video; okay kids let's organize this bitch

[thefourteenth]

[Here is Visser One, posting with her own face for the very first time, businesslike and deadly serious. She seems to be posting from some kind of office- whether home or otherwise is impossible to tell. Everything about her has the air of unimpeachable seasoned authority.]

Well, we've all seen the rash of posts about disappearances in the last three days. [She takes a short, impatient breath, drawing herself up a little more.] Come now, we can't possibly think it's just a coincidence. What did that kind of thinking get us with the virus?

Organizing is imperative. We won't accomplish anything by staying scattered and in a panic.

First and foremost, I need you all to come forward here and give the name of anybody who's gone missing this week. So far, I have a list of six names.

[She folds her hands on her desk and leans in, expression intensifying- but still unusually cold. Like a hunter, not an impassioned loved one.]

We will find them. We'll find them, bring them home, then we'll find the offender and give them exactly what they deserve.


(OOC: feel free to threadjack and make a big mess of this post if you want! Visser One just really wants to see some discussion and organization going on, and so do I.)

Comments

[thefourteenth]

You can get something better or cut back during the school year.

[guerrilla_morph]

I don't trust the schools here, with MAN and all. I'll find a better job.

[thefourteenth]

Marco, you need to finish school. It's not optional.

[guerrilla_morph]

I'm not interested in being an even more vulnerable target by relying on teachers and faculty that may hate me simply because I have been kidnapped here. You ask me to walk through a gang war to get to class? Fine, I'll do that, since I've done it before. [ Though only once and after that he sworn never to do that again. ]

High school sucks but I'm not going to a school that might get me killed or worse.

[thefourteenth]

There are tutors here we can find. This isn't a discussion, Marco. I'm your legal guardian. This is my responsibility.

[Not "mother." They all know the charade, and she's officially sick of pretending. She got sick of pretending three years ago when she left the little whelp's home.]

[guerrilla_morph]

[ He notices the omission. If he was have any doubts of leaving, they are long gone. Like her, he can't do this. He's tired. He knows while it is far too late to be considering his mental health now, there is so much he can take without doing something.

[thefourteenth]

[The long silence gets awkward. Fuck it.]

Your belongings will be in the hallway. I expect what you owe in rent and utilities for the last month by the end of July.

[Edriss intends to hang up there, to end this without ceremony, but a tiny grunt under her breath betrays the struggle within: Eva suddenly screaming in her mind, beating at the bars with fury that Visser One would turn her baby out on the street with nowhere to go and no shelter from the Darkness. Just to shut her up, Edriss says something very clipped and cold. No more pretension.]

Living room. I'll be elsewhere for the night.

[P a u s e.]

There is a hotel. Run by Newcomers.

[Then she hangs up.]

[guerrilla_morph]

[ And Marco truly believes he is going to Hell, as he feels an enormous weight lifted of his soulders. The sensation is both a blessing and a curse, as he doesn't have to go to bed anymore thinking, God, how can I save her now? and feeling all the guilt of the time he spent working as a conselour for some snot-nosed kids and not on killing Visser One and freeing Mom. He has been here, and with her, for almost two months. He must have done something by now.

Except he didn't. Because he was scared, and still is.

Fear isn't an unfamiliar thing to Marco. He's scared for his life, for his dad, for his friends, for all the planet. He looks at the ceiling above him as he wakes up in the morning and wonders if this is the day when he's dragged off to be infested or killed. Winning is something that he is rarely used too. Winning is something that he never expects to happen to him. It happens all the time to Visser One most likely. She didn't come out on top without scoring some major points too.

Which leads Marco to wondering if Visser One is just as scared as he is.

So he hangs up as well and goes back home after work, and sees his stuff packed up and with a note on top of the boxes and bags:

Stay away from me, "Andalite", and I will do the same.

Marco can only snort. It's laughable. Strange, he doesn't feel like laughing at this moment.

But he doesn't leave just yet. He makes a call to one of the Underground Mall hotels - like he will go to a hotel suggested by a Yeerk, Newcomer or not - and makes a reservation. He raids the kitchen and grabs some food that will last him for a few days. He also takes out the remaining food and opened the cans and the boxes and mixing the contents together before tossing them in the garbage. Yanks a few rolls of toilet paper for himself and destroys the rest by soaking the rest with water and tearing them apart. Taking the toaster for himself, he bends some of the forks and spoons before he took a few for himself. He breaks every single plate and bowl except the ones he also stolen and leaves one each intact for Visser; as he walks across the littered floor he takes some of the alcohol as well, but he leaves the remaining bottles in tact. He continues his rampage through the apartment and while he felt a little weird attacking the tampons, the awful feeling of satisfaction is too good for him to stop.

It takes well into the evening, just an hour and a half before the evening sirens. He makes another call, to a cab service and have them to pick him up as he pulls the plug to every electronic device he can find, scrambling a few wires when he can.

Before he leaves for good, he rips a sheet of paper (and flushing the rest in the toilet) on the very scratched up table and writes:

If you call me again for help like you did just before I arrive here, I want you to know I will come.

Though it might be up in the air if he will actually help her.

Satisfied, he takes his particularly heavy bags and boxes downstairs, to wait for his cab.

But as he closes the door (and not bothering to lock it, tucking the key in his pocket), he realizes that despite his relief, despite that the charade being finally over . . .

He is still scared. ]