I see that it is empty
WHO: deus_ex_100 (S-S-SOLO)
WHERE: Seety hall
WHEN: Today at about 11:45 am
WARNINGS: Mitchell!Dreams, Language, Weirdness
SUMMARY: TM is this thing that Mitch does and gets insight into life. It's just really fucking weird insight
FORMAT: Words. So many words.
The old analog clock in the Mayor's office always let out a soft tick on his desk. Most people only saw it as a passing tick, tick that occasionally filled the silence when the man stared down a new proposal that left him about to toss papers into the air. To the mayor himself, it was thunderous. Every machine was loud, but clocks were the worst. Ever present, and making every moment this ever-present announcement, excited and enthusiastic to do it's job.
"ELEVEN HOURS, FORTY FIVE MINUTES, THIRTY SEVEN SECONDS. ELEVEN HOURS, FORTY FIVE MINUTES, THIRTY EIGHT SECONDS. ELEVEN HOURS, FORTY SIX MINUTES, THIRTY NINE SECONDS"
The office was free of anyone else, except him. And shit if being alone wasn't the worst. He tried to surround himself with human beings, the din of voices cutting over the ever-present ticking, the ever present information, every machine in his vicinity pressing in for attention from every source imaginable. The more he used them, the further he could hear and speak to them. It had been like this since the first night, the accident. Or, as Kremlin loved to call it: Transformation. He fucking hated that term for it.
Standing, he had to move, get out of the office, and while the City was different, it was so similar to New York that he knew every street, he could spew out facts of the bridges and structures without a second thought. Here in City Hall, the basement used to be a prison. Fitting, he supposed, since he used it as a sanctuary, of sorts. It was the only place completely quiet. Here he didn't even keep a safe, like back home. He'd made sure on the first day to hang a new poster in the entrance to the basement. Easy to read, and right in view whenever anyone walked down the spiral staircase:
Please be
Courteous:
NO
Cell Phones,
Radios, etc.
Beyond
This Point
And there was a desk. Another chair, because sometimes people did need to speak with him, and everyone knew they could come in. Nobody was barred from it, but it was known by most to be very obviously the Mayor's sanctuary. Habit left him with the hesitancy to talk about his powers, but people whispered, and people figured things out. It wasn't like he hid them, he just didn't discuss them.
And he sat, and folded his hands in front of him. It had been the shittiest week in a long time. Removing himself from the torrent of thoughts and unnecessary emotions was harder than it should have been. Pherson, wild animals on the rampage, last week's near-miss with the tanker full of gas. Concentrating on that wasn't going to find answers, it wasn't going to help him any, especially when he just needed the twenty minutes to slough away the worst of the stress. The mantra was important, and he didn't force it, and didn't exactly think it, not in a pattern, not in a rhythm, nothing, it was just his words, a stream as often as he needed.
And the brick fell away. He wasn't in his suit, but in his suit. It wasn't floor beneath him but sky, and there was that sense of floating. The heat was singing his ass from the jetpack, but the rough, jostling feeling that he'd always had when he wore his jetpack wasn't there, no wind buffeting as crosswinds hit the fucking idiot who'd thought it would be a good idea to fly in leather and cheaply welded together armor. Really, just a chestplate and a helmet.
The vertigo hit next, forcing his head into a dizzying spiral when his body did the same, and he dipped. He didn't even attempt to steer his thoughts away, but just let himself fly, float over the city. It was surreal, in his thoughts. No people, no life. When he did it down here, there were no machines, nothing whispering and talking to him, or that was how it was supposed to be. It always seemed like his TM dreams brought out the worst, what he didn't want to think about at the worst times. Not always, not even a majority of the time, but there was a significant enough of a number that he always felt the pit of his stomach drop when he fell out of reality and shifted his perception.
City Hall loomed ahead of him, the remnants of the graffiti still stark against the wall, the purple paint standing out, each word written different than the other.
THE STARS ARE DOWN
He felt the nausea bubble up again, this time he forced it, drawing himself up toward the sky, away from the reminder that there was something he had to take care of. With the force of his conscious reality onto his dream, the senses of reality came rushing back to him, the floating sensation slipping away in a rush, leaving that balls to the ground push up, and there was a breath that came out more satisfied than any other he'd had in a while. That feeling. Taking off. It was like breaking free from a prison he hadn't known he'd been.
And high above the city was when they came, figments of his memories he'd tried not to think about. Hundreds of black forms appeared in the skyline before they were rushing him, divebombing the "Great Machine" sending him in a spiral for the ground. When it rushed before him, the figures weren't birds anymore, but rats. Eugh, the tiny feet were all over, crowding him, and every pair of eyes wasn't the black rats held, but that bright purple, the influence of control, the color of his "brother". He hadn't remembered how he'd known what Pherson sounded like, but in his head, it'd been purple before he'd even seen the man's eyes.
Shit they were all over him, and he tried to push them off, before there were hounds. Of course there were hounds. And they were coming in for him to. He felt the scratches and bites on his face, always the left side, peeling away the remnants of his "fixes" to his face. Human niceties, unnecessary. Hot blood pooling in his ear, the glow of the circuits on the side of his head filling his vision. Then he felt the caveat, the way out. A tape recorder. A morbid thought crossed his mind, before the dogs closed in so fast, hot doggy-smelling breath polluting his air. He inhaled anyway, taking in that foul tasting air. "REVERSE PLAYBACK" he managed in a rush, before a dog leaned down, about to rip out his whole goddamn throat.
"TUO TAORHT SSELHTROW SIH PIR .NEHT NO OG"
And they stopped.
But the recorder didn't. It kept it up, over and over. It didn't stop, the recording somehow emulating Pherson's voice even if he hadn't been in the dream to speak.
Why hadn't he shown up? It wasn't like his archnemesis hadn't been a frequent guest star in his dreams for the past 4 or more years. He always managed to make himself relevant. Why wouldn't he show up now? Unless--
"Boy, you are Great Machine! Use your head!" and it was another shift, in Kremlin's workshop now. Dim lights, the scent of smoke heavy in the air, and for some reason, Miss October was present. Not hissing, but the hair on her back stood straight up.
But could he use his head, he felt to the side of his head, and yes. It was still slicked with blood, he pulled his gloved hand away, and breathed out, droplets falling to the ground from his lips. He wasn't a superhero anymore, but his dreams always played him in the role. His head though, could he use it, when it was so fuzzy with pain?
Another shift, and he was in his office, still in his outfit, standing there, forced to look down at the graffiti, in plain sight from his window. It was hard to ignore. Hard to just look away. All the letters, each one written differently. Why hadn't Pherson shown up? Why was he looking at the graffiti?
Why hadn't he shown up?
"ONE NEW MESSAGE FROM THE CITY CLERK. DISPENSED TO INBOX."
His eyes shot open, bleary and wide, and he calmed his breathing, before turning. One of his secretaries stood there, ignoring the phone in his pocket like it wasn't even a thought. The shit, did people not read anymore? "Sir, there's a call for you from Pest Control," he said, not even giving Mitchell time to fully register which secretary it was. He didn't even know his name.
"Fuck him," he said, running a hand through his hair the curls flopping back into place. "I'll call him back, I need to look into something. This shit with the pests isn't going to go away. Give me an hour."
He was left waving him off before he too ascended the stairs, piecing things together with each step. Different with each letter. The message. "Kill the broadcast!" When he stepped into his office, he was already directing the devices on impulse, orders coming out in a long string.
"COMMUNICATOR TRANSFER MESSAGE WITH LABEL 'FUCKING HUGE PROBLEM A' TO PC. PC RECEIVE MESSAGE. ANALYZE MESSAGE. AFFIX LAYERS TO EACH AUDIBLE WORD. REMOVE FILTER LAYER 001. REMOVE FILTER LAYER 010. REMOVE FILTER LAYER 100. PLAYBACK."
And there it was, in plain English, and no filters. Each word was someone new, someone different. Some male, some female, kids and adults. No changes to the audio, no added inflection. "Long time no see, my brother--"
"END PLAYBACK."
Pherson had never been here, that's why he hadn't been in the dream. Someone was fucking with him.
WHERE: Seety hall
WHEN: Today at about 11:45 am
WARNINGS: Mitchell!Dreams, Language, Weirdness
SUMMARY: TM is this thing that Mitch does and gets insight into life. It's just really fucking weird insight
FORMAT: Words. So many words.
The old analog clock in the Mayor's office always let out a soft tick on his desk. Most people only saw it as a passing tick, tick that occasionally filled the silence when the man stared down a new proposal that left him about to toss papers into the air. To the mayor himself, it was thunderous. Every machine was loud, but clocks were the worst. Ever present, and making every moment this ever-present announcement, excited and enthusiastic to do it's job.
"ELEVEN HOURS, FORTY FIVE MINUTES, THIRTY SEVEN SECONDS. ELEVEN HOURS, FORTY FIVE MINUTES, THIRTY EIGHT SECONDS. ELEVEN HOURS, FORTY SIX MINUTES, THIRTY NINE SECONDS"
The office was free of anyone else, except him. And shit if being alone wasn't the worst. He tried to surround himself with human beings, the din of voices cutting over the ever-present ticking, the ever present information, every machine in his vicinity pressing in for attention from every source imaginable. The more he used them, the further he could hear and speak to them. It had been like this since the first night, the accident. Or, as Kremlin loved to call it: Transformation. He fucking hated that term for it.
Standing, he had to move, get out of the office, and while the City was different, it was so similar to New York that he knew every street, he could spew out facts of the bridges and structures without a second thought. Here in City Hall, the basement used to be a prison. Fitting, he supposed, since he used it as a sanctuary, of sorts. It was the only place completely quiet. Here he didn't even keep a safe, like back home. He'd made sure on the first day to hang a new poster in the entrance to the basement. Easy to read, and right in view whenever anyone walked down the spiral staircase:
Please be
Courteous:
NO
Cell Phones,
Radios, etc.
Beyond
This Point
And there was a desk. Another chair, because sometimes people did need to speak with him, and everyone knew they could come in. Nobody was barred from it, but it was known by most to be very obviously the Mayor's sanctuary. Habit left him with the hesitancy to talk about his powers, but people whispered, and people figured things out. It wasn't like he hid them, he just didn't discuss them.
And he sat, and folded his hands in front of him. It had been the shittiest week in a long time. Removing himself from the torrent of thoughts and unnecessary emotions was harder than it should have been. Pherson, wild animals on the rampage, last week's near-miss with the tanker full of gas. Concentrating on that wasn't going to find answers, it wasn't going to help him any, especially when he just needed the twenty minutes to slough away the worst of the stress. The mantra was important, and he didn't force it, and didn't exactly think it, not in a pattern, not in a rhythm, nothing, it was just his words, a stream as often as he needed.
And the brick fell away. He wasn't in his suit, but in his suit. It wasn't floor beneath him but sky, and there was that sense of floating. The heat was singing his ass from the jetpack, but the rough, jostling feeling that he'd always had when he wore his jetpack wasn't there, no wind buffeting as crosswinds hit the fucking idiot who'd thought it would be a good idea to fly in leather and cheaply welded together armor. Really, just a chestplate and a helmet.
The vertigo hit next, forcing his head into a dizzying spiral when his body did the same, and he dipped. He didn't even attempt to steer his thoughts away, but just let himself fly, float over the city. It was surreal, in his thoughts. No people, no life. When he did it down here, there were no machines, nothing whispering and talking to him, or that was how it was supposed to be. It always seemed like his TM dreams brought out the worst, what he didn't want to think about at the worst times. Not always, not even a majority of the time, but there was a significant enough of a number that he always felt the pit of his stomach drop when he fell out of reality and shifted his perception.
City Hall loomed ahead of him, the remnants of the graffiti still stark against the wall, the purple paint standing out, each word written different than the other.
THE STARS ARE DOWN
He felt the nausea bubble up again, this time he forced it, drawing himself up toward the sky, away from the reminder that there was something he had to take care of. With the force of his conscious reality onto his dream, the senses of reality came rushing back to him, the floating sensation slipping away in a rush, leaving that balls to the ground push up, and there was a breath that came out more satisfied than any other he'd had in a while. That feeling. Taking off. It was like breaking free from a prison he hadn't known he'd been.
And high above the city was when they came, figments of his memories he'd tried not to think about. Hundreds of black forms appeared in the skyline before they were rushing him, divebombing the "Great Machine" sending him in a spiral for the ground. When it rushed before him, the figures weren't birds anymore, but rats. Eugh, the tiny feet were all over, crowding him, and every pair of eyes wasn't the black rats held, but that bright purple, the influence of control, the color of his "brother". He hadn't remembered how he'd known what Pherson sounded like, but in his head, it'd been purple before he'd even seen the man's eyes.
Shit they were all over him, and he tried to push them off, before there were hounds. Of course there were hounds. And they were coming in for him to. He felt the scratches and bites on his face, always the left side, peeling away the remnants of his "fixes" to his face. Human niceties, unnecessary. Hot blood pooling in his ear, the glow of the circuits on the side of his head filling his vision. Then he felt the caveat, the way out. A tape recorder. A morbid thought crossed his mind, before the dogs closed in so fast, hot doggy-smelling breath polluting his air. He inhaled anyway, taking in that foul tasting air. "REVERSE PLAYBACK" he managed in a rush, before a dog leaned down, about to rip out his whole goddamn throat.
"TUO TAORHT SSELHTROW SIH PIR .NEHT NO OG"
And they stopped.
But the recorder didn't. It kept it up, over and over. It didn't stop, the recording somehow emulating Pherson's voice even if he hadn't been in the dream to speak.
Why hadn't he shown up? It wasn't like his archnemesis hadn't been a frequent guest star in his dreams for the past 4 or more years. He always managed to make himself relevant. Why wouldn't he show up now? Unless--
"Boy, you are Great Machine! Use your head!" and it was another shift, in Kremlin's workshop now. Dim lights, the scent of smoke heavy in the air, and for some reason, Miss October was present. Not hissing, but the hair on her back stood straight up.
But could he use his head, he felt to the side of his head, and yes. It was still slicked with blood, he pulled his gloved hand away, and breathed out, droplets falling to the ground from his lips. He wasn't a superhero anymore, but his dreams always played him in the role. His head though, could he use it, when it was so fuzzy with pain?
Another shift, and he was in his office, still in his outfit, standing there, forced to look down at the graffiti, in plain sight from his window. It was hard to ignore. Hard to just look away. All the letters, each one written differently. Why hadn't Pherson shown up? Why was he looking at the graffiti?
Why hadn't he shown up?
"ONE NEW MESSAGE FROM THE CITY CLERK. DISPENSED TO INBOX."
His eyes shot open, bleary and wide, and he calmed his breathing, before turning. One of his secretaries stood there, ignoring the phone in his pocket like it wasn't even a thought. The shit, did people not read anymore? "Sir, there's a call for you from Pest Control," he said, not even giving Mitchell time to fully register which secretary it was. He didn't even know his name.
"Fuck him," he said, running a hand through his hair the curls flopping back into place. "I'll call him back, I need to look into something. This shit with the pests isn't going to go away. Give me an hour."
He was left waving him off before he too ascended the stairs, piecing things together with each step. Different with each letter. The message. "Kill the broadcast!" When he stepped into his office, he was already directing the devices on impulse, orders coming out in a long string.
"COMMUNICATOR TRANSFER MESSAGE WITH LABEL 'FUCKING HUGE PROBLEM A' TO PC. PC RECEIVE MESSAGE. ANALYZE MESSAGE. AFFIX LAYERS TO EACH AUDIBLE WORD. REMOVE FILTER LAYER 001. REMOVE FILTER LAYER 010. REMOVE FILTER LAYER 100. PLAYBACK."
And there it was, in plain English, and no filters. Each word was someone new, someone different. Some male, some female, kids and adults. No changes to the audio, no added inflection. "Long time no see, my brother--"
"END PLAYBACK."
Pherson had never been here, that's why he hadn't been in the dream. Someone was fucking with him.