Ariadne, Avi, Brent, Ilad
"/Ari/!" Brent tries a few more times before giving up on the phone with a shaky breath. His car is speeding too quickly, but he manages to find Ilad's number and set his phone to ringing again.
Ariadne stumbles backward for several steps without argument, and it's only when Avi calls her name that she turns and lets herself look at where she's come. Her breath rushes out, desperate, and she shows less respect for the gun. Instead she turns, jerking away to start toward Avi as she calls his name in response. "/Avi/!"
It takes a few rings before Ilad answers his phone, since it is abandoned with a few other pieces of personal detritus on the edge of the room in the dojo. He answers it, "Hello?" with a vague, breathless abstraction, watching over his shoulder as the bout he was in the middle of carries on with a new, substitute participant. Happy freeform Sunday.
The woman gestures, and the man puts up his gun with a muttered curse, letting Avi take a couple steps forward to wrap an arm around Ariadne. "Where did you go?" he asks. "I thought you'd gotten away."
"He's not mech," grumbles the man. "She's probably not either," the woman snaps. "Maybe they've seen Sam, huh? Did you think of that?" The man turns to scanning Ariadne with a sour expression.
"/Ilad/." The relief is more than audible in Brent's voice. "I just got this call from Ariadne, she's with your brother--" It all comes out in a quick tumble. "She said they're at Los Gatos Creek Park but that Avi -- I don't know, /disappeared/, and then I heard someone else and she stopped talking and I'm driving over there now--"
Ariadne burrows into Avi, wrapping her arms tight around his middle and hiding her face against his chest. "What," she breathes against him, "What is going on?"
Ilad goes very still for about the space of a heartbeat. Then he is moving, rising to his feet from a crouch and striding for the door without so much as a backward glance at the students and other teachers who are rough-housing behind him. "All right, Brent -- try to stay calm," is his immediate advice, though his accent draws a thicker and heavier drape over the words than his ordinary English, clearer-reflective of fresh anxiety and the adrenal thrill in his blood than anything otherwise audible in his steady voice. "Take a deep breath. I am on my way. They are at the park?"
"I don't know, they're babbling about 'mech'--" Avi holds Ariadne just as tight. The woman picks up his pack from the ground, and starts rummaging through. "They've got /food/," she says, face lighting up. "Look at this!" She shows the scanning guy, and both their reactions actually serve to show how thin they are. "Where's your base? Did you see Sam on your way up here? Tall guy, red hair." Avi just shakes his head, eyes on the man's gun.
"Okay," Brent says. "Okay." He takes a deep breath and tries to focus on driving. "Yes. Los Gatos Creek Park." He repeats it with the intensity of someone trying hard to focus. Keep calm. Keep calm. He rattles off Ariadne's vague description of their hiking route -- vague being the proper term, but enough to get a direction.
Ariadne turns just slightly, just enough to press her cheek against Avi and look at the woman, her arms still tight around his middle. "They have guns," she observes in a hushed voice. In case Avi hadn't noticed.
Through the building, out into the air, and then the roar of Ilad's motorcycle engine answers him through the digital line, as he swings one long leg over and settles into place in its seat. "Okay," he echoes. "I'm going to have to get off the line so I can drive. I will keep an eye out for your car."
"We just came up from Los Gatos," Avi says, trying to put some steel into his voice. It...kind of works. "We didn't see anyone."
The man spits to the side. "Bullshit. All the towns are mech-bases by now. Fine. Don't share your base's location. But we're taking that--" He nods to the woman with the pack, "As a donation to the cause."
"Okay. Right." Brent takes another deep breath. Drive, Hannigan. Drive. "Right," he repeats. "I'll -- yeah. Do the same thing. Okay." He pulls the phone from his ear, flips it closed, and drops it into his lap. Drive /faster/.
Ariadne swallows and risks sliding a hand free to wipe hard at her eyes. She turns to settle in at Avi's side rather than clinging to his chest, and she studies the other two, warily. "We just want to go back," she says, her voice small.
Ilad's motorcycle roars out of the parking lot, up the road, and hits the highway. There is an intense and maniacal edge to the way he weaves lanes around and through slower (read: legal) traffic. Even still, it will take him some time to get there. Too bad he is not a speedster and cannot fly.
"C'mon," the woman appeals to the man. "They're like lambs to the mech slaughter, letting them wander free." He snorts, and gestures with the gun, that they should go back the direction they were dragged in. "We don't need two more helpless mouths. Go ahead. Go back." Avi takes a few cautious steps in that direction, then an explosion rocks the hillside near them. "Go!" the man shouts. "We've got to scatter!"
Ariadne gasps, her eyes wild as they fly in the direction of the hills. "Avi!" she says, tugging on his arm. "/Avi/!" She watches after the man and the woman, and then jerks her head forward, back in the direction they came. That tree looks familiar... doesn't it?
Brent likely breaks several traffic laws -- the biggest offender being the /speeding/, obviously. His vehicle is not so weaveable as Ilad's, but he is particularly aggressive with that Honda Accord.
Avi ducks his head low, reacting to the explosion, and runs for the spot where everything seems to change, pulling Ariadne with him, and not looking at the man and the woman, who turn back into the trees. The scent of smoke stings the nose--and then suddenly doesn't, anymore. The hillside looks clear, and there's Ariadne's dropped cell phone.
Ariadne stumbles forward after Avi, stopping only when she spies her cell phone sitting there, untouched. She straightens and whips back around, staring behind her at the place where they came through (although her hand does not ever, at any point, leave Avi's). For a moment she just gapes in broken silence.
Avi turns too, keeping a tight hold on Ariadne so they don't get separated again. "Where'd they--" He draws a deep breath. No smoke. "You can't /do/ that with special effects..."
Reckless but focused in his driving, Ilad eats up the distance between two points. He zooms toward the parking lot attached to the park, picking out Brent's familiar car with his eye and cutting off a considerably larger vehicle to dart into the lane immediately behind him.
"No," Ariadne whispers, sliding in close to Avi's side once more, still staring. "No, you can't. You /wouldn't/."
Avi takes a tentative step toward the treeline, by a more roundabout path, but he doesn't seem entirely sure that he actually wants to chase after possible people with guns. "We should get you home," he says, looking down at Ariadne, and tucking her in close to his side.
His attention over-alert, anxious, Brent's gaze flits quickly from road to mirrors, keeping his eye out for Ilad. There is some easing in his expression when he finally spots the familiar motorcycle behind him, but nothing eases in the speed of his car. (It is a wonder that he's not pulled over.) Time flexes. The two vehicles eat up the short drive to the park, and Brent pulls his car into the attached parking lot a little recklessly. He cuts the engine and scrambles out of the car, looking immediately to his companion.
Ariadne laughs, the sound fluttering in wary measure as she shakes her head. "Just-- give me-- Can we sit down for a second?"
Avi picks up her phone for her, and hands it over. He looks like he's in need of a seat too, though he'd never admit it. He directs them away from the clearing a little, to where there's a fallen log that's better than just the bare ground for sitting.
Ilad leaps down from the motorcycle as soon as the engine is cut, though it takes him a couple of tries to successfully unbuckle the black gloss of his helmet and leave it hanging from the handlebars. "Come," he says to Brent, reaching to clap Brent on the shoulder with the hardy reassurance of nothing more than presence. The lingering sweat of his workout clings to him, his dark hair is rumpled and a little flat from his helmet, and he has neglected to put on his jacket or otherwise take his stuff from the dojo, so he probably doesn't have his wallet either. "You have directions, and I think I know the stream Avi intended."
Ariadne takes the phone, tucking it next to her thoughtlessly as she settles atop the log and leans sideways into Avi, shameless hussy. She breathes in and out, very slowly, and does not take her eyes off the space between trees where they passed through, and then back. For now, she says nothing.
"Right." Brent's smile is weak and wavering, but there is some sense that the assurance of Ilad's presence is felt in some small way. He starts out, using Ariadne's vague directions as a starting point. "She was just so /scared/," he starts to rattle nervously, long legs eating up distance. "She was so scared and then I heard someone else and she was just /gone/."
Avi is even too rattled to properly enjoy the situation. He clings to being manly for her as much as she leans against him, and watches the trees just as hard.
"We will find them," Ilad states with the steady firmness of conviction. He moves with surprising speed over the trail, as well as with directed energy. Whether he believes it or not is hardly even relevant; on some level, he acts the commander, anchors his men. "Keep your ears and eyes open. If we do not see them, we will see /something/."
Brent finds focus in Ilad's firm direction; he swallows, nods, and keeps moving. There is a certain amount of athleticism that, though far from Ilad's level, combines with his lanky gait to give him able speed over the trail. "Okay," he breathes out. He'll believe it.
Eventually, Ariadne's breath slows, her tension dissipates enough to stop the shaking, and she finds some small portion of her brain again. "Oh," she says, quietly. "We should call Brent. And your brother."
Avi blinks. "Why? I'll tell him about it when I get home, sure, but--" He winces. He probably doesn't want Ilad to see him this shaken.
"And if we can move quietly, all to the good," Ilad adds in a lower voice, although what practiced internal paranoia prompts this murmur it is impossible to say. There is no obvious enemy here, no ready expectation to fall back on, but he has certain instincts primed by his own role in a war without end. He ducks through trees and over boulders, his pace fast and driven over earth and moss and grass.
This -- is perhaps more cause for anxiety. Brent's muscles tense with a quiet but defined distress. He is not quiet. He can try to be. But at least he can not talk. That is quiet he can control.
"I called him," Ariadne answers, lifting her head to look over at Avi. "Before she grabbed me. I'm sure he called your brother, and I'm pretty sure he was on his way"
Avi twists around to look back the way they came. No brother yet. "Oh. I should--" He reaches for his own phone in his back pocket. "Did you tell them about the guns? I hope Ilad's not stomping up in army mode."
To say 'quiet' is all very well, but this is neither urban terrain nor desert. It's hard to move quietly through brush and trees and related foliage when you are unaccustomed. Still, Ilad makes the attempt. Through trees, and now, uphill, and then this way towards the stream that Ilad knows...
Ariadne shakes her head, letting her fingers curve over her phone at her side. "I didn't know there were guns when I called." Her fingers move over the keys, brushing at them for a moment as if reluctant to dial, and then she looks up and over at Avi. "I'll call Brent, you call Ilad?"
Trek trek trek. Brent's attempt at quiet is even less successful than Ilad's, but it is an attempt. He lets Ilad lead when the other man seems to find his direction, long strides working hard uphill.
"Okay," Avi tells Ariadne. 'Am fine', he texts his brother, helpfully. They're not at the stream, having stopped somewhere short of it and then detoured off into the brush. There's a stomped trail of broken branches a mile wide where they went, but one has to find where it begins, first.
Ariadne actually /calls/ hers, thumbing Brent's speeddial number and then raising the phone to her ear as she waits.
The buzz of Ilad's phone in his back pocket is enough to draw him up short amidst the brush. He stops, and turns on his heel to look at Brent with lifted eyebrows as he pulls the phone out and then looks at it. He says, "Avraham," aloud. His expression warps with sharp incredulity and he opens the phone to stab the call-back button on the text message.
Brent stops short when Ilad does. Fortunately he grabbed his own phone before he left his car and slipped it back into his pocket. It buzzes against denim, and he almost drops it in the rapid scramble. But he doesn't: he opens it up instead and sets it hard against his ear. "/Ari/. We're in the park, we're on our way. Are you all right?"
"Yeah," Ariadne breathes, but despite her attempts otherwise, her voice starts to shake again. "We're okay. You're coming?" There's something quietly pleading in the question as she glances over at Avi. "Brent, something really weird is going on."
Avi still has the phone open and sees the caller ID pop up, so he answers in Hebrew after a single ring. He scoots aside a little to not interfere with Ariadne's conversation, but he takes her hand to keep hold of it. "{Ilad, I have no idea what happened, but we're fine now. I'm sorry you were probably worried.}"
"{Where are you?}" Ilad snarls in Hebrew as soon as Avi stops speaking. He presses his free hand hard in the brace of his palm against the nearest of the trees, letting the tree bear some of the weight of a lean, partly yielding to a weakness in his knees he would not admit to in any conscious way.
"We're coming," Brent assures her firmly. "We are trekking through the woods as we speak. Just hold tight, okay? Are you in the same spot?" He glances at Ilad as the man leans against against the tree, and he moves closer to take his own turn with reassurance, setting a cool hand on a warm shoulder and squeezing lightly. His head is tipped away to converse.
"{We're--}" Avi gives slightly more precise directions, given that the brothers have a shared catalog of landmarks from the day before. "Ariadne? How are you feeling? Should we walk to meet them?" He turns to her, but keeps his phone up so his brother will hear it too.
"Yeah," Ariadne answers to Brent, glancing over at Avi as he calls her name. After a moment she answers honestly, "I don't want to take my eyes off it. I think we should stay til they get here."
"We are coming," Ilad says, concise. He is wound tight beneath Brent's touch, tension not receding noticeably, but there is a suggestion of subtler steadiness as he straightens away from the tree again. He glances at Brent as he snaps his phone shut without further comment. "Not far now," he says.
Brent drops his hand from the other man when he straightens, nodding at the comment. "Okay," he says, ready to follow Ilad when the other man continues the trek. "We'll be there soon, okay?"
"You think it's--that spot?" Avi stares at the spot too, once his brother has hung up. "But there was nothing there to disappear /into/."
"I saw her disappear there. And then you." Ariadne clenches her fingers around the phone, jaw strung tight. "And that's where she dragged me."
Ilad breaks through brush and grass at a slightly uneven lope. He is right that it is not long; soon they are on the trail of broken brush. "Ah," he says, "this way." He raises his voice and calls ahead: "Avraham?"
Brent follows quickly on Ilad's heel, speed urged when the man announces they're on the right track. "Ariadne?" he calls after Ilad.
"Ilad!" Avi calls, wincing very slightly at the FullNaming. He stands, transferring his hand to Ariadne's shoulder to keep the contact between them, and waves in the direction they're coming from.
Ariadne pushes herself up to stand next to Avi, no longer clinging to waist or hand, but still close enough to feel the comforting warmth of him. "Brent!" she responds, calling back to him. "Here!"
Ilad breaks through the brush. He strides over to his brother on long, even paces. He looks him over, with the flick of dark eyes gathering detail. He grabs Avi with the hard thump of his hand against his shoulder and yanks him into the abrupt pressure of a hug without saying a word.
When they break through, Brent is quick to turn long strides into a quick jog to the two younger. He bends to gather Ariadne fiercely into his arms, squeezing tight as he presses the ballerina to him. "/God/," he breathes out. "I was so worried."
"Ouch," says Ariadne, her arms flopping a bit as she's gathered up.
Avi embraces his brother just as hard. "{They let us go,}" he says, with the air of repeating his assurances of earlier, but not realizing he's revealing more about the situation. "Maybe we should...mark it. With something. So no one else walks there."
The brace of his arm across Avi's back hard and firm as an iron bar, Ilad is slow to withdraw at all, and when he does, his hands grasp at either of Avi's shoulders, his brows knit. He growls a harsh demand: "{What happened?}"
"Sorry." Brent loosens his grip, but doesn't let Ariadne go just yet. He does glance over to Avi at his words, confusion and worry knitting his brow. "Mark /what/? What happened?" He is entirely unconscious that he is echoing Ilad's foreign words, of course.
Ariadne wraps her arms around Brent as he loosens a bit, and for a moment she just breathes, cheek against his shoulder. Pulling away, she turns to look at Avi, her eyes dark and wide and still just a little bit wild. "We should. We /definitely/ should. It's right there." She lifts a hand to point, marking the spot between trees. The woman disappeared. Then Avi did. They had /guns/.""
"The woman disappeared, and then I went after her, and Ariadne disappeared from behind me," is Avi's perspective. "Her friend had to scan me to see if I was a mech or something. Something was dropping bombs." His eyes seek his brother's as he says it. "Up there." He points. "They look my backpack."
Ilad's gaze is dark and steady, at first frankly baffled and then both baffled and sharp. He glances away, past his brother to look between the trees in question, and lets one hand fall away as he turns outward. "What did you have in your backpack?"
Brent keeps one hand on Ariadne's shoulder, assuring himself continually of her safety. He follows the point of her hand, squinting to try and see any evidence of what they speak of. "/Bombs/?" he asks, anxiously incredulous. "In the park?"
"Food," Ariadne supplies for Avi, glancing over at him for confirmation. "They seemed really excited about it." She gives Brent faint nod, pulling her arms now to fold over her chest. "They didn't believe we'd come up from Los Gatos."
"It's like they were acting out a movie. Only the bomb was real. Cities were...mech bases?" Avi checks with Ariadne for confirmation on that. "But Ariadne doesn't have to stay here." He flicks a glance to the spot, then at the girl. "Maybe Brent could walk back with her...?"
"We should mark it and come back," Ariadne says, lowering her voice to Brent as she looks at him. "We could bring Jean-Paul." Why Jean-Paul, Ariadne? A tiny, tiny flutter of her fingers, wing-like, makes it clear. In case Brent isn't following.
Brent glances back at the area Ariadne pointed out, his gaze grown warier now. But he nods at Avi's suggestion. "I can take her home." He glances down at Ariadne for confirmation. Or rejection. Either way. His expression is unsure at her suggestion. Not uncomprehending, just...unsure. "Maybe."
Ariadne looks doubtful of leaving while Ilad and Avi are staying, but not too doubtful, because I have to go give a workshop. So she goes.
Ilad glances back to Avi with the cock of an eyebrow. He lifts his hand to pull at his earlobe between thumb and forefinger. He asks, "Did your ear tell you anything?" He looks over at the trees, and then at the others. "We can mark it. If we find some sticks, I can use my lighter, scorch them to char."
"Be careful," Brent tells the two men in a clear, firm voice. Because he Really Means It, Okay? He keeps a protective touch on Ariadne as he leads her back down the trail to his car and home.
Avi looks reluctant to give up his protection of Ariadne, but he does, and goes to pick up a couple stick and a rock or two. "Both of them sounded North American. Not too different from the others around here." He sounds much calmer with questions to answer.
"I'll call you," Ilad tells Brent over his shoulder, as he removes the lighter from his pocket. "Did you see what type of guns they carried?" he asks, flipping it open and crouching to gather a few sticks of his own.
Avi gives a very decent description of one of the weapons, though not completely precise. "I couldn't see the woman's as well." Avi hands over the sticks, and keeps the rock for himself. He edges up some scuff marks on the ground, and tosses the rock. No more rock.
"Hmm," hums Ilad. He edges toward the trees and crouches not far off, lighting the fork of one of the sticks with his lighter. He covers the spark thoughtfully with the curve of his hand. "I will write 'Stay back,' do you think? Two birds."
Avi nods jerkily. "You believe me?" He stares after where the rock went, as if he doesn't quite believe it himself.
"I don't know," Ilad answers with perfect candor. He coaxes the flame to scorch the stick into char, and then drops into a crouch to start scratching letters into the earth.
"Maybe if you go--" Avi rocks on his toes, the sense of being rattled coming back. "But Ariadne saw it too..."
"I do not have an explanation," Ilad says, mildly. Scratch, scratch.
"I didn't really think you would," Avi says, laughing it off, but his face said there was a little bit of hope that maybe he could explain it.
Ilad finishes his handiwork, and pushes himself up to his feet, pocketing his lighter again. "Come," he says quietly, turning away from the trees. "Let's go home."
Avi give the spot a last, worried look, and then escapes, keeping close to the support of his brother, and walking very quickly.
Ilad has no idea what happened today.