BlessedWrath

The Lodge Outside of Segaso City (RP is now closed by GM)

Sam gently pressed her back against the door and cast her eyes downward. She had been granted a temporary reprieve from social contact; the first, she felt certain, in weeks. She pressed two fingers against both temples and squeezed her eyes shut as the pain from her concussion asserted itself once again. The patterns of flashing light beneath her eyelids might have been interesting -even entertaining- under more benign circumstances. Today, in this strange place, surrounded by unknowns and hostiles alike, she seemed capable of feeling only one thing.

As she tried to sort out her thoughts, the memories became a jumbled mess of past, present, and her hopes and fears for the future. She remembered briefly wondering when these periods of lucidity would grow to be longer, or more frequent, than those of detachment and confusion. The thought seemed to come from outside her own mind, and she tried to discover where.

From the window, Sam observed geysers of flame, issued forth from an unseen source somewhere near the lodge. From her vantage, she could not determine their origin; the slope of the roof would not allow it. The aggressive orange glow felt vaguely comforting to her and, for a time, she just watched. It would be the first moment of peaceful reflection granted her in ages.

The Lodge Outside of Segaso City (RP is now closed by GM)

Nora pushed her glasses up with an index finger and took on a tone which, for an instant, reminded Sam of her mother. It was not a negative memory this time; not a complete memory at all, but rather just a feeling of familiarity. She could be as curt and concise as this, but still retain a measure of professionalism which robbed the listener of any definite confirmation of ill intent. Nora took on that authoritative neutrality and Sam marveled at the irony of such vast distances failing to separate her from those memories.

"So she's violating orders..." Sam mused. That took some of the fire out of her eyes. Her expression softened, perhaps not considerably, but enough that an eye for detail might register the change. "Kinda risky, doc. Maybe you're not as bad as I thought."

"Maybe..."

She perked up again at the mention of her laptop. She'd forgotten all about it! There had been some mention of a fluid handling system onboard, but Sam had not had the time to investigate what it was, or what function it served. For all she knew, it could be a defense mechanism.

"New priority," she told herself firmly. "I need that laptop."

She kept silent for Nora's speech, in its entirety. It felt odd, but she wanted to say something to her. That compulsion felt out of place, and Sam sectioned off perhaps a bit more of her concentration than warranted to figure out why. Instead, she struggled against pins and needles to rise from her half-crouch, half-sitting position. She winced and resisted the urge to shake it out; the circulation would return on its own, in due time.

"Sounds good, Doc." She returned to her standing policy of avoiding eye contact and shuffled toward one of the empty rooms, pausing in the doorway to give a fish-eye glance at Nora. "I'll, um...I'll try to stay out of the way." With that, the door quietly clicked shut behind her.

The Lodge Outside of Segaso City (RP is now closed by GM)

Samantha Cole had many failings, but her sense of hearing was not on that list. Neither was her power of observation. She knew someone was coming up the stairs even before "the doctor's" messy spray of golden hair rose above the edge of the floor lining the staircase. Her footsteps had been quite a bit lighter than Jaiden's build would have allowed, and even Ashley seemed unlikely to produce this little vibration in the floor as she climbed. With the departure of Her Royal Ladyship of Stabbingshire, that left only one candidate.

Nora was breathing too heavily for a casual pace, and much of the noise of consumption from the kitchen had died down minutes prior to her appearance here. That meant she'd been specifically searching for Sam, and that there had been at least some urgency to that end. Sam could not decide if she liked that; especially combined with her almost too-cautious approach.

"I'm not a wild animal, doc..."

The forced smile topped this particular sundae with a proverbial cherry. These were common tactics for psychologists; try to link positive emotions with the discussion, attempt to steer responses toward 'acceptable' behavior, etc, etc. She couldn't hide a scowl as she took her arm away from her face and glared at Nora from beneath wild black bangs. It could have been the lighting, or just the way her brows knit together, but her eyes took on an acid green tint in that moment that seemed almost dangerous.

"I don't even want any of his shit." She spat, ice hanging from every syllable. "What would I do with a crotch rocket-" she took the time to lean forward slightly, forming every word with a percussive precision engineered to communicate contempt. "-in the middle of the fucking woods?"

She scoffed to prevent her voice from cracking, but the moisture in her eyes betrayed her emotional state. It had been too much, too fast. In weeks past, she'd have burned her assumed identity, her base of operations, any tech which might have IDed her, and just vanished. She'd have set up shop in another town. But this was not Earth, and she was flying blind. Sam was nowhere near any of the resources she needed to put this all behind her. For the first time, she would have to face her enemies directly...even if she did not yet know they weren't enemies.

"I do remember you, doc." She finally continued. "But if this is some kind of mental ward, you're doing it wrong. Your security is trash, there are zero guards, and you haven't even pushed any pills yet." She nodded toward the high ceiling and extravagant decor as another point to make. "No place I've ever been looks like this. Maybe it is legit. But...if that's true, and you really are just babysitting a bunch of freaks for The Man..."

She trailed off, trying to think of the right words. A tickle on her cheek prompted her to wipe her eye, and she just laughed. This was not who she was. Sam had fought all her life to contain the liability her emotions represented, only to lose that fight in front of a demoted Suit and a bunch of renegade Supers?

"Why help me?" she finally managed. "If you're not just trying to cash in on these 'talents', then why help me? I give it ten minutes before the government knocks on that door and takes me anyway. That is if you haven't already called them."

"All I want is to finish what I started and live in peace. As long as they know where I am, I can't do that. So, try to understand why I can't give you a name. Until I get away from them, I'm Jane Smith, and I am absolutely nobody special."

The Lodge Outside of Segaso City (RP is now closed by GM)

Sam lifted an eyebrow before she could force her face to remain neutral. "Shifty?" she repeated, incredulously. "Says the guy who eats trees with tentacles." She cleared her throat and stood, the backs of her knees thrusting the chair backward. It scraped and squeaked against the tile floor, almost toppling with the force applied. She grabbed her plate and avoided eye contact with her would-be savior.

The plate clattered in the sink. She hadn't meant to abuse the stoneware, but it happened. She felt her cheeks burning. Her first reaction was to question why, but her mind immediately shifted to his know-it-all, superior tone.

"Who the fuck does he think he is, anyway?"

She realized she'd been standing at the sink for several seconds when her eyes focused, producing a view of white knuckles curled around the edge. Her expression softened and she let go of the counter. She had to keep cool, at least for now, or she might risk losing out on her ticket out of this place, or worse. The thought of alien interrogations made her swallow her pride and turn to face the doorway to the main area. She tried to take a deep breath, but huffed it out as an exasperated sigh. On her way past the table, she paused to glare at Jaiden.

"I would say 'eat me', but, in your case, I don't want to risk being taken literally."

She breezed past him, refusing to look at anything but the opposite wall, and disappeared up the stairs. Her footfalls were not light, despite her desire to prevent any display of emotion. First the government, then the mafia, then actual bloody aliens, and now she's to be lectured by some shape-shifting wannabe rebel? She reached the living quarters before realizing there was nowhere else to go. She didn't even have a room to stay in.

"Way to go, Shirley Temper..." she chided herself, her back thudding into the linen closet. She slid down into a sitting position and buried her face in her arm.

The Lodge Outside of Segaso City (RP is now closed by GM)

Sam had to choke back an incendiary retort, which she cleverly concealed with the guise of having swallowed wrong. This lady was out of her mind if she thought Sam would be so quick to risk life and limb for a group of perfect strangers. Her addled mind had been given enough time to at least put together the components of a rational argument against such a foolish use of her time and talents; after all, she had ended up here as a result of pursuit by enemies unknown, and there was absolutely no guarantee they did not already have forces on the planet searching for her. She needed to rest and heal, and repair her craft so that she could continue her escape.

"Yeah, about that..." She reminded herself that, without the necessary materials and equipment, it was likely that fighter would never lift off again. As it was, she couldn't guarantee it would return to 100% capacity, even with their assistance. Her memory replayed Nora's comment about the several crates worth of materials and machine tools purchased by the previous owner of the property, and a surge of adrenaline distributed its prickly warmth through her chest.

"Goddammit..." she sighed. She put down her fork and lifted her eyes surreptitiously to study Nora's expression. Was she serious about those supplies, or just lying to coerce the cooperation of her new team? What about the others? She scanned them all in turn as she finished off her glass of water. None of them seemed too worried about their situation, and she could not detect any signs that any one of them had existing knowledge of the subject before Nora mentioned it.

This was the part where Sam was meant to feign interest in the expedition, then leverage her participation against Nora's willingness to part with some of that priceless scrap. But...they did not know her yet. Reluctant acceptance wouldn't have the desired impact on their trust. She had to give them something to lose before she threatened to take it away.

"Can't do anything today," she ventured, rubbing the back of her head gingerly. "I feel a little better, but I still can't concentrate. I better stay here."

"Perfect," she smirked internally. "No promises, no guarantees, no liability."

The Lodge Outside of Segaso City (RP is now closed by GM)

Sam felt herself moving, but couldn't seem to register the sensation as an actual event occurring in real time. It felt more like a dream, or a distant memory. She found herself calling up images of devices she'd studied in the past, and ideas she'd had for the future that never came. Thinking about all those lost opportunities -those many, many untraveled roads- disturbed her perhaps a bit more than it should have. The smell of fajitas brought her out of that line of thought and promptly deposited her into another.

"Now, when was the last time I had Mexican?"

Her backside touched something soft, but firm, and she became vaguely aware of something hard supporting her back. It wasn't solid; it felt more like...bars. It wouldn't have been a cage; those bars ran vertically. These felt rounded, like some kind of decorative ironwork. Her imagination drifted again, this time treating her to a grand sculpture of wrought iron in the shape of a dragon. She'd seen the gate online somewhere, probably as part of an article about eccentric millionaires and their extravagant homes.

A good minute or two passed before Sam realized she was staring at a plate. This moment of lucidity -which she could only assume would be temporary, given the fact she couldn't remember how she'd gotten here- blended seamlessly with an angry rumble from her midsection to induce a second thought about food. The same thought, however, which prompted her to eat also caused her stomach to turn.

"Looks good..." Sam forced herself to say something -anything- to prevent an awkward silence. Shrinks loved to use those on her. They would invent all manner of reasons why she shouldn't be so silent; each of those theories inevitably wending its way toward a few days in isolation, following a series of injections and a few broken noses. She wondered whether she would have received as much medication if she hadn't fought back, or whether it would have been more.

"Eat something, stupid." she scolded herself. Even if it wasn't much, it would prevent the inevitable cascade of questions and feigned sympathy which invariably accompanied a lack of appetite. Her stomach growled again, and Sam was forced to admit it was just the nausea which had made this plate unapproachable. In another time, and another place, it would already have been gone, and she'd have been spending this very moment wiping up the last of the sauce with an empty tortilla.

She carefully lifted the neatly-folded fajita with both hands and, with eyes closed from the effort of willing herself not to Linda Blair all over what was- if she was honest with herself- the best spread she'd seen in recent memory, took the tentative first bite. That was all it took to convince her. This chicken had been marinated and grilled, then simmered in its own savory sauce until it fell apart. The spices worked well together, and the crunch of the vegetables added a much-needed texture to the wrap. As she ate, she tried to remember any place local which had served up something like this. By the time she came to the end of that list, she was looking at an empty plate.

"Thanks," she mumbled, still not quite "present". Before she could stifle it, her stomach added its compliments in the way of a loud-and-proud belch, deep and resonant, which sounded like it quite literally had its own teeth.

The Lodge Outside of Segaso City (RP is now closed by GM)

"I had the weirdest dream," Sam began. She was staring past Nora, whom she did not seem to immediately recognize. Maybe it was the lack of a labcoat, or perhaps the concussion, but her voice was quiet and distant; not the defiant enemy she had been before. "They were coming to take me again." She took a deep breath, but instead of a calm exhalation, it shuddered its way out. She pulled her eyes away from the non-specific point to which they were affixed and studied Nora. She didn't see a labcoat anymore; she saw a pretty blonde girl with Coke-bottle glasses and a witty apron. She could not help but crack a smile.

"Vegetarian? Hell no. I didn't hit my head that hard." She quipped. Apparently even a concussion had little effect on her social skills.

There was something familiar about Nora. Sam could not assemble a complete memory, but she had definitely seen this person before. It was outside, she decided. There had been trees, and sunshine, and the smell of smoke. She inhaled again, and the lingering scent of grill smoke triggered another part of the memory. Still lacking enough information to piece it all together, Sam decided to leave the puzzle for another time. There were more important matters, like making sure her head injury hadn't removed more than an hour or two of her short-term memory. Everything seemed hazy, and she couldn't concentrate.

Still, presence of mind eventually won out and she began wondering where all the classic questions were. She'd expected inquiries about her name, her place of birth, or what day it was. Through this indulgent musing, Nora's voice was like a quiet murmur.

"Sorry," she eventually offered, shaking her head. "Must have hit my head. It hurts."

She pushed gently on the door frame and straightened herself, then took a tentative step. The room spun, but she fought it with deliberate care, each step a minor victory in the war for fajitas. They just smelled so damned good.

The Lodge Outside of Segaso City (RP is now closed by GM)

Sam's dreams became a nightmare fusion of the events leading up to her capture and the strange, mechanical spiders which had chased her through every twilight hour she could remember. Had they been her alien abductors, or had they been there before that? Could it be she had been watched since before her escape from Mantovani and his men?

Her dreamscape violently reshaped itself, swirling briefly into a jumble of disjointed, senseless imagery. She could hear the eerily quiet heel-toe click of Italian leather soles, punctuated by the tap of a metal-capped cane. She raised her head and made herself look at him.

"I don't really need you," he had said, pinching a transparent vial filled with a thick, red fluid between his thumb and index finger. "So your options are rapidly thinning out."

Mantovani had been pacing like a caged lion. Sam remembered this scene. He'd been trying to get her to cooperate with him of her own free will, but...she had been...less than forthcoming with the information he wanted. Had he been able to force his cell phone into her hand, or had that been another memory fouled by stress and head trauma? She couldn't remember. She did remember that he had her blood, and that it would only be a matter of time before his scientists could replicate whatever genetic oddities had unlocked her talents. She had to get that vial.

"...I'll do it." Sam repeated the three words she most regretted in her short life, with a dry throat which threatened to choke them off before her lips could shape them. "Just get me out of this fucking chair."

The scene melted into chaos once more. Sam saw herself in a metal chair, her arms splintering into countless thousands of wires which threaded through a computer bank spread out in a 120 degree arc before her. From this out-of-body view, she could see that the top of her head was missing; her exposed brain crawling with those tiny metal spiders. One of them stopped picking at her neurons for just long enough to sharply redirect its compound sensor-eyes at her. She had a split second to react before it lunged, forelegs and mandibles poised to strike.

Sam's eyes shot open, though her body did not move. The searing pain in the back of her head forced her to squeeze them shut again, and she dragged her right arm across her face, feeling for the source. Her fingers came back sticky from the matted hair at the base of her skull.

"Uuuuuuuuuuugh..." she moaned softly, so as not to give the diamond miners in her brain any further excuse to swing what she could only assume were titanium picks coated in fire ants and acid; maybe a little Ebola. It took some doing, but she pried her eyes open and cast them about from her position on the couch.

"Nice ceiling..." she noted. It was one of those "modern, but rustic" deals, where they'd gone and covered the rafters of a high ceiling with polished hardwood planks. They hadn't been stained, but...there was definitely some kind of weather seal at work. It was glossy...acrylic? Some kind of resin, maybe. That would protect it from moisture, without spoiling the natural look of the wood.

Her eyes traveled right, but she had to turn her head slightly to get anything other than more ceiling. There was some kind of balcony wrapping the wall. She hadn't seen that done before; not in a cabin in the woods. Hotels, maybe, but not places like this. Somebody had expensive taste.

Talking of taste...that was when her nose registered something wonderful. Her nostrils flared, sucking in enough air to identify the scent. That was definitely chicken.

"Spicy chicken..." she corrected herself. For the first time in days -perhaps weeks- she had a reason to get out of bed that did not directly revolve around a visit to the scrapyard. Her neck muscles screamed their defiance, but she made them lift her head off of the back of the couch. She swayed a little, but steadied herself and slowly stood.

"No hurling, Sam." she commanded herself, even as her stomach threatened to jump through her throat. Her eyes would not settle on anything in the way of a focal point, but she managed to shuffle her way toward the kitchen. Someone was cooking.

She made it to the doorway before her balance failed. Her shoulder thumped into the frame, and she curled her left hand around the doorway to keep from falling over. It was hard to concentrate. Had she dreamed the smell? She managed to slur out something about being hungry enough to eat a baby seal, but her brain wasn't working well enough to finish the joke. If not for that damnable slip-and-fall, she'd have topped it off with "club sandwich".

"Still, though...Fajitas. Totally works."

The Lodge Outside of Segaso City (RP is now closed by GM)

Previously...

Sam was not there for the tour. She found herself on the streets of New York, desperately attempting to cover her escape from federal agents. She ducked down an alley and flipped open her netbook.

"How do they keep finding me?"

She decided that her adversaries were more intelligent than she'd previously thought...and set about using that strength as a weakness. Keystrokes blended with one another as her fingers worked furiously to establish the code which would obfuscate her true intentions. The local cell network broadcast her jamming signal in a sufficient radius to deny triangulation within a few miles, then put to work an algorithm which would slowly shift that jamming signal northward. She took great care not to make her deception obvious, employing every trick in her arsenal to prevent the Feds' discovery of how she was achieving the scrambler code.

The code, as it turns out, was the important part. Whether or not an individual could interpret a scrambled signal was only half of it. What she needed was not to hide transmissions, but to hide the reason for those transmissions. With a shifting signal source, her enemy could track changes in a developing pattern and follow the trend. They would chase that wild goose to the tip of Canada before they realized they were being had.

Naturally, the prescribed reaction was to head south. Sam had seen that movie. If the Feds managed to determine that the signal shift was computerized, they may suspect it as a diversion. She therefore randomized her movements within the jamming field, keeping always within range of it, but never near the fore or aft of it. There were square miles of it to cover, and logic dictated she'd be either north or south of the phenomenon. Her true intentions were never to escape at all, but to make them think she had. Why burn resources if they can be slightly charred and later revitalized?

That had been her intention...

---

Ten Days Ago

Sam had given them the slip. She'd holed up in a dense industrial section near Detroit, Michigan, having led her adversaries into international territory. She knew that would be a jumble of paperwork and posturing, and so she was safe...for the moment.

The new facility had little to offer her. She kicked a defunct conveyor and made a face. The old warehouse still had power, and served a hell of a lot better than this run-down pit. But, sacrifices had to be made if she was to remain free. Her recent brushes with the Men in Black had taught her a thing or two about radio frequency broadcasts, and she was eager to see how they would respond in her most recent experiment. Like Ahab and his whale, Sam could not leave well enough alone. She spent the next day setting up her equipment to try again.

---

"You're not gonna get away that easy..." Sam threatened her equipment. She scrounged for a length of wire and tested its electrical properties. In a pinch, it would hold the necessary current to complete this phase of the experiment. She jammed it into the fuse box and threw the switch, half hoping, half daring it to fail. When the device failed to demonstrate any visible phenomenon, Sam slumped her shoulders and mentally resolved to punish her equipment with death-by-melting.

"Current flow is stable," she mused, probing the power circuit with a multimeter. "Electron beams...beaming..." She tweaked the phase of the CRT monitor tube array she'd salvaged, on a whim, and -seeing no tangible evidence anything had happened- set about returning the entire mock-up to position one. That is to say...she attempted to do so...

"What the fu-" she instinctively uttered, frozen in mid-stride by an unseen force. She tried reaching forward, but her arm would not budge. Her feet refused to move from the cement floor, and she found she could not even turn her head. Once her stubborn streak subsided, however, she did discover she could retreat backward, away from the phenomenon.

Sam grinned as the cat and the devil should. "Bingo..."

---

Present day, present time, The Lodge...

Sam's head lolled back, curving to match the natural shape of the back of the couch. Her jaw fell open, producing a contented snore. On occasion, her leg or arm would twitch, and a mind less acclimated to REM sleep might have suggested she was chasing something...or someone.

The Lodge Outside of Segaso City (RP is now closed by GM)

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