lucetilogs | Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

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Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

Who: All Draftees
What: This is your death. Followed by your time-traveling life and desperate bomb hunting.
When: From May 22 to May 20 to early May 23 (days 1-4)
Where: Zompania
Summary: Information post here
Rating: Varies on thread, please mark explicit material.

This post is for the draftee-only portion of the Zompania draft--the day 3 death, time travel to day 1, and then the events until the arrival of the reinforcements. Be sure to use the above info post for any plotting needs you might have. Enjoy!

Please note that there is a specific top-level comment thread for:

The day 3 arrival of the draftees and the 6 hours that follow until the bomb is dropped
Death--This thread can be treated as REFERENCE ONLY. Responding to it isn't necessary.
Threads prior to departing for Zompania--post resurrection freak outs, arguments over how to proceed, etc.

All other threading, from day 1 until the reinforcements arrive, should be conducted as normal.

Be sure to tag this post appropriately: [canon] character name

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wonderful! Guess I don't have to wonder what it's like to get hit with a rogue bolt of Shock Jockey anymore! Thank you for volunteering that, Robert!

[The more Elizabeth turns over what Robert is saying, the less she likes it. The more she's reminded of her own life being unmasked as a complete charade, influenced subtly by someone who refused to give her an honest choice. She's getting more and more upset, and finally one tear opens and settles a grainy blue image of the bedroom in her tower over them. Of course, she recognizes it immediately, shuts her eyes and pushes through the crowd and away from the tear.]

Think about this all you want, I can't-- I can't!

A rogue bolt?

[Perhaps it's because the ideas are shooting through his mind faster than he can process them. It's a reminder of the lack of infinity, of no longer being able to think in all directions at once and pursue every thought.

Or maybe it's much more base than that.

The will to survive and the anger at being unable to do so. An old scar now with pressure applied to it. A wound that went deeper than he realized.]

No.

[The word's cold, harsh.]

A rogue bolt might cause pain, but not like that.

Not every nerve in your body frying, every muscle seizing. Hearing someone else's scream in your ears and knowing you caused it.

[He's never really processed it. Never had to. That impossibly long second in which all Rosalind's warnings had crystalized. And he hadn't gotten just himself killed. But her, too.]

What happened just now? We're fine. Shaken, but fine.

You can still touch something, still speak to people. There's a life to be lived still.

[Everything at their fingertips... but nothing to be grasped. All the "somedays"... turned into impossibilities.

It's not her fault. He shouldn't be angry at her. And yet...

She's more like DeWitt than she knows. A casual, flippant remark. Meant to jolt him and steady her. But it cut deep and it cut wrong.]

[Whatever weakened siphon is still in place, whatever is preventing Elizabeth from simply opening a tear and walking them all out, has been severely affecting her ability to control what she sees and how much she sees. She can barely choose what to see on the battlefield. The second Robert starts describing it to her, she can see it, right behind him. The electricity and the screaming, and it takes all of Elizabeth's focus while she keeps her eyes shut to close it and lock herself out.]

[She's still afraid to open her eyes, she doesn't know what she's going to see. She keeps her head between her hands and tries to build up the courage to open them.]

If this is what the rest of my life is going to be like... controlled and watched by someone, trapped and unable to change anything because things are being 'suggested' to me, turned out to fight on a field with my tears malfunctioning... I don't want to live it. I can't, I can't do it knowing my life will never be my own.

...I'm sorry, I never thought about how it, the machine, malfunctioned-- I'm sorry, I didn't think, I can't fit anything together anymore...!

[There are too many things that have tried to bring the memories back.

The first Shift he went through. When the world went upside down. When he was strapped to a table. Electricity jolting through him, forcing him to relive it again and again. Remember what he did. That it was his pride, his certainty that he could fix what he'd done.

And hearing her...

It clicks.

She isn't Rosalind. Theories like this... He'll share them with her later. Poke and prod at the possibilities with someone who'll see what he does. Or maybe not, and, therefore, test his theories.

But Elizabeth...

In so many ways, she's still a child.

So, he takes a deep breath.]

Shock. [It's all that he says at first. Another breath.] That's all it is.

I'm sure... we all have our own way to try and explain what we saw. What happened.

[The artificial calm and measured warmth... is all he can give right now.]

A theory isn't a fact. I'm hardly infallible.

[Not any more.]

You were before-- I'm used to it by now, it's going to take more than this for me to unlearn it. [That's supposed to be a joke, but Elizabeth can barely even smile at it. She still can't open her eyes, but she can still see that image of Robert and Rosalind burned into her mind.]

I don't think it's shock, Robert. I think my tears are driving me insane. I can't tell what's what, I don't know if I'm looking at what's happening in this world or another one. I'm losing control over everything, I'm going to fall apart before we even start up again if I can't-- just-- get a hold of myself and stop this!

Elizabeth.

[One word. One simple word.

Robert steps forward, putting his hand to her cheek. A bit of contact, something to keep her focused.]

Elizabeth.

Look at me.

[It's a complete shift for him. Because it's easier to focus on here right now. Comfort her. Ground her.

Better than thinking about how he's failed her. What he dragged Rosalind into.

But she's closer to the Infinite than he is.

So he keeps his mind on her and now as best as he can.]

Look at me.

You can control it. You can focus.

I have seen you do it. I see you doing it. I will see you do it.

[Calm, repetitive.

Something she can hold to.]

It was, is, and will be.

Even if I do, I'm still afraid. [She finally opens her eyes, feeling miles better when she feels Robert's hand on her cheek. Something tactile, something she knows is real and happening now.]

I'm afraid this is the end. I'm not ready for my life to end, I have too much that I want to see and do.

[That makes Robert smile.

It's not a warm smile. Not gentle. But it's there.

Certain.]

It's only over, Elizabeth, when you stop fighting.

[Very true, and Elizabeth doesn't think she can bear to add any caveats or ask more questions. She'll take the encouragement and hold onto it. Really, that's all she wanted from the start was some kind of human reassurance.]

[She nods and sniffs sharply, trying to pull herself and her nose back together. Then she pushes herself into an embrace with Robert.]

[Robert couldn't help but sigh as he hugged her.]

Even if you don't --

I have faith in you.

I know you, Elizabeth. Nothing can stop you if you don't let it.

It's true... if I'm fast enough, absolutely nothing and no one can stop me. [She swallows.] I think everyone should be more afraid of that than I am, but I think it's all backwards anyway. [She forces a wet laugh into Robert's chest.]

Speed has nothing to do with it.

Determination. The will to survive.

[The words... Aren't as true as he'd like them to be. He doesn't have the conviction he normally does. But he knows what's expected, and what he has to do. So, he'll offer them.]

That is what makes you unstoppable.

That's what keeps me thinking quickly. If I see something I know I can use, I just bring it in now. I don't wait for a signal, I just do it.

I've stopped thinking about what it means when I open a tear in the middle of a crowd.

Good.

You have to embrace it. Everything, all at once. You don't have a choice about what you see, but you choose how much you let it overwhelm you.

[He'd tell her it's like swimming with a current... but she's been in her tower. It's a reference DeWitt would understand better.]

I've seen you do it. You will be fine.

[Too bad the only time she actually swam in the ocean, she was pulled into a wave and thrown. But that's beside the point--]

When you saw me do it, was I wearing red lipstick and a short skirt? [She swallows again.] Because I saw her almost everywhere I looked before the bomb went off.

She was one of them.

But there are others.

[All of them who reached that river. A place he could only see as part of the Infinite, not join. The last place he saw before the end came. Before things began to unwind.

Before everything set itself back.]

[Elizabeth figured, but that image of her was so striking that seeing the others didn't have much of an impact on her. Seeing herself making a different choice had meant nearly nothing, but seeing her staring back...]

I liked her. She looked... driven.

She...

[Robert has to smile a little. She was definitely Booker DeWitt's daughter.

She was what some version of Elizabeth had to become. And what he hoped others would never even think to be.]

She is an extraordinary woman.

[Because the Elizabeth in front of him... Is still growing up. Still a girl. Especially compared to that Elizabeth.]

[That's all Elizabeth needs. Knowing that version of her was still whole, still worthy of Robert's praise, means that she hadn't let the lack of a siphon kill her. The capacity for Elizabeth to survive without one was there. The situation wasn't ideal, but there was a strange comfort to knowing that somewhere she is functioning without a siphon. Is, was, and would.]

Alright. [She pulls away from Robert, a weak smile on her face.] We should find Rosalind.

We should.

[He needs to know Rosalind's alive.

It's not... that he actually thinks she's dead. Logically, what has been for them is for her and will be. But he still needs to see her. Needs to be sure.]

The sooner we can regroup, the sooner we can get a move on.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

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