Blind|Fold

[illirica]

Oh, great. Emil was hearing voices.

Well, no, that wasn't necessarily the issue. They were probably all hearing voices, in some sense of the word, it was just that Emil thought that he could understand them.

He wasn't necessarily wrong. The problem was that he wasn't experienced enough to know that not being wrong wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Zahir looked through the offered notebook, turning the pages a little to see if anything else important had been imparted there, then let it go, staring off down the path Emil wanted them to take.

"Okay. So. First fallacy: assuming that you really do understand what they're telling you. You picked up on that one, and that's good." It showed promise, anyway, it was just that Zahir knew that sometimes promises got broken.

"The second fallacy, though, that's assuming that if you are interpreting them correctly, they're not out to get you." Because that was a big problem. "'Come into my web,' said the spider to the fly. You know that one." He scanned the team - just four of them, and he didn't know if he wanted to split them up already. Doll was weighing in, offering to go along, but she seemed to have the same hesitance about splitting up unnecessarily as Zahir did.

And Henry-

Well. There were a whole lot of sentences that could start with and Henry, and Zahir wasn't sure how many of them he wanted to finish. He liked the idea of having eyes in the sky - that was generally regarded as a good idea in most of the Folds, because it could give them a little bit of advance notice if something was, say, coming up to murder them.

It was just that in this case, the eyes in the sky would be Henry, and - well, Zahir was well aware that he was definitely experiencing some prejudice here because they were weird. Not Weird, capital-W, because they were all Weird here. But Henry was also weird, and that was a thing.

Henry probably had complex PTSD and Zahir should be more tolerant, if only because if he wasn't, the Colonel's lecture when they got back was going to be scathing. She had a thing about that.

Zahir did not have a thing about that, nor did he have PTSD or anything. He did have a plant or something like it writhing under his skin, but he wasn't going to bring that up right now. She - it, it was usually quiet, outside the Folds, but it got a little spicy inside them. That let him make the bracelets and do a few other neat parlor tricks, but... well, he usually tried to keep it under wraps. He didn't know why. It wasn't like the Organization had the manpower to pull him, anyway.

Enough of that. He made a decision. "All right. Emil - telling someone was the right thing to do. Henry - wait until I tell you to before taking off." Because otherwise they were absolutely going to do that mid sentence, Zahir knew it. "But yes, let's get you airborne. I want you to stay within shouting distance, and don't shoot things without checking first unless someone is in imminent danger. We'll move as a group for now, and we're going to head down Emil's path, but carefully. Just because we don't trust the information doesn't mean we can't use it. We didn't know anything about lights, before, so that's something to be aware of, whatever it means. Emil, I want you in front-" So I can keep an eye on you "-So you can let us know if you source any new information. Dahlia, I want you in the center so you're the most protected. I'll take the rear so I can cover our exit and keep eyes on whatever's ahead."

Not ideal, but it was going to have to do. "Range out about four - no, three meters from each other, that'll be close enough that we can hear each other even with the audiostims, but hopefully far enough that we won't all get taken out together. Henry, I want you to let me know if you hear any other tones up there, or if the ones we're hearing are louder or anything changes with height." Anything else - there was always something else, but Zahir didn't know what it was. He rolled his shoulder, trying to settle his skin.

"Fine. Good enough. Henry, you can go."

 

[ItsFulgrim]

Emil nodded, surprised, though not so much by the plan itself, but by the fact that his idea had actually been considered. He had braced for the usual dismissal: "Shut up, Emil," or, worse yet, a blank stare followed by, "Who were you again?"

But instead, the command came, sharp and clear. Zahir didn’t waste time with pleasantries, and Emil didn’t bother asking questions he suspected that they wouldn’t be answered. He scribbled the instructions down without hesitation, the motions of his hand mechanical. His face was unreadable, no sign of doubt, no protest. But deep inside, the suspicion festered: cannon fodder. That’s all he was, wasn’t he? A disposable asset meant to step where others wouldn’t. The parasite in his brain, unfortunately, didn’t grant him telepathy, knowing for certain might have been preferable to just suspecting.

And, right on cue, it twitched again. A sharp pinch at the base of his skull, its favorite way of reprimanding him whenever he called it a parasite. He exhaled through his nose, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Maybe it was time to name the damn thing. "Jerry" had a nice ring to it. Or maybe something ridiculous, like "Cupcake," just to really spite it.

The voices were still there. Mostly unintelligible, distorted whispers and laughter, disjointed, eerie, like sound coming from a warped tape. At this point, though, they were background noise, creeping static in his ears that barely warranted attention.

Emil knew it would be unpleasant, he had been stuck in places like this long enough to understand what may lay ahead, but his body still revolted against the sensation. Stomach flipping, lungs feeling like they might invert, every cell in his body screaming that this was unnatural. Maybe it was. God knew what stepping through that portal actually did to them, molecular shifts? Temporal displacement? Maybe none. He wasn’t a scientist. He wasn’t even sure the scientists fully understood it. All he knew was that the process was wretched.

But he had signed the contract, thirty pages of jargon detailing his expendability, his silence, the consequences of breaking protocol. He had agreed. Voluntarily.

Not that it mattered. Nobody listened when he returned from his first jump. He doubted it would be any different this time.

So he did what he always did. Followed orders. Logged every sound, every sight, every anomaly in meticulous detail. The notebook filled up fast, his scrawl feverish, his mind frantic in its attempt to document what his gut told him was important at the time.

Maybe, someday, it would be worth it. Maybe he’d get paid. Maybe he’d find a girl, settle down, pretend none of this ever happened.

That was, of course, if he made it out alive.