Capricorn - He examines the shattered spot of the mask ... "Our species ... how did we fall so low. So predictable."
Crow - "We always were. It was always our biggest problem. Free will, but without the will to use it. So we lock them inside, make them stir crazy."
Capricorn - "And then we shake the box. The plans of our fathers ... "
Crow
- "With their already vested resource still running we may as well. One after
the next and whatever's left ... we deal with our way."
Capricorn - "The stalwarts will like that first bit."
Crow - "And I'll like seeing the looks in their eyes as each of their plans fail. The virus is already fading and we've lost three labs."
Capricorn - "And the distributors have had issues."
Crow - "What kind of issues ?"
Capricorn - "What else ?" He hangs the mask on the mantle, "The Praetorian kind."
________________
One
of their distributors looking like a fashion model runs fast with a
satchel for the stairs, chased by two Praetorians unknown.
Vilner - "Circle back and rappel that window, I'll run her out the front door."
Able - "Got you."
They
fire down the stairwell as the target flees skittering the steps, then
split off for their plan. Down the stairs, while Able sets the rope and
rappel device which resists the rope's width before snapping it in.
Down
the stairs with a pause to shoot and duck getting shot at. Up to check
and keeps on running, the door bangs open and the runner is off. Out
behind her and she's gone.
From the distance, "Fuck you Praetorians !"
Vilner - He looks after the sound to no sight ... "Fuck !"
Able
- Hanging above him stuck in the rope, "She went that way." His finger
turns with him, a car starts in the distance and squeals away.
Vilner
looks around at awe of the empty streets in the daytime city, not even a
siren to answer with nothing but garbage blowing in this wind.
Able falls from the rope hard. Never has a city been so silent, a series of random deadbolts lock.
Lock-down cities all around the world ... garbage blowing in the wind from overfilled bins.
________________
Crow - Watching him finish suiting, "Your eye's gone lazy again, you've been eating."
Capricorn
- A laugh as the sunglasses go on, "I've been doing a lot more than
that." He looks at the mask and puts on the ornamental pandemmy, made
to match the suit and glasses like a full faced mask.
He
exits the limo door held for him then leads her out by hand, the press
all snapping. Mask all around, you know what time it is. Into the
venue where recognized security holds the rest off, a turn of the hall
away from the glass doors, a garbage bin filled with masks where they
drop theirs.
And to the party.
Whoever these people are
everyone here knows of them, you can see it in their fears and desires.
And though hand in hand it's clear everyone knows they're open for
invitation, so many so hopeful for each of every kind.
In the center of the room many chairs in a circle wait, but with many empty spots as they take their places.
The
music cuts with static to the similar setting in the woods, but well
before the Praetorian times. The younger Capricorn watching his father
judged in chains in the center where Ghost would later be.
Father - "It's gone too far. It is not working. These plans ... they fail to the left and to the right. You can judge me false as betrayer, but it is you who have betrayed the way. Fallen. To your own lasciviousness with all plan or reason forgot."
Capricorn - A finger over his father's mouth, "Shhh ... "
He
circles in goat's mask circles as Crow circles behind the prey.
Capricorn looks to the elders with a dark nod returned. Crow pulls the
head back by the hair and Capricorn swipes with the blade.
Father - He watches Capricorn as the blood pours out gurgling to say, "My child."
To
nightmare haunting by the furies who hold him to his blood crimes, tied
to a stone with his torso pecked and torn until one dream away he break
free, and defeats them.
He opens his eyes in the here and now,
that madness still holding them as he looks across the many empty seats,
the few filled being with his elders whose eyes are all on him.
Capricorn - "Well." A smile. "I see we're all here."
~ He takes a hard line of coke in his bedroom after the dream and looks to the ceiling fan, the music returns.
____________
Engineer - "Yah there's been a lot of equipment malfunctions. Can't keep happening. If our equipment can't be relied upon ...
Joe - "Then we rely on the soldier."
...
Engineer - "The soldiers. Rely. On their gear."
...
Joe looks to the chief ...
Chief - A sigh ... "You're right. Can't keep happening." Looks to Joe, "So when a soldier goes down behind a jammed gun ?"
Joe - Looks away, "I hear you."
Able - "I don't. I don't hear that shit at all, with all due respect sir. I did fuck up and I will honor that."
Joe - "How ?"
Able - "Hunting license."
Chief - "Doesn't matter it's already dispersed. The whole town has the flu."
Joe - "Think they'll reuse the same distributor after the chase ?"
Chief - "Not likely."
Able - "No I mean bring her in. What's funny is ... again if I may say sir."
Chief - "We keep our tables round for a reason son. Go on."
Able - "Well. What's funny is ... you don't seem to know who that was. I mean seriously. How long you all been underground ?"
Chief and Joe - Look at each other, "A while." They all look at the Engineer.
Engineer - "I ... just spent the last five years on poppy patrol."
A
plane flies, the target walks the destination's catwalk one after the
next, at many of these walks the cultists seen there in the front row.
These people live their lives in the open, and anyone who knows what they
do knows well enough to fear them, so they worship instead.
And shot by shot, step after cat's step, worship is what they do.
While city after city, mixed in someone sneezes, then back to the the glamour until the cites empty, and the catwalks on ...