Predator's Gold
Amazingly, Hester was starting to connect with people.
It had started in Rapture, when curiosity had led her down to the darkened, monster-infested levels. The wildness of the place had reminded her of the time she had stalked the open spaces of the Great Hunting Ground. It was her kind of a place -- just what she'd told Tom when Brighton fell to earth. But then she had met Spike. Then she had helped others from the Island. And suddenly she felt a strange sense of relief when she'd made it back to the surface. There were better places to be than Rapture, and the Island was one of them.
Then she'd signed up for Jack Sparrow's crew. It had felt good, working again, being useful among other people, who wisely looked at her scarf and kept silent. She'd been bored after sixteen years in Anchorage, so the revelation surprised her: she missed being among good people.
So when she felt hungry, rather than take from the food she'd hoarded in her hut, she went down to the Compound to take breakfast. She wouldn't speak to anybody, but the flurry of people there was soothing. She could get used to this. As long as Tom and Wren didn't find her here, she could get used to this.
But then she passed the bookshelf, and her day took a turn for the worse. She glanced at the titles, and focused on a particular spine that looked so familiar, she'd reached out for it before she'd even registered what it was. Pulling it out, however, made her stomach sink and drew a gurgle of horror from her throat.
PREDATOR'S GOLD, by Nimrod Pennyroyal.
It was that book! That stupid book written by that stupid man whose stupid publishers had put a distressingly buxom woman on the cover, reaching up to the uncharacteristically heroic-looking Pennyroyal. The woman looked nothing like Hester, and neither did her low-cut shirt, but the scarf and scar left no doubt who this person was supposed to be.
Just to be sure, and hoping against hope she was wrong, Hester flipped through the pages, but it was all there. She snapped the book closed. Her breathing quickened.
The bloody fool Pennyroyal had lied about everything else in his collection of bestsellers: his adventures across the dead continent of America, his discoveries of old tech and savage survivors, all of it. But the one truth he had to include was her betrayal of Anchorage to the predator city of Arkangel and its slave factories? It was because of Pennyroyal that Wren and Tom had found out about what she had done. It didn't matter that it had happened because she'd loved Tom; it didn't matter that she'd killed every last Arkangel huntsman to put it right, Tom knew, now, and hated her for it.
Though it was only Pennyroyal's photo on the book's back cover, she wanted very much to punch his fat face in.
But she could do better than that. She could take the book outside and burn it. Then nobody would have to see it.
And this is what she did, slipping the paperback in the pocket of her long coat, and turning to leave. But something made her look at the bookshelf, and stop dead.
Another copy of the book was in its place in the bookshelf. She checked her pocket. She still had her copy there.
She took the copy off the shelf and shoved it in her pocket.
And the one after that.
And the one after that.
Hester could feel her anger rising, like bile, in her throat. Whoever was controlling this, whoever was playing her, was going to be really, really sorry when she found them.
[[OOC: This is not a canon puncture, since Hester is not seeing Predator's Gold by Philip Reeve, but Predator's Gold by Nimrod Pennyroyal, which appeared in the series canon.]]
It had started in Rapture, when curiosity had led her down to the darkened, monster-infested levels. The wildness of the place had reminded her of the time she had stalked the open spaces of the Great Hunting Ground. It was her kind of a place -- just what she'd told Tom when Brighton fell to earth. But then she had met Spike. Then she had helped others from the Island. And suddenly she felt a strange sense of relief when she'd made it back to the surface. There were better places to be than Rapture, and the Island was one of them.
Then she'd signed up for Jack Sparrow's crew. It had felt good, working again, being useful among other people, who wisely looked at her scarf and kept silent. She'd been bored after sixteen years in Anchorage, so the revelation surprised her: she missed being among good people.
So when she felt hungry, rather than take from the food she'd hoarded in her hut, she went down to the Compound to take breakfast. She wouldn't speak to anybody, but the flurry of people there was soothing. She could get used to this. As long as Tom and Wren didn't find her here, she could get used to this.
But then she passed the bookshelf, and her day took a turn for the worse. She glanced at the titles, and focused on a particular spine that looked so familiar, she'd reached out for it before she'd even registered what it was. Pulling it out, however, made her stomach sink and drew a gurgle of horror from her throat.
PREDATOR'S GOLD, by Nimrod Pennyroyal.
It was that book! That stupid book written by that stupid man whose stupid publishers had put a distressingly buxom woman on the cover, reaching up to the uncharacteristically heroic-looking Pennyroyal. The woman looked nothing like Hester, and neither did her low-cut shirt, but the scarf and scar left no doubt who this person was supposed to be.
Just to be sure, and hoping against hope she was wrong, Hester flipped through the pages, but it was all there. She snapped the book closed. Her breathing quickened.
The bloody fool Pennyroyal had lied about everything else in his collection of bestsellers: his adventures across the dead continent of America, his discoveries of old tech and savage survivors, all of it. But the one truth he had to include was her betrayal of Anchorage to the predator city of Arkangel and its slave factories? It was because of Pennyroyal that Wren and Tom had found out about what she had done. It didn't matter that it had happened because she'd loved Tom; it didn't matter that she'd killed every last Arkangel huntsman to put it right, Tom knew, now, and hated her for it.
Though it was only Pennyroyal's photo on the book's back cover, she wanted very much to punch his fat face in.
But she could do better than that. She could take the book outside and burn it. Then nobody would have to see it.
And this is what she did, slipping the paperback in the pocket of her long coat, and turning to leave. But something made her look at the bookshelf, and stop dead.
Another copy of the book was in its place in the bookshelf. She checked her pocket. She still had her copy there.
She took the copy off the shelf and shoved it in her pocket.
And the one after that.
And the one after that.
Hester could feel her anger rising, like bile, in her throat. Whoever was controlling this, whoever was playing her, was going to be really, really sorry when she found them.
[[OOC: This is not a canon puncture, since Hester is not seeing Predator's Gold by Philip Reeve, but Predator's Gold by Nimrod Pennyroyal, which appeared in the series canon.]]