Maybe It’s All Gonna Turn Out Alright [Log]

[warped_replica]

Date: May 17th
Characters: Benjiro, Open to CR

He thought he had more time.

When the call invitation came through on his computer in the morning, it had been expected from the near end of the term. The turn of topics had not. His school exams have been going well, he’s keeping busy with his part time job, the rabbit he has been fostering is well…yet with everything in order, a question of why he has not already seen to initiating financial processing for his expected attendance at university. The deadline is fast approaching in a mere two weeks. Hesitation and pressure. A reluctant admission to his intention to delay entrance to university. A cold snap of tempers makes him shrink in his chair as he fights a sudden dryness in his throat.

There is a reason. Strange things have been happening in Mossgate. Why that should matter is because strange things have been happening to put people in danger, and even directly to him. Memories, new skills, and changes to his body. Facemask removed, silence hangs heavy as his heart pounds out a handful of beats only to give way to a storm of accusations. He barricades against it with logic and evidence, but it only brings doubt of falsehood rather than belief. Entertaining the possibility, they want to know where it is going to lead. He will keep changing. By how much, he cannot know, but he is certain he will look less human. His mother and father pace through thoughts, and wrestle with the potential future that looms.

Can this be avoided or undone?

He doesn’t know.

Then it’s better if he does not come home.

His mother imparts a last set of instructions to not drag Emiko down with him and to reflect on the memory of his uncle.

The connection ends to leave him in a silent house, and Benjiro crumples forward to his desk when he feels his insides drain away to receive a new memory. A memory of violence and terror that breaks the last thread holding him together.

With shaking hands, he collects his essentials, including the notebooks in which he has recorded sensitive information related to the Numbers, and gathers Bunsen into his carrier. Bags packed, he has to make several attempts to write a letter to his great aunts when he snaps his first pencil and the words bend and lean from the distorted letters trying to build them. Finally managing as a numbness fully settles, he leaves the note for Agatha and Rosemary and drives from the house on his motorcycle.

It isn’t until midway into the afternoon that his great aunts return home to find the letter. Immediately they both reach out to those they know how to contact that are close to Benjiro to ask with worry lacing their voices, “Have you heard from Benjiro today? We need to find him. He left us a note that sounds like a goodbye.”

Similarly, Sadie will received a panicked email from his sister sent from an internet cafe in Japan.
Something bad happened between my parents and Benjiro. There was yelling and then they stormed in and took my phone and my computer. They said I can’t talk to Benjiro anymore. He isn’t answering me either and I don’t know if he’s okay.

Please find out what’s going on!

Then, after Agatha and Rosemary have spoken with Sadie, the calls change even as they continue to reach out for more assistance, “I was calling in hopes you’ve seen Benjiro in passing today? Or if perhaps you can keep an eye out for him? We need to speak with him. His parents went and threw a spanner in the works, and he left with only a note.”

Comments

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie, just like Ben, had been focused on exams and had spent the day at home revising for her first geography exam on Tuesday. Emiko's name popping up in her email inbox is unexpected but certainly not unwelcome, she enjoys her occasional conversations with Ben's little sister but a look at the subject bar makes her breath catch in her lungs. The email itself hits her like a bolt of lightning. Ben's parents must know. She can't think of any other reason that they'd do this.

Emiko! I haven't spoken to Ben since first thing this morning. I'm going to track him down right away. I promise you I shall email you the second I get in contact with him. Is it safe to use this email or should I contact you elsewhere?

If its why I think it is, it's only right you hear it from Ben, but I promise I won't let him avoid telling you.

Email sent, Sadie immediately dials Ben's phone, biting her lip nervously as she waits for him to pick up.

Says the first to tag

[warped_replica]

Although the call connects to his phone number, the attempted contact takes Sadie directly to voicemail. Benjiro shut the device down before leaving the house.

Emiko sends a reply through email shortly after.

This email is safe. I’ll stay here as long as I can, but I have to be home before they realize I snuck out. I may not get the email until tomorrow.

Whatever happened, he’s my brother and I want him safe.

True, but I was originally hoping to post at lunch >.<

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie's heart rate spikes slightly as the voicemail kicks in but she leaves a message even as she responds to Emiko, "Ben, darling, Emiko emailed me. She's been trying to get ahold of you but hasn't been successful and she's a little worried, her phone and laptop have been confiscated," Sadie's voice softens, full of sympathy, "I understand if you need some space right now to process, just please let me know that you're okay so I can pass it on to Emiko. I love you so very much and I'll see you later."

Disconnecting she hits send on the email to Emiko; Try not to worry too much, Emiko, I think Ben just needs a little bit of time to get his thoughts and emotions in order and, even if its the middle of the night for you, I'll email as soon as I've spoken to him so you know as soon as you wake up x

Sadie does her best to focus on some more revision but her eyes keep getting drawn back to the clock as time passes. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes pass and Sadie has managed to read the same page six times by this point when the ringing house phone shakes her out if her daze to pick it up and answer.

"Hello?"

Blame that on my late answer

[warped_replica]

Emiko sends one more shortened response for the time being, words weighed with worry and resignation of being thousands of miles away.

I will leave him to you. Thank you Sadie.

When the phone rings, Sadie will hear a frazzled Rosemary seize on the minute relief of getting through, “Hello, Sadie sweetheart? It’s Rosey. I know you’re probably busy enough with your exams, but I was wondering if you’ve heard from Ben in the last few hours? We came home and we found a note. This is Ben we’re talking about, so of course he apolgoized too much, but um...i-it sounds like he isn’t coming back.”

I blame the people I teach

[dragoonrouge]

If Emiko's email was like a shock of electricity then Rosemary's words over the phone are like a damn avalanche slamming into her. Sadie's stomach churns and her breath is no longer getting stuck in her throat, it instead feels like it's been punched from her lungs as static cottons her ears. There is a long stretch of silence before Sadie properly registers that Rosemary is waiting on an answer from her.

"I-no I haven't, Rosemary," Sadie's voice shakes a little as she snaps into action, switching the phone to hands-free and yanking open her draws to pull out more appropriate clothes, "I phoned a little bit ago and it went through to voicemail..." Sadie bites her lip, considering her next words as she pulls a warm jumper over her head, "It was because Emiko emailed me...She said that Ben and their parents had had an argument and that they've taken her phone and laptop and forbidden her from contacting him." There's anger alongside the fear now, for all her words shake, they also become clipped, deliberate at the mention of his parents.

[Audio] + [Text]

[iamnotgod]

No.

[But he's looking - as he habitually does, even though he tells himself to stop that whenever he catches himself at it.

He'd been searching for posts, web browsing patterns - but if Ben's left a goodbye, then-

He switches his search from textual to visual, meaning satellites and whatever cameras are available all throughout the Boundary. He leaves one private message for Ben, an encrypted text:]

Can we talk?

If you're in the area.

I'd just like to see you.

[Please, or begging, or letting on that his aunts tipped his friends off, might be the last thing Ben wants to hear.]

[warped_replica]

[His great aunt Agatha is the one on the line with Walter.] I would have thought... He talks about you often, so I was hoping maybe he had gone to you or said something. He seemed fine when we left this morning. He was studying.

[A brief pause taken to breathe and steady, she is doing her best to stay calm.] He hasn’t mentioned anything about school has he? He had trouble in the fall but I thought all of that was settled.

[Nothing appears out of the ordinary as Walter searches through Benjiro’s posts. Up until early this morning, he has been communicating as he normally does, but has been less active thanks to the pressure of final exams. Whatever happened came swiftly, and the only odd thing is that when Walter tries to connect to Benjiro’s computer to leave him a message, it returns an error. The computer is beyond simply powered down - Benjiro removed the hard drive.

Among the cameras within the boundary, Walter may spot Benjiro on his loaded motorcycle as he drove through Mossgate heading East.]

[iamnotgod]

Of course; it is that time.

[At Agatha's next point, he sighs.]

He hasn't mentioned that, though...

[He should probably go about this topic carefully:]

Perhaps something with family set him off?

[Ben not responding - perhaps he hasn't seen it, perhaps he doesn't want to let himself reach out, or feels he doesn't deserve to - drives Walter to rely more on the video feeds.

And then, literally, drives him East. Even though he still takes pains to be stealthy, speed is more of the essence here.]

[warped_replica]

[The mention of family gives rise to a tense pause, then Agatha admits.] Perhaps. We haven’t been able to get his parents to answer our calls, but if they went out, they may not realize it until later.

[The footage available from the late morning hours when Benjiro passed through Mossgate show evidence of him heading East through all available cameras along the rather inefficient route. Searching more recent footage fails to provide any signs of him, meaning that he has not returned into Mossgate.

Any time taken to look at a still image of him shows clearly that Benjiro has his bags and a pet carrier with him.]

[iamnotgod]

Hnn.

[Walter sighs.]

Let me know if you're able to hear from them, okay?

[The rest of his focus is devoted to tracking down Ben. If he crosses the Boundary, Ben would forget why he was leaving, wouldn't he?

And then he'd turn back, and relive whatever had driven him to leave in the first place.

Walter wants to avoid that, whatever it takes.]

Phone call w/ the aunts, and he'll try contacting Benjiro in the next tag or two

[spaghettimonster]

Russell is likely one of the first people Agatha and Rosemary contact, as the shared aunts know the cousins (twice removed and all) are friends and spend some time together. They may even have noticed the sense of conspiracy connecting him and Benjiro, these days, though not from Russell's lips.

The question is unexpected, and it sends him into a cold sweat. There's a good second or two of stunned silence as he shares a worry with them - that the note sounds like the worst kind of goodbye - before he remembers other, more likely explanations. Something to do with his number, some kind of echo too difficult to hide.

...But if that were the case, wouldn't Benjiro have contacted the other Numbered? Unless it was something too awful, too troubling, for him to believe in himself enough to ask for help.

"...No, I... I'll look into it. I'll let you know the moment I find something."

Positive or negative, though he desperately hopes for positive. Or at least the kind of negative that can lead to worried yelling, rather than... anything worse.

Sounds good to me!

[warped_replica]

Russell is contacted by Rosemary immediately. They are very aware that Benjiro and Russell have grown much closer in the last year, and reaching out to family first is as much instinctual as it is logical. There is something to be said for keeping things in the family, however, there is no time for that right now.

Nodding silently on her end with lips pressed tight and eyes closed behind her wide lensed glasses, Rosemary tempers herself to reply, “Alright. Alright. We’ll do the same. Aggie is making a list of everyone we can think of to call.” A list that is far longer than it would have been only a year ago. “We’ll keep calling ‘round, so if you can think of anywhere he might have gone... We went out this morning and only just came home, so we don’t know how far he might be by now.”

“And he took Bunsen,” she hurriedly adds as a way of reassurance. Surely he would have left the rabbit at the house if he had the worst intentions.

Action

[spaghettimonster]

"He has Bunsen?" That is a reassurance, as much as it's a surprise, and Russell relaxes a bit more. "Then I don't imagine he's gone all that far, those hutches aren't easy to carry... especially if he took his motorcycle."

Russell shifts the mobile to his other ear, and leans against the employee exit's wall. For anything less than a dire emergency, he can't skip work to help search, but he can think, and offer ideas.

And one in particular comes to mind, from the few pieces of information he has in hand. "I wonder if... He might have gone for a ride, uh, around the county. Walter or Sadie might know some of the places he goes," Russell deflects hurriedly, because the echo radius is a large area to check all of, and harder still to describe without giving a lot away. "Tell them I suggested that, my break only lasts another fifteen and I need to eat something, but I'll give you a call the moment I think of something else."

But that would make sense, wouldn't it? Some terrible echo Benjiro thought he couldn't hide, panicking and running away out of the radius before anyone caught on... anticipating the disorientation and confusion on the other side, and not replying to anyone yet.

[warped_replica]

Reassurance for them both, “Yes, his motorcycle is gone.” When Russell suggests the ride, there’s a quiet hum from Rosemary with nothing more. She simply does not know enough to understand the situation or his motivations at this time. Encouraged to call Walter and Sadie, Rosemary taps Walter’s name on the list of contacts for Benjiro they have drafted and gestures to Agatha to go ahead and call him as her first contact.

“I will pass that along, thank you Russell. I’ll leave you a message if - when we find him,” she corrects herself firmly, and she finishes the call with, “Keep your head at work, okay? Bye for now.”

[spaghettimonster]

"You too," he says softly, and pulls his mobile from his ear to start typing out a text or two - while he has the time to do so without someone coming over to see what he's doing.

There's some understanding of checking on family in emergencies, but the manager on this shift prefers to confirm they're not just playing around and using that as an excuse, and, well... This is hardly the time to let key words like 'echoes' get around to where he'll need to answer uncomfortable questions.

Ben I'm sure you're getting a lot of calls and texts
If you don't want to talk I understand and I can't talk long anyway
But are you on the side of the ride and confused how you got there
Road i mean

[scarsolderthanyou]

"What? No, I haven't," Sam answers, sounding surprised. Then the second bit registers, and he asks, "What did the note say?"

He's already getting a network thing open to Ben's number, typing in, Where are you kid? Your aunts are calling me.

[warped_replica]

Agatha is the one on the line with Sam. Even with what they have learned, the pacing of her words is still more hurried than her normal speech, "The note was essentially a thank you for hosting him for school. And apologies. As if he was ever any trouble...." Clasping the bridge of her nose between the fingers of her free hand, she goes on, "It ended with a promise to deal with the things he left here."

The Network message receives no response from Benjiro.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Well, that doesn't sound like a suicide note, at least, if he's going to be dealing with his things." Which was his first worry when they say "goodbye". "How long has he been gone? He'll have to come back sometime."

[warped_replica]

“You might think as much,” Agatha says pensively in regards to the matter of dealing with his things and his possible return. He never specified he would be the one to come for the items. Hand lowered from her face, she paces as she talks, “Benjiro took quite a bit with him, including his rabbit from Easter. As for when he left, I can’t say for certain. Rosey and I left this morning and came back to the note just before the hour.”

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Hrm." Slightly less reassuring, then, though only slightly. "I'll look around, see what I can turn up, and let you know. How's that? I have a knack for finding people once I get in the right general area." Thank you, echoed-back sense of smell.

Group Thread [At the Beach/Harbor]

[warped_replica]

/uses past tense like a Baws

[iamnotgod]

Walter didn't call out right away - partly to be sure he wasn't mistaken in where he was searching, partly out of some niggling fear that it would make Ben run.

Or just panic, neither of which he wanted to put Ben through.

Re: /uses past tense like a Baws

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie crosses the beach quickly, alert and very openly worried at the fact that she had yet to spot Ben or Walter. A little further on she does hear the sounds of someone walking nearby and alters her course accordingly, spotting Walter just a little after.

"Walter! God I'm glad to see you here."

[iamnotgod]

Walter notes Sadie's presence with some relief - but as Ben still hasn't been spotted, the man remains uptight.

"He didn't reply to you, either?"

He keeps walking in the same direction, turning his head only just enough to read Sadie's expression.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie's skin is pale, except her cheeks which are reddened from running about the place, brows, and her brow drawn down in concern.

"Nothing at all, I only know something is wrong because Emiko emailed me...I think his parents finally found out, Walter."