swiped the door open.
The pair knew what they were doing, twisting their way through the hallways from the floorplans they had carefully memorized. Every camera they saw, they smashed. Every guard they encountered was beaten unconscious or, if unlucky enough to be armed and encountered at a distance, shot -- with rock salt.
They reached the cell block they needed in under a minute. The door was locked and the keycard didn't grant them access, but a breaching round did. They blew the door open with a loud bang and stood off to either side in anticipation of return fire.
The prison's metahuman wing looked like something out of an insane asylum. Reddish tiles had been put down on the floor, but the project hadn't been completely finished. In some spots, the original stone floor could be seen. The bottom half of the walls was painted a sickly green color, with flecks of paint gouged out in places, showing the original white color. The top half of the walls, as well as the ceiling, were also white. The cells had no windows to the hallway, and were protected with heavy steel doors, mechanical locks and a biometric reader of some sort.
There were a couple of regular correctional officers waiting in the hallway, but when they saw what they were up against, they turned tail and fled in the opposite direction. A moment or two later, one of the doors swung open, and a large man in an executioner's robe and hood stepped out.
"What the-" Before he could finished his thought, he dove back into the cell he'd previously been in, desperately attempting to lock it back up. No one could know what they had done in there. No one could know who they had kept incarcerated.
"Take him," one of the raiders -- the leader apparently -- growled through his mask, and the other wordlessly obeyed. He reached through the bars as the executioner struggled to lock the door, grabbing a handful of his robes and yanking him forward into the bars. The leader proceeded down the cell block, searching for Robert Pulk.
Grabbed by the robes, the executioner desperately reached down towards his right boot, hoping to withdraw the thin blade he'd stashed in there for emergencies. Inside that same cell, a man lay blindfolded on a tilted wooden platform, his arms and legs tied fast and his mouth gagged. The man had heard the sounds of gunfire, the sirens, and the raider speaking, and he struggled against the ropes that bound him in place.
There was no one who seemed to match the images they'd found of the young man, but as the leader looked over the other prisoners in the block he was reminded of what war and imprisonment did to the fragile human body... He returned to the first cell, and as the executioner finally reached his knife, the leader changed his mind about the man's fate.
"He'll do."
The prisoner was spared direct sight of what they were doing to the executioner, but he could hear and smell it: the raider who had a hold of him tore open his belly with a knife, picked a kidney and removed it. He was dropped to the floor, where he lay in a growing puddle of his own blood. The leader pushed the door open and stepped around the gory mess, paying no attention to his comrade stashing the organ in a satchel. "Mr. Pulk?"
Rob was still gagged, so his attempt to answer verbally was garbled and unintelligible. He did, however, nod his head enthusiastically, before another torrent of incomprehensible speech erupted from him.
The figure stepped closer, took a look over his shoulder... then carefully raised his mask. He appeared very much human, a man in his late twenties or early thirties. The metal "skull" was a simple prop held into place with a strap. "Listen to me very carefully," he whispered as he removed the gag. "We're going to get you out of here, but this has to look like an abduction. If you struggle I'll knock you unconscious, and that'll leave quite a fucking lump."
"One minute thirty seconds," the other said through his mask. The leader glanced back again with a frown, and returned his gaze to Rob, scrutinizing him carefully.
"My name's Alain DeMuer. Do we have an understanding, Mr. Pulk?"
Rob's chapped lips were the least of the injuries that had been inflicted upon him by the guards. Much of his face was yellowed by fading bruises, while fresher ones across his torso stained his skin purple and black. Where he wasn't bruised, there were keloid burn scars and thin, narrow marks that were clear indicators that he had been whipped. His mistreatment had peeled most of the muscle from his frame, but the moment his blindfold was lifted, it was impossible to deny that it was Rob. As tired and frightened as his eyes were, they were the same heterochromatic color in his profile: both were green, but the top half of his left eye was brown.
"I..." Rob's voice rasped and cut out, and he swallowed deeply in an attempt to get it back. "You're not going to kill me? You're not with them?" He suddenly shook his head violently, almost thrashing against his bindings "I-I'll tell you what you want to hear, just...stop. Please."
"Two minutes," the man by the door reminded him.
Alain let a sigh out through his nose. They didn't have time to make sure Rob was talked down, and frankly could not take the risk of him becoming uncooperative during extraction. "Sorry," he whispered, and struck him over the head.
"Wha-" The last syllable was cut off as Alain's fist crashed against his skull, and his head slumped down towards his chest. His entire body went slack as he fell unconscious.
"Can't catch a break," Alain grunted as he slid the man onto his shoulders. It was lucky for him that Rob did not weigh as much as he used to. He left the cell block, where his comrade lingered to use the wall-mounted comm.
"RhyDin Port Authority? Oh thank God! This is North Equatorial Prison, there's been an attack! God help me, they're coming this way!" He raised his shotgun and fired a round into the executioner's lifeless body.
The next one went into the comm.
((Edited, adapted and written with Alain DeMuer's player, with many thanks!))
-
Anvil Crawler
- Adventurer
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Wed Oct 14, 2020 3:25 pm
Recruitment
January 2013
Alain's first instinct had been to take Rob Pulk to one of his RhyDin safehouses, but once he was confronted with the young man's mental state he opted for a safer, more comfortable option: his own country, the Barony of Saint Aldwin. In the capital city of Teobern there was a townhouse, one in a long row of them, up the street from an old Norman cathedral and across from a small market. The city looked older than it was: the style of every building was old, many of their bones were old, but Teobern had been rebuilt anew from the foundations of a much older ruined city.
Much like its sister city of RhyDin one world away, it was a mix of many cultures, Teobrec elvish and Norman and dwarven and many others that were harder to place. The townhouse looked very European, but the little gods carved into the stone fireplace and the shallow silver runes that adorned the columns in the foyer were definitely elvish.
Rob was given one of the upstairs rooms and the run of the house, sharing it only with a young Aurkish knight named Weran and SPI's psychiatrist, Dr. Carol Sloop, when she came to visit. It was just after Mass on a Sunday morning, and Carol was in the foyer talking to a tall, dark-haired man with scars peeking out wherever his finely cut suit did not cover. If Rob had any clear memory of the event, this was the man who had rescued him at the prison, and this would be their first meeting after the jailbreak.
The days following Rob's extraction from his prison had been nearly as difficult as the months preceding it. He suffered from panic attacks, ranting and raving that they had only taken him from jail so that they could kill him elsewhere. His handlers had been forced to administer heavy doses of sedatives to keep him calm, and only began tapering them off when his frequent sessions with Dr. Sloop started to bear fruit. Still, they hadn't dared wean him fully from the medicine, and Rob exuded an eerily unnatural calm as a result.
On this day, Rob was sitting in a brown overstuffed armchair, dressed simply in jeans and a gray t-shirt that billowed around his upper body. He had told them his size, but it was his size prior to entering prison, before torture and poor diet had stripped 20 pounds from his frame. He held a copy of the city's Common language newspaper, the Teobern Times, in his hands, but he didn't really seem to be reading it. Instead of flipping through the pages, he stared at one of the spreads inside, searching for who knew what in the black ink and illustrations. He glanced up and over the edge of the paper as he heard voices near the entrance, but he could not yet see who his visitor was.
The conversation died, the front door opened and shut. Then, "Mr. Pulk?" Alain leaned in the doorway, regarding the younger man across the room from him.
Rob carefully folded up the newspaper and placed it on the stand beside him, then looked up at Alain. His eyes narrowed just slightly, at the use of his last name. He was suspicious of nearly everything and everyone these days, and who could blame him? "Yeah? How do you know my name?" A beat passed, and then his brain went to work. Much of the night when he was broken out of prison was a blur, thanks in no small part to having been knocked out in the process, but certain details had managed to stick. Like the voices of his rescuers... "You were there...you got me out..."
"I did. I'm Alain DeMuer, I'm..." He hesitated, and with a fraction of a smile, added, "I'm sort of in charge of the country you're in now -- as much as anybody is. And I know your name because your friend Courtney used to work for me. And I don't think you killed her." He leveled that statement at him and let him chew on it for a long moment before asking him, "May I?" He gestured to a seat nearby.
Rob hadn't been listening, not fully, so his first inclination when Courtney's name and demise were brought up was to raise his voice in his own defense. "I didn't kill her, I swear! I-wait." He paused, trying to remember what it was Alain had said just seconds ago. "Did you say you don't think I killed her?" It was the first time in months that someone seemed to believe him when he said he hadn't done it, and it numbed him. His mouth felt dry, and he nodded weakly at the chair Alain was looking at.
Alain sat. He draped his jacket over the back and loosened his tie. "There are too many details to cover, but... in short, Courtney was keeping an eye on violent political groups in your area, mostly human supremacists. After she was killed, and you were arrested, you gave the Silver Mark as your alibi, but the Watch never checked. We did."
He reached back to fish around in his jacket pocket, then leaned forward to offer him a folded piece of paper. It was a copy of his tab from that night -- he'd used a Stars End credstick. "So yes. I believe you, though not on faith."
He took the piece of paper, unfolded it, and looked it over. When he was done, he stabbed at it with his index finger, smiling a satisfied smile. "I kept telling them I was there, over and over. But they never checked?" He folded the receipt back up and handed it back to Alain, the smile now gone from his face. "I mean, at this point, I can barely even remember what I did or drank that night. How're the bartenders supposed to know? I guess they just...wanted to wait until everyone forgot?" Rob scratched his neck, where the collar of his shirt touched his skin. "I...I don't understand."
"Someone in the Watch or the courts had you framed. That much I know. I'd stake my life on it." Alain massaged his jaw, frowning as he thought over the situation -- deepening the lines in a brow still too young for so much accumulated worry. "I know you can't remember that night very well, but don't worry about that for now... but what else can you remember? About your initial questioning, and the weeks that followed before they took you in?"
"The first time they talked to me, it was...I talked to a Detective Stein. He had, like, a big moustache, like a cop moustache, you know? Like, he was imitating all those TV shows." Rob suddenly shook his head. "No, wait, he wasn't the first cop I talked to. I talked to some guy named...Slashseer. He was really tall, and he wasn't human. I think you'd say he was an elf? Pointed ears n'at."
Rob scratched the back of his neck before continuing. "The first guy, the elf, just sort of asked the usual questions and left me alone. How I knew the victim, where I was, you know. This Stein guy, though...he acted really suspicious to me. But then...he let me go over and grab some things out of Courtney's apartment. I just...wanted to see if there was something they'd missed." He lowered his head. With hindsight, he knew that there was a good chance that he had shot himself in the foot by going back there.
Alain almost interjected at the news that two detectives had interrogated Rob, but what followed began to make sense of it -- but not in any reassuring way. "Did Detective Stein ask you anything different than Detective Slashseer?"
"I think..." Rob traced his fingers over the ink of the newspaper nearby as he contemplated the question. "There weren't really all that many questions that were different. Just...he asked if I knew anyone who had a grudge against her, or wanted to kill her."
"Standard question for a frustrated investigation," Alain nodded. "Though that it came from a second detective in such a short space of time, and he let you into a crime scene..." He steepled his fingers, tipping his chin to them, his frown deepening. "...I can't say whether or not Detective Stein was actively involved in some kind of cover-up, but if not, he had contact with them. He was definitely acting outside of normal procedures and breaking the rules -- even for a RhyDin Watch unit."
He was thinking out loud, and getting off track. "Did you find anything?"
"There was a lockbox that I didn't have the key for, and a computer. You're familiar with, like, Facebook?" It was clear from the doubtful look on his face that Rob expected a certain answer from Alain.
"Um." Alain checked his mobile device, accessing his SPI folder and the file they had on Rob Pulk -- much of it had come from Facebook. "Yes... an Earth Prime-based social network with limited access in RhyDin and Stars End."
Rob looked surprised for a moment, but quickly composed himself. "Yeah. She had an account. She'd messaged a friend right before she was killed. Zoraida Rynn. She lives...in some projects in Dockside. Courtney said she thought she was being stalked, and Zoraida was trying to tell her to go to the guard."
"Zoraida Rynn? Hm." He scrolled through a few more pages on his device, then passed it over to Rob. "Did the lockbox look like this?"
Rob squinted as he studied the screen, nodding his head as he handed the mobile device back to Alain. "Yeah. That's it. I guess you've got it now..."
Alain shook his head. "It's standard issue for informants that communicate with our agents via dead drop. We don't have that lockbox, nor have our friends in the Watch even mentioned one entered into evidence for her case... But that alone tells us quite a lot."
He clicked the button on top of his device, locking it, and looked up to offer a small smile to Rob. "As has the rest of what you've told us. In time, we may be able to find who really killed Courtney Vreyland and all those other people and bring them to justice. As for your current situation..."
He shook his head. "There's no way you can return to RhyDin, at least not until this case is resolved and your name is cleared, which could take some time. We have a few options for you that I'd like you to consider."
"Go ahead..." Rob's fingers drummed against the stand beside him, muffled slightly by the newspaper. There was a glint in his eye that wasn't there before, but everything else about him, from the slouch in his seat to his slack facial expression, suggested calm.
Alain opened one hand: "We can attempt to return you to your Earth. We have identified which version of Earth you came from based on your access to Earth-based social networks, though we have not found a stable portal between RhyDin and your world... though that does not mean it does not exist, or could not be created."
Then he opened the other: "Or you can stay here and apply for citizenship under a new name. St. Aldwin's a small but prosperous country with access to most of the conveniences you're used to, and I'm sure you could find work here in one of our bars or breweries, or elsewhere if you'd like. You're more than welcome to stay."
"They think I'm dead back home -- or I'm a prankster. I...think I'm dead to them anyways." The torture had left even more mental scars on Rob than physical ones. He curled his feet underneath him on the seat, visibly shrinking. "It took me a while not to think I'm dead, anyways. Sometimes, I think I am." Rob shook his head, sadness clouding his eyes. "It'd be better for them if I was dead, if someone sent them a message telling them it was a prank, something I set up before I died to fuck with them. The Rob they knew is gone."
"Displacement is never easy," Alain conceded in a sympathetic tone, fighting off the guilt he felt at manipulating him. "Whatever you decide is up to you. I'll take this information to our agents in RhyDin, and continue the investigation from there."
Rob grew quiet for far too long, staring up at the ceiling with unfocused eyes. He blinked, once, and when he looked back down and over at Alain again, his irises burned with rage. "I want revenge. For Courtney, for the rest of those girls, for myself. How am I supposed to get that tending bar here?"
Alain considered Rob for almost as long a moment. "You know... there is another option we can work on..." He leaned forward again, a sly smile creeping up one corner of his mouth.
"Let me tell you about SPI."
((Edited, adapted and written with Alain DeMuer's player, with many thanks!))
Alain's first instinct had been to take Rob Pulk to one of his RhyDin safehouses, but once he was confronted with the young man's mental state he opted for a safer, more comfortable option: his own country, the Barony of Saint Aldwin. In the capital city of Teobern there was a townhouse, one in a long row of them, up the street from an old Norman cathedral and across from a small market. The city looked older than it was: the style of every building was old, many of their bones were old, but Teobern had been rebuilt anew from the foundations of a much older ruined city.
Much like its sister city of RhyDin one world away, it was a mix of many cultures, Teobrec elvish and Norman and dwarven and many others that were harder to place. The townhouse looked very European, but the little gods carved into the stone fireplace and the shallow silver runes that adorned the columns in the foyer were definitely elvish.
Rob was given one of the upstairs rooms and the run of the house, sharing it only with a young Aurkish knight named Weran and SPI's psychiatrist, Dr. Carol Sloop, when she came to visit. It was just after Mass on a Sunday morning, and Carol was in the foyer talking to a tall, dark-haired man with scars peeking out wherever his finely cut suit did not cover. If Rob had any clear memory of the event, this was the man who had rescued him at the prison, and this would be their first meeting after the jailbreak.
The days following Rob's extraction from his prison had been nearly as difficult as the months preceding it. He suffered from panic attacks, ranting and raving that they had only taken him from jail so that they could kill him elsewhere. His handlers had been forced to administer heavy doses of sedatives to keep him calm, and only began tapering them off when his frequent sessions with Dr. Sloop started to bear fruit. Still, they hadn't dared wean him fully from the medicine, and Rob exuded an eerily unnatural calm as a result.
On this day, Rob was sitting in a brown overstuffed armchair, dressed simply in jeans and a gray t-shirt that billowed around his upper body. He had told them his size, but it was his size prior to entering prison, before torture and poor diet had stripped 20 pounds from his frame. He held a copy of the city's Common language newspaper, the Teobern Times, in his hands, but he didn't really seem to be reading it. Instead of flipping through the pages, he stared at one of the spreads inside, searching for who knew what in the black ink and illustrations. He glanced up and over the edge of the paper as he heard voices near the entrance, but he could not yet see who his visitor was.
The conversation died, the front door opened and shut. Then, "Mr. Pulk?" Alain leaned in the doorway, regarding the younger man across the room from him.
Rob carefully folded up the newspaper and placed it on the stand beside him, then looked up at Alain. His eyes narrowed just slightly, at the use of his last name. He was suspicious of nearly everything and everyone these days, and who could blame him? "Yeah? How do you know my name?" A beat passed, and then his brain went to work. Much of the night when he was broken out of prison was a blur, thanks in no small part to having been knocked out in the process, but certain details had managed to stick. Like the voices of his rescuers... "You were there...you got me out..."
"I did. I'm Alain DeMuer, I'm..." He hesitated, and with a fraction of a smile, added, "I'm sort of in charge of the country you're in now -- as much as anybody is. And I know your name because your friend Courtney used to work for me. And I don't think you killed her." He leveled that statement at him and let him chew on it for a long moment before asking him, "May I?" He gestured to a seat nearby.
Rob hadn't been listening, not fully, so his first inclination when Courtney's name and demise were brought up was to raise his voice in his own defense. "I didn't kill her, I swear! I-wait." He paused, trying to remember what it was Alain had said just seconds ago. "Did you say you don't think I killed her?" It was the first time in months that someone seemed to believe him when he said he hadn't done it, and it numbed him. His mouth felt dry, and he nodded weakly at the chair Alain was looking at.
Alain sat. He draped his jacket over the back and loosened his tie. "There are too many details to cover, but... in short, Courtney was keeping an eye on violent political groups in your area, mostly human supremacists. After she was killed, and you were arrested, you gave the Silver Mark as your alibi, but the Watch never checked. We did."
He reached back to fish around in his jacket pocket, then leaned forward to offer him a folded piece of paper. It was a copy of his tab from that night -- he'd used a Stars End credstick. "So yes. I believe you, though not on faith."
He took the piece of paper, unfolded it, and looked it over. When he was done, he stabbed at it with his index finger, smiling a satisfied smile. "I kept telling them I was there, over and over. But they never checked?" He folded the receipt back up and handed it back to Alain, the smile now gone from his face. "I mean, at this point, I can barely even remember what I did or drank that night. How're the bartenders supposed to know? I guess they just...wanted to wait until everyone forgot?" Rob scratched his neck, where the collar of his shirt touched his skin. "I...I don't understand."
"Someone in the Watch or the courts had you framed. That much I know. I'd stake my life on it." Alain massaged his jaw, frowning as he thought over the situation -- deepening the lines in a brow still too young for so much accumulated worry. "I know you can't remember that night very well, but don't worry about that for now... but what else can you remember? About your initial questioning, and the weeks that followed before they took you in?"
"The first time they talked to me, it was...I talked to a Detective Stein. He had, like, a big moustache, like a cop moustache, you know? Like, he was imitating all those TV shows." Rob suddenly shook his head. "No, wait, he wasn't the first cop I talked to. I talked to some guy named...Slashseer. He was really tall, and he wasn't human. I think you'd say he was an elf? Pointed ears n'at."
Rob scratched the back of his neck before continuing. "The first guy, the elf, just sort of asked the usual questions and left me alone. How I knew the victim, where I was, you know. This Stein guy, though...he acted really suspicious to me. But then...he let me go over and grab some things out of Courtney's apartment. I just...wanted to see if there was something they'd missed." He lowered his head. With hindsight, he knew that there was a good chance that he had shot himself in the foot by going back there.
Alain almost interjected at the news that two detectives had interrogated Rob, but what followed began to make sense of it -- but not in any reassuring way. "Did Detective Stein ask you anything different than Detective Slashseer?"
"I think..." Rob traced his fingers over the ink of the newspaper nearby as he contemplated the question. "There weren't really all that many questions that were different. Just...he asked if I knew anyone who had a grudge against her, or wanted to kill her."
"Standard question for a frustrated investigation," Alain nodded. "Though that it came from a second detective in such a short space of time, and he let you into a crime scene..." He steepled his fingers, tipping his chin to them, his frown deepening. "...I can't say whether or not Detective Stein was actively involved in some kind of cover-up, but if not, he had contact with them. He was definitely acting outside of normal procedures and breaking the rules -- even for a RhyDin Watch unit."
He was thinking out loud, and getting off track. "Did you find anything?"
"There was a lockbox that I didn't have the key for, and a computer. You're familiar with, like, Facebook?" It was clear from the doubtful look on his face that Rob expected a certain answer from Alain.
"Um." Alain checked his mobile device, accessing his SPI folder and the file they had on Rob Pulk -- much of it had come from Facebook. "Yes... an Earth Prime-based social network with limited access in RhyDin and Stars End."
Rob looked surprised for a moment, but quickly composed himself. "Yeah. She had an account. She'd messaged a friend right before she was killed. Zoraida Rynn. She lives...in some projects in Dockside. Courtney said she thought she was being stalked, and Zoraida was trying to tell her to go to the guard."
"Zoraida Rynn? Hm." He scrolled through a few more pages on his device, then passed it over to Rob. "Did the lockbox look like this?"
Rob squinted as he studied the screen, nodding his head as he handed the mobile device back to Alain. "Yeah. That's it. I guess you've got it now..."
Alain shook his head. "It's standard issue for informants that communicate with our agents via dead drop. We don't have that lockbox, nor have our friends in the Watch even mentioned one entered into evidence for her case... But that alone tells us quite a lot."
He clicked the button on top of his device, locking it, and looked up to offer a small smile to Rob. "As has the rest of what you've told us. In time, we may be able to find who really killed Courtney Vreyland and all those other people and bring them to justice. As for your current situation..."
He shook his head. "There's no way you can return to RhyDin, at least not until this case is resolved and your name is cleared, which could take some time. We have a few options for you that I'd like you to consider."
"Go ahead..." Rob's fingers drummed against the stand beside him, muffled slightly by the newspaper. There was a glint in his eye that wasn't there before, but everything else about him, from the slouch in his seat to his slack facial expression, suggested calm.
Alain opened one hand: "We can attempt to return you to your Earth. We have identified which version of Earth you came from based on your access to Earth-based social networks, though we have not found a stable portal between RhyDin and your world... though that does not mean it does not exist, or could not be created."
Then he opened the other: "Or you can stay here and apply for citizenship under a new name. St. Aldwin's a small but prosperous country with access to most of the conveniences you're used to, and I'm sure you could find work here in one of our bars or breweries, or elsewhere if you'd like. You're more than welcome to stay."
"They think I'm dead back home -- or I'm a prankster. I...think I'm dead to them anyways." The torture had left even more mental scars on Rob than physical ones. He curled his feet underneath him on the seat, visibly shrinking. "It took me a while not to think I'm dead, anyways. Sometimes, I think I am." Rob shook his head, sadness clouding his eyes. "It'd be better for them if I was dead, if someone sent them a message telling them it was a prank, something I set up before I died to fuck with them. The Rob they knew is gone."
"Displacement is never easy," Alain conceded in a sympathetic tone, fighting off the guilt he felt at manipulating him. "Whatever you decide is up to you. I'll take this information to our agents in RhyDin, and continue the investigation from there."
Rob grew quiet for far too long, staring up at the ceiling with unfocused eyes. He blinked, once, and when he looked back down and over at Alain again, his irises burned with rage. "I want revenge. For Courtney, for the rest of those girls, for myself. How am I supposed to get that tending bar here?"
Alain considered Rob for almost as long a moment. "You know... there is another option we can work on..." He leaned forward again, a sly smile creeping up one corner of his mouth.
"Let me tell you about SPI."
((Edited, adapted and written with Alain DeMuer's player, with many thanks!))
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