saveourearth | Don't pet them, grab them! [Mingle]

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Don't pet them, grab them! [Mingle]

Date: 25th of July
Characters: Open!

I.

In the afternoon on the 25th, a network message alerts the Numbered to the fact that the petting zoo in Moss Manor's Menagerie is facing a major break-out: Someone has torn down the fences, and all the bunnies, sheep, and all the other animals typically found in petting zoos have decided to book it. They are now swarming the manor's grounds.

Due to the staff being nowhere near enough to catch them all, and due to the generally low threat level of the animals that escaped, visitors are asked to help catch them instead of being sent away.

And anyone who just happens to show up and help will be happily welcomed and included in the fort, without any question of who told them that help is needed.

II.

Afterwards, Lady Margaret Camilla Brassant invites everyone onto her patio and offers refreshments - tea, water, little sandwiches, cake and scones with clotted cream and jam. She retires quickly herself, but not before giving a brief speech thanking everyone who helped save the gardens from hungry mouths.

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Even wrapped up in his own anxiety, Russell notices the face journey Benjiro goes on. The whole arc of it - starting from such an unimpressed frown, with little heat behind it, to something more gently knowing - mollifies him.

"You do?" If it weren't for that, Russell might have protested; there'ss trusting and there's knowing, and the more-distant-than-cousins haven't lived in the same vicinity for that long. But Russell does know better, and more than that, wants to believe.

"I mean... You do?" he repeats more emphatically, and covers his mouth as he starts to laugh. "Oh my god. I don't understand, but..." It's a relief.

A year is perhaps longer to a teenager than a young adult, and the years his family lived close in London with occasional visits were limited to until he was ready to enter the school system.

The first iteration of the confirming question is given a nod, and the second receives a half smile as Benjiro confirms the statement in no uncertain terms, “Yes, I do.” Quieting as Russell covers his mouth to laugh, he gives a light squeeze with his thumb against the shoulder on which his hand rests. Once Russell has a chance to process it, he’ll let his hand slide off and back to his side.

“We don’t understand how the numbers work or why we have them yet, but we’re learning about them and what it means to have one,” he starts in a quiet voice as a simple way to introduce the fact there is more to the numbers than acting as a novel form of communication between a select group of individuals. There are some warnings to impart, but he has to let Russell ask questions to determine how to broach the topics.

It's true, the last few years have passed so quickly for him. A blur of various sorts of work, and wondering where it's gone. Time must start accelerating as you get old, or something.

Some of the tension seeps out of him at the touch, and Russell hides his eyes with a hand. It makes a difference - not being alone, whatever this is - and he's already embarrassed by his reaction. For a minute or two he wipes at his eyes, banishing tears before they have the chance to go anywhere, until he gathers himself.

"It... every time I start tapping it out, one way or another, I start seeing and hearing things. I didn't really listen," he admits, "until this last time. Is it usually like that? People calling for help?" He has no idea yet that there's more to it than the novel and sometimes intrusive communication, unfortunately.

A month is not long enough for Benjiro to forget his own experience confirming his sanity. To be alleviated of the perception of madness descending upon one’s own mind is a profound reassurance. He had been able to give himself reasons to hold confidence in his mental faculties, yet there had always been lingering doubt until someone else could confirm the experience. Seeing Russell so affected, he’ll murmur a soft assurance he understands, “It’s too much a burden alone. I get it…”

Asked about the nature of the network with relation to how it has been used thus far, he shakes his head, “No. That was actually the first time someone has used it to request aid. Most of the other messages are regarding our shared confusion.”

Sparing a moment to look, Benjiro will nod his head to the side in indication, “Come on, let’s go sit,” and move to a spot along the side of the trails with some stones large enough for them. The change in position would not only give Russell physical support, but it deviates them from the main path to avoid the last of the foot traffic leaving the gardens.

Russell lets out a long sigh at the murmured reassurances, wiping his face one more time before nodding. "You're wise for your years," he decides as he follows, a mixed compliment mostly to salvage his pride.

It hasn't a burden for that long a time, is the thing. Most of the strangeness was that number, fixed in his head since that day in the tunnels, but it hadn't really intruded on him. Russell had gone about his day-to-day life, using parts of that easy-to-remember sequence as parts of passwords... until this month, when he began hearing and seeing things on his computer and phone that he couldn't take screenshots of. Hallucinations, surely.

"So..." Russell sits on one of the stones, bracing himself with his hands at each side, and leans forward. "It's people, asking what's happening? Conversations like this?"

Incessant curiosity tends to lead one to experience more of the world.

Selecting a stone close to Russell where he can sit down facing towards him, Benjiro slides his backpack off to rest beside his feet. He lays his hands to his lap with an attentive look, but as soon as he speaks to answer, his hands lift to gesture with his words, “That’s how they tend to start. Everyone on there has an imprinted number like us, so there’s also a good deal of people getting to know each other.” To learn more about those who have been similarly caught up in this phenomenon and find comfort in socializing.

With little more to say about the network, Benjiro presses on, “People with numbers are experiencing more than just the shared messages. From time to time, they have that same feeling like what we got at the aurora and then something changes.”

He nods along, listening. If it's mostly people like themselves, confused and curious, that's how he'd expect them to use it. A very secret social media, with a self-enforced casualness so they don't stress too hard about the mystery of it all.

But they reach the subject of something else, and Russell studies his hands for a minute. The better not to make eye contact while he thinks back to the aurora. Turns them over, palms facing up, and watches how fingers curl slowly into fists.

"I don't... think anything else changed. That number, all the... seeing and hearing things." He tilts his head up just enough to look up at Ben. "What kind of something do you mean?"

Patiently, Benjiro waits for Russell to consider his implication. If something were to happen to his distant cousin, dealing with it could be made slightly easier by being forewarned, even if it means burdening him with that knowledge now.

Nodding once to what Russell says, he broaches the changes gently as he can, “I haven’t had any obvious changes myself, but other people with numbers, people that I already knew and trust, have told me about things they’ve experienced. In some instances, something in their mind changes. They recall something that didn’t happen to them as if they were someone else. In other instances…something physically changes. Nothing visible has changed drastically so far, but it can affect at least appearance or function. For example, theoretically someone might have their skin color shift tones, or they might in an instant be twice as strong.” Feasible options given what Sadie and Walter have experienced.

Recognition crosses Russell's face at the mention of mental changes, and he slowly nods. It wasn't at the aurora for him, but there'd been another familiar but he has found himself remembering things that have nothing to do with his life. Not like a movie, but memory. Maybe like of a dream he's had hundreds of times, implausible but familiar.

"Physical changes, too..." It doesn't rest easy with him, not with ideas of changing skin colors or other superficial freak show imagery... and then the last phrase registers. Russell blinks a few times, the idea struggling through his mind, and he stares at Ben. "Wait, wait. That sounds like you're talking about superpowers."

There is a definite understanding that Benjiro can read from his cousin. Then suddenly, Russell has a term for the functional changes he had not associated with it previously.

Superpowers.

The teenager raises his eyebrows at the connection and opens his mouth with a breath in to answer only to halt. He closes his mouth with his brows coming down to more carefully evaluate the concept. Gesturing with one hand in a ‘wait’ sort of motion, he does reply, “Nothing like what you might expect from comics, but beyond what a human should be capable of, yes.”

No one has mentioned anything too fantastic. So far.

Won't they all be in for a surprise, when someone finally does.

"Good," he decides, nodding to himself. "If you said it was that cartoonish... I'd write the whole conversation off as a dream. Like that time I was... daydreaming in the tunnels..."

Russell trails off staring vacantly somewhere distant, mouth hanging slightly open. For a minute he mouths a few things, frowning with the effort of thinking back. "That was before..." He mutters, then turns to Benjiro again, and asks, "you said this started with the aurora, didn't you?"

Benjiro would not be able to blame Russell if he decided to write this all off as a dream or even a teenager’s practical joke were he to propse something of that magnitude.

The way Russell trails off catches Benjiro’s attention with an inquisitive tilt of his head and soft hum. Patiently, he waits until he is addressed directly, and when he is, the question presents a need for clarification, “Our access to the network started then. There are no messages before that date, and the numbers were not so intrusive. That said, I think I got my number when I first came to Mossgate when I went out diving for the first time in the bay.” A year prior to the aurora.

“Is there something else you think might be related?”

For what it's worth, Russell wouldn't be able to blame Benjiro if he did propose something like that. A younger Russell might have, and definitely would have been enthusiastic about the idea. Even moreso than he is now.

"I don't know. Maybe?" Russell rubs at his mouth, making sure it's fine and dry after hanging open, then explains. "I wasn't in the bay, and I've been to Mossgate before, years and years ago. But the first time I got that number, I was in those tunnels, you know, beneath the cliffs? That was... this spring."

"Ever since the aurora it seems like everything is happening locally, but it's all across Mossgate, Tarwich, Folkton, Moss Manor, the ruins, and the harbor. The cliffs are definitely in that zone," he offers to support the connection. Benjiro is very thankful for the efforts made by other Numbered to find a radius of effect.

A moment, then Benjiro asks a different question, "The daydream... Did it seem too odd to have really happened? Maybe there was something fantastic about it?"

Edited 2018-09-23 19:22 (UTC)

"Huh..." He considers that list of places, pulls out his phone to open a maps app, until Benjiro talks again. Then Russell shrugs, the phone dangling in his hand, as he avoids saying yes or no.

"It was... mundane," he says instead. "Oddly so. I went on that tour, thinking it would unnerve me to have all that rock hanging over me. Especially as I saw those collapsed tunnels. But I remembered walking through the tunnels hundreds of times before, on my way... somewhere."

Russell stares back at the memory for a few seconds. "And then I realized that was ridiculous," he interjects with a laugh. "That was the first time I went in! But so much of it, the water dripping here and there, the echo of feet on the tunnel's stone, even the sense of all that rock overhead... It all seemed familiar. Except the tunnels in the cliffs weren't glittery enough."

It’s only natural to look at a map, as Benjiro himself has done, when considering the expanse of the Numbers’ reach.

Listening intently as his cousin recounts the visit to the tunnels in the cliff, he picks up on the difference between the episodic memory Sadie described to him and this more generalized experience forming more of an abstract memory that is created in repetitive travel. That last detail stands out, his voice soft as he repeats curiously, “...glittery?”

Considering his possible questions carefully, he decides on focusing on another detail as the glitter might be merely the result of mineral deposits, “The sound of footsteps. Can you think of a time you were in those tunnels with someone else?”

He'll follow up on the research some of the others have been doing, and come to some conclusions about it all. Experimenting for himself... maybe not yet. Not just yet.

"The time I went for real, I was in the tour group," Russell says, offering the obvious answer first. It's not a satisfying answer, and he knows it. Given everything, he'd rather give his cousin something more substantial, and he frowns as he keeps thinking back. "...Walking back and forth from... home? To somewhere else... Not always alone, but, a lot of the time."

Any information, even a form of confirmation, would be a welcome addition to the gatherings of other Numbered.

Obvious answer or not, Benjiro would rather it be given for absolute confidence in his understanding. Hand lifting to touch his chin with a couple fingers, he considers what Russell tells him carefully, “Whomever the memory belongs to, home being connected elsewhere by those glittering tunnels might be important.” It’s an interesting contrast to what Sadie described to him, and while it opens possibilities, he can draw no conclusions, including about use from others.

Hand lowering back downwards, he decides to impart one more thing about their novel situation, “I don’t know how much these memories will mean, but, in the present we have people we can rely on that also have Numbers. You might want to look through the messages briefly before you head home and see who you recognize.” It probably isn’t polite to out another Numbered, so he’ll resort to the second most direct way to let Russell know he has support at his flat in Walter.

Russell hums as he considers that new take on it; maybe the memories are real, but belonging to someone else. Memories of dissolving ghosts, wiggling their way into the bodies of still-living humans. Ancient underground aliens in long slumber, projecting their dreams to the world above... Somehow, he realizes with a grimace, his thoughts are sounding a little like a certain unscientific religion, and that's no good.

"Did you recognize anyone? This might be people all around the world, and I didn't see anyone else in that group suddenly come over all..." Russell demonstrates by swaying back and forth, as though suddenly dazed or inebriated. "I'll look, and listen, since you're asking. But I'm not expecting much."

Benjiro knows so little of the memories, only having learned of one from Sadie a short time ago this very day. He isn’t quite ready to ascribe ownership of those memories, even if the perspective lends to the people receiving them.

To that, the teenager smiles gratefully and nods his head, “That’s all I can ask. I actually knew several people at the start. I had already met some of them shortly after moving here last year. For now, it seems we can only contact other local individuals who have a Number, but perhaps that will change too.” Already trusting those individuals certainly helped him move into acceptance that Numbers are part of their reality and not figments.

“I don’t know how much else I can tell you since we know so little, but if you think of any questions, you can text me any time.”

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Don't pet them, grab them! [Mingle]

i'm so proud he inspired such a nonplussed expression

As you should be.

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(returning from hiatus!)

\o/

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