Home Plot: Post 1
May. 22nd, 2012 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
verynaughtymutantThere were few places Cable had ever known as well as he knew Tabula Rasa, few places he'd spent so much time and few places he'd been where his mind was less busy planning out the next steps. But it wasn't his home, it was a prison, something powerful but hostile.
Providence hadn't been his home either, not the way it had been for some of his followers. He'd seen it as a tool, as a weapon, far more then he'd ever seen it as a home. The X-mansion had been much the same and even the station of Greymalkin had never meant as much to him as the AI who inhabited it's walls.
No, the place he still thought of as home, for all he tried to forget it, was the safehouses of Clan Chosen during the Askani revolution. Back when he'd had a wife and a child and hope and mercy and all the other luxuries that young men allow themselves when they think they're still immortal. And that was a time and place he tried his best not to dwell on. Even his dreams, these days, were more often in English and Russian and based on the 21st century. And those that weren't, he never spoke of.
But if he had learned anything about living on Tabula Rasa, and he liked to think that he had learned a lot, it was that the past would never stay buried there where it belonged when it could be used to whip and prod it's victims instead.
So when he awoke to find himself a younger man again, surrounded by the tents and platforms of a rebel camp, he was angry but he was not surprised. He did not know the details of this particular trick, not yet anyway, but the intent was as familiar to him as his own skin. He could feel the whispers of minds around him, and he felt a dull terror at the familiar shape of them. This was a personal hell for him, filled with the ghosts of those he'd failed.
Still, he was not one to sit and take his punishment. Whatever game this was, there was no reason he had to play it. If he was lucky, all he had to do was walk away, out of the camp altogether, and spend what time he had before being returned to Tabula Rasa, out in the wilderness. Alone.
The camp itself was shielded and camouflaged, of course, but it was designed to be difficult to enter not exit and the guards stepped aside as he passed. All so simple then, except he could feel the whisper of another mind approaching and this one wasn't a ghost but another responsibility to chain him down.
Cable closed his eyes for a second, let a single sigh come out, and then stepped forward to greet them, expression blank and masked.
Providence hadn't been his home either, not the way it had been for some of his followers. He'd seen it as a tool, as a weapon, far more then he'd ever seen it as a home. The X-mansion had been much the same and even the station of Greymalkin had never meant as much to him as the AI who inhabited it's walls.
No, the place he still thought of as home, for all he tried to forget it, was the safehouses of Clan Chosen during the Askani revolution. Back when he'd had a wife and a child and hope and mercy and all the other luxuries that young men allow themselves when they think they're still immortal. And that was a time and place he tried his best not to dwell on. Even his dreams, these days, were more often in English and Russian and based on the 21st century. And those that weren't, he never spoke of.
But if he had learned anything about living on Tabula Rasa, and he liked to think that he had learned a lot, it was that the past would never stay buried there where it belonged when it could be used to whip and prod it's victims instead.
So when he awoke to find himself a younger man again, surrounded by the tents and platforms of a rebel camp, he was angry but he was not surprised. He did not know the details of this particular trick, not yet anyway, but the intent was as familiar to him as his own skin. He could feel the whispers of minds around him, and he felt a dull terror at the familiar shape of them. This was a personal hell for him, filled with the ghosts of those he'd failed.
Still, he was not one to sit and take his punishment. Whatever game this was, there was no reason he had to play it. If he was lucky, all he had to do was walk away, out of the camp altogether, and spend what time he had before being returned to Tabula Rasa, out in the wilderness. Alone.
The camp itself was shielded and camouflaged, of course, but it was designed to be difficult to enter not exit and the guards stepped aside as he passed. All so simple then, except he could feel the whisper of another mind approaching and this one wasn't a ghost but another responsibility to chain him down.
Cable closed his eyes for a second, let a single sigh come out, and then stepped forward to greet them, expression blank and masked.
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Date: 2012-05-25 01:25 pm (UTC)Zell was hoping it wasn't Cable's world and it was someone else's, but he thought since Rachel was here, the chances weren't too good.
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Date: 2012-05-25 01:34 pm (UTC)"This is my time-line at the height of the rebellion, about fifteen years before that tunnel we were dragged to last time."
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Date: 2012-05-28 08:32 pm (UTC)Fighting here made Zell a bit on edge. He'd absolutely fry anyone trying any mind stuff against them if he could. Zell's memories of the previous trip were on the top of his mind.
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Date: 2012-05-29 08:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 11:14 am (UTC)"Yeah, but I don't really know who you're fighting or why."
Zell looked backwards at the hologram as he talked.
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Date: 2012-05-29 11:24 am (UTC)There were tents and cabins everywhere and fighters of both sexes bustling around, cooking, cleaning their guns and checking computers. To their left a legion of artificial machine men disappeared suddenly as they were teleported off to another site with orders, while to their right, there was an open shower where seven or eight soldiers, of both sexes, were washing themselves without any apparent shame or embarrassment at being entirely visible.
Cable's eyes strayed neither left nor right, he just walked on.
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Date: 2012-05-30 12:12 am (UTC)The sight of the sentries made Zell's pace slow down quickly and he muttered quietly, "The hell...?"
Then he glanced forward to where Cable was walking to and Zell stopped completely as he gaped open-mouthed. Everyone was...
"...yo!"
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Date: 2012-05-30 08:59 am (UTC)But, they simply didn't view nudity as being private or indeed erotic. When a tall dark skinned woman, fifty yards ahead of Zell and Cable, needed to change her clothes she did so in the open entrance of her tent, uncaring that she could be seen by passers by. By the same token the busy outdoor shower to their right was both unisex and uncovered and a thin man with a cybernetic implant built into his left eye was standing next to it, holding a towel while talking to a friend and making no real effort to cover his naked body at all.
Cable stopped at the same time as Zell did.
"Yes?"
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Date: 2012-05-30 11:12 am (UTC)His eyes went to Cable and he tried to put words together. His first attempt failed. His eyes glanced to the showers again, then back to Cable.
"... naked people!"
Zell's education in anthropology wasn't exactly showing. What was showing was some color in his cheeks. Was he going to have to live here for a few days?
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Date: 2012-05-30 01:06 pm (UTC)"Yes," he replied slowly, dragging out the conversation. "The idea that naked flesh is somehow shameful or erotic or taboo is a foreign one to us. I still don't really understand it."
"Though learning that custom did at least give me some amusing anecdotes to share."
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Date: 2012-05-30 10:30 pm (UTC)"So. Cultural differences."
Zell gritted his teeth and his expression fluxed as he made an effort to get a grip.
"Er, right. I'm cool. Everything's cool. I'm good with that."
This was definately a case of fake-it-till-you-make-it. There was no way Zell was going to use the shower like that, though. Zell kept working on his effort to ease back on his own cultural norms no matter how much his Ma would whap him silly for not closing his eyes.
"I'll take a raincheck on those anecdotes, though..."
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Date: 2012-05-30 11:07 pm (UTC)"Of course, if you feel the urge to strip off yourself Zell, no-one here will bat an eye," he added, casually.
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Date: 2012-05-30 11:13 pm (UTC)Zell declared, "There is no way in hell! No frickin' way!"
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Date: 2012-05-31 12:38 am (UTC)"You wanted to know the reasons behind this war?"
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Date: 2012-05-31 12:48 am (UTC)"I was curious, but I'm not sure if I want to know. Things seemed pretty complicated and nasty here in your world based on what I do know. I'm okay with you bein' the judge of how much I should know."
Zell was keeping his eyes off the naked people. Naked people were distracting.
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Date: 2012-05-31 01:03 am (UTC)"This is Clan Askani, we're the good guys and that's all you need to know."
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Date: 2012-05-31 02:02 am (UTC)"So, what do we do here? Just sit around and wait?"
Wait with naked people?
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Date: 2012-05-31 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-31 02:31 am (UTC)"Don't worry, we've been there and done that already. I know things could get ugly. I was just hopin' you at least knew if we might be attacked, or if this camp is gonna explode, or if we're here for the annual stuffed animal festival."
Zell grinned.
"Hey, I've got no idea what's comin'."
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Date: 2012-05-31 10:34 am (UTC)"But, yes, we might be attacked. In real life, we had to abandon this base when Stryfe found it. But, if this illusion follows the true history, he didn't have enough men to subdue the camp entirely so even if we are attacked there's no reason we'd have to get involved at all in any fighting."
And it was still safer then any other of their bases or safe-houses they could run to.
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Date: 2012-05-31 11:07 pm (UTC)A shadow passed over Zell's expression. He'd never forget the agony he'd gone through that one time. Zell was going to do everything he could to avoid a repeat of that. No mindlinks. None.