ic The Innocent

[Avenger Assembled]

June 1, 2014 

 

Urgent phone messages were nothing new for Midnight Manor, even those that arrived at an hour of the day where no decent person would be awake. Was there crime afoot in the darkest corners of the city? Or more commonly, a cosmic threat like those that the newest holder of the Midnight legacy and his partner had so often battled? Not today. For once, the late night phone call had been for Erin. "Ms. White? This is Thomas Cleary, I'm the night supervisor here at Project Freedom. I'm calling you because Jessie White has had an incident with another inmate. We've placed her in medical isolation for now - but she's not communicating. we're hoping you may be able to help us figure out what happened."

[Electra]

As might be gathered from the name, evenings at Midnight Manor usually didn't wind to a close just because the clock turned over. With a heavy rain putting a damper on both crime and patrolling, Erin and Trevor were spending the evening in the garage, restoring a heavily modded Graham Blue Streak from the late 30s while Erin learned the ins and outs of rebuilding a transmission. Information fatigue set in around midnight, and by a quarter past twelve, she was seriously evaluating the tactical considerations of necking in a half-built car with no backseat. The chiming of her phone interrupted these pleasant ruminations, and by the time the caller introduced himself, all other considerations had fled. 

 

"What kind of incident?" she demanded, dread curdling in her stomach. "Did she hurt somebody?" Is anybody dead? Pinning the phone with her shoulder, she began skinning out of her coveralls and wiping off her grease-smeared hands. "I can be there in twenty minutes." 

[Avenger Assembled]

"There was an altercation with another inmate," replied Cleary, his voice sounding fatigued. "We're talking with Aquaria and some of the staff and other residents who witnessed the event. She has some minor lacerations and the man she fought with has a concussion and a broken arm. There was an argument, one we're still trying to understand, and it became violent. If Aquaria hadn't been there to help keep them apart, there's no telling how the situation might have escalated. With their abilities, physically they'll both have fully recovered within twenty-four hours - but we can't let this kind of thing happen at Project Freedom without knowing what caused it. I'm calling in another expert to deal with Roland Accolon, the inmate she fought with. We need to get answers, and soon, or they both may have to be remanded to a psychiatric facility - and that's not something either of them deserve." 

[Electra]

"Roland Accolon," Erin repeated aloud. "I don't think I recognize the name." She looked toward Trevor, silently asking for help. If Singularity- if Jessie was becoming violent again, she wouldn't be remanded to Providence, Erin knew. Her history was too blood-soaked, the chance of disaster too great. If she lost Project Freedom, she would return to the quiet darkness of Blackstone's psych wing, possibly forever. "I'll be there right away," she said again. "Let her know I'm coming." 

 

She hung up the phone and held it in her hand for a moment, feeling the overwhelming temptation to hurl it into a wall and watch it smash into a million pieces. Everything had been going so well for Jessie, over a year with no major incidents. Even the freakish temporal displacement that had turned Project Freedom into a medieval monastery for a day hadn't been enough to freak her into attacking anyone. What could've gone wrong now? "I have to go to Project Freedom," she told Trevor. "Jessie attacked another resident and broke his arm, and nobody can figure out what set her off. They're talking about sending her back." 

Edited June 1, 2014 by Electra

[Avenger Assembled]

Blue Jay's phone rang too, a rather surprising eventuality for someone who was supposed to be following  a curfew. She'd been on campus this late before but only when patrolling, not when she'd been summoned by the powers that were - at least on the high school level, anyway. For a surprise, a summons to the headmaster's office didn't give her the headmaster at all (it really was a little late for a man his age to be awake, anyway), but rather a woman of early middle age who Blue Jay recognized as Callie Summers, the headmaster's daughter and one of the board members of the school. She was younger than the old man, with Eurasian features and piercing brown eyes, but she had the old Summers steel in her voice as she said, "Baudin. Tell me about Roland Accolon." She steepled her fingers and bestowed a penetrating gaze on the younger woman. It was not a name Blue Jay had ever heard before. 

[Gizmo]

Trevor had already retrieved their jackets by the time Erin had hung up the phone, stopping briefly to ask Redbird to transfer herself into a vehicle more appropriate for the heavy rain. With the autonomic machine intelligence projecting her statuesque chauffeur hologram in the driver's seat of the stately black sedan, the Hunter heir was free to pull up his dossiers on Project Freedom's inmates. It had seemed prudent to keep close tabs on the program's roster of at-risk metahumans and convicts once Singularity had been accepted, particularly given how regularly both Erin and Eve had been visiting Jesse. He'd been keeping his distance for the most part, by contrast, not entirely sure where the two-time dimensional refugee's experiences with his own Anti-Earth doppelganger, The Blank, left them and not wanting to place any additional strain on her apparently fragile stability.
 
"Roland Accolon," he read aloud, skimming through the document on his handheld tablet. "Hnh. Low-level metahuman. Picked up off the streets, talking about sorcerers... Tt. Just after you stopped Merlin debacle."

[Electra]

With no research to keep her busy, Erin spent the car ride staring out the window and fidgeting, resisting the urge to tell Redbird to drive faster. The information on Accolon brought her to full attention. "That can't be coincidental. Most people don't remember anything about that little reality bubble, but he might be another one with some kind of temporal anchor. If he suddenly got dropped into sword-and-sorcery world and didn't find anyone else who knew anything was wrong, he might have gone a little nuts. But it doesn't explain him still being in custody, or why Jessie would go after him now. I wonder if he started talking about other dimensions or something like that, something that brought up bad memories." 

 

Erin tugged lightly on her own hair. "I really thought we were past all this by now," she admitted. "I thought maybe she could finally have some peace after so much violence. But maybe it's too late," she mused softly, turning her head to look out at the dark and the rain. "Maybe she was too broken, and deep down the violence is all that's left in her." 

Edited June 2, 2014 by Electra

[Raveled]

This wasn't the first time Tona Baudin had been woken up in the dead of night, alarm ringing in her ears, but it took her a long minute flailing in her sheets to realize that there was no attack, no Omegadrones swooping in from the sky to pluck her away to the meat factories. Instead, it was her cell phone ringing.

She grabbed it and hunted for the key to press to make it be quiet, wasting precious seconds before she remembered that she had to hold her finger down and move it across the front of the device. She glanced over at her roommate, but Cerys was still asleep under the moonlight. "What is it," the archer hissed into the phone. The voice on the other end told her to report to the headmaster's office. To a young woman used to midnight raids and flitting across a city's rooftops at night, it hardly seemed the oddest request.

A few minutes later she was standing in the office in rumpled jeans and flip-flops, listening to Callie Summers. She didn't much look like the old headmaster, at least until she shot a gaze that bored into the girl. Tona stood silent and still for a few minutes, thinking furiously. "I... have no idea who that is," she admitted finally. Her heart rate had barely recovered from the adrenaline surge earlier and now it ratcheted up again, as she wondered at the point of this midnight pop quiz.

Edited June 2, 2014 by Raveled

[Avenger Assembled]

"He's currently a resident of Project Freedom, a city program designed to redirect meta-criminals into more productive areas." Summers leaned forward, her eyes still locked on Blue Jay's. "Moved there from Providence. Considered a psych case - delusions of sorcerers destroying the world. Earlier tonight he attacked another patient, one who bears a striking resemblance to Wander. And now he's evidently talking about you. He used your code name, geai bleu, and now he's known to be violent. Could let adults handle this." She shrugged smoothly, another thing that the elder Summers didn't do much, and leaned back in her seat. "Thought you would prefer to manage your own affairs. I've told Project Freedom to expect you as a consultant."

[Gizmo]

"Benefit of doubt," Trevor suggested in a voice almost imperceptibly more gentle than his usual soft, even tone. "Made progress. One mistake doesn't make that untrue." Continuing to scroll through the document in front of him at least in part to maintain the veil of nonchalance over his assessment, he grunted. "Hnh. Might not be a mistake, even. Few names here worth punching." The rehabilitation goals of Project Freedom was laudable and had unquestionably had its notable successes but some of its benefactors strained the limits of deserving a second chance by his estimation.

[Electra]

"A few I think we've punched before," Erin agreed with a faint smile. "But not some harmless low-power crazy with a temporal anchor. You're right, though," she concluded, slumping back against the seat. "Benefit of the doubt. Maybe there's part of the story we just haven't heard yet. Guess we'll find out soon, we're almost there." The lights of Port Regal were mostly dimmed at this late hour, but she could still recognize them from plenty of visits. "You might want to stay back just a little at first. It's been awhile since she's seen you, and she'll probably be scared if she's not in some kind of rage fit. We talk about you sometimes, but I don't know that she remembers what you look like."

[Raveled]

Sorcerers? Attacking Wander, and now talking about Blue Jay? She could only consider one possibility. "I don't know how much help I can be to Project Freedom," Tona said, speaking slowly and picking her words with care, "but I do not relish the idea of someone being hurt because of me." She felt a stab when she remembered the Day of Wrath, when someone used her face to get close to her friends, and tried to kill them. Intellectually she knew this wasn't the same situation, but it was close enough for her to feel guilty.

She shuffled her feet for a moment, working through steps of a plan. "Um. Would it be possible to... get a ride to Project Freedom?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Thomas Cleary was waiting for Erin and Trevor when they arrived at Project Freedom, the facility itself as usual looking like one of the many old mansions in Port Regal now given over to apartments. Only the sign on the facility wall, and the security cameras on the high brick walls and fences that surrounded the yard, suggested anything was out of the ordinary. "Come in, come in," Cleary told them, like most people in Freedom City looking very glad to see superheroes. "I have Ms. White and Mr. Accolon as far from each other as possible; he's in the clinic and she's in her room. Under guard," he admitted unhappily. "I can't understand what happened. She's been doing so well lately; they both have," Inside, the front room of the Project looked like an upscale bed and breakfast, barring a few small modifications like the bulletproof glass in the windows and the security cameras that looked to be nearly everywhere.

 

This late, especially after a fight, the residents were in bed - with at least one exception. When they reached the second story that held Jessie's room, her suitmate Aquaria was in the hallway outside Jessie's room (along with the two armed guards), her big froggy eyes staring at them for a moment before she croaked "Mr. Cleary! You've gotta let Jessie out! There's no way that was her fault!" She hopped closer, her greenish skin nearly the same color as the walls. "You should put that crazy French guy in Blackstone, not her!" 

 

"Aquaria, we're just making sure Jessie is all right," said Clearly reassuringly. He sounded pretty tired. "And Roland too. Now, Mitch and Harry here," he said, glancing at the guards, "can handle this. If you want to speak to them when they're done with Jessie, feel free. I'm going downstairs to greet our other expert - the Raven has recommended Blue Jay speak with Mr. Accolon, as he's been mentioning her during his recovery." 

[Gizmo]

As Erin had suggested, Trevor hung back in the hallway once they arrived at Jesse's door, giving the pair of guards a faint expression of acknowledgement that could have been interpreted as a polite smile but which possessed an undercurrent of appraisal from behind the his sunglasses that left the highly trained and capable men feeling vaguely uneasy. The soft spoken heir's body language remained relaxed, even slightly hunched as he gave his girlfriend an encouraging tilt of his chin before turning to the amphibian looking woman with a more overtly friendly manner. "Hello. Trevor Hunter," he introduced himself, extending a hand. "You're Jessie's roommate? Did you see what happened?"

[Electra]

Erin nodded to Trevor, ignoring the guards for the moment, before squaring her shoulders and heading for Jessie's room. She knocked lightly before opening the door and looking in. "Jessie? It's Erin. Can I come in?" 

 

There was a beat of silence, then a soft "Come in," from a voice so identical to her own that it still threw Erin a little even now. Erin pushed open the door and walked inside, shutting it behind her. The room was dim, lit mainly by the study lamp on the desk, but it was bright enough to see by. Jessie was sitting in a chair by the window with her gaze turned to the skies, her concentration complete enough that she didn't so much as glance at her visitor. Erin took the opportunity for a quick visual inventory. Despite the late hour, Jessie was fully dressed, wearing several layers of clothes unless Erin misjudged the slight added bulk of fabric all over. Her pockets were full, though nothing whose outline suggested a ready weapon, and she had a bag at her feet. Looking at the walls, Erin saw empty spaces and leftover sticky tack where pictures and photos had recently been hanging. 

 

Keeping her steps measured and slow, Erin walked to the bed and sat down. "What's this all about?" she asked carefully, gesturing to the bag. 

 

"I want to be ready," Jessie explained without turning her head.. "There might not be time to pack later." 

 

"Where are you planning on going?" 

 

"They're going to send me back." The lack of emotion in the words chilled Erin's skin. She knew it was how she herself sounded when there was too much going on inside to risk letting any of it out. "To Blackstone or... I hope to Blackstone." 

 

"Why would they do that?" Erin pressed, wishing not for the first time that she had some actual people skills to bring to bear. "Did you do something wrong?" 

 

"I killed Roland's family." Now Jessie turned her head, meeting the eyes of her counterpart. "I don't remember it," she continued hollowly, "but he told me so." 

[Raveled]

Callie Summers sped through the streets of a sleeping Freedom City with the sort of disregard for speed limits that only enough wealth to buy a Ferrari car dealership could bring. Tona spent the rid clutching what support the passenger seat had, eyes shut and heart beating like a hummingbird's. At least the ride forced her to focus on her own terror, not on the situation.

When they arrived the girl took a few minutes to let her legs recover from being jelly, and then they were marching up to the sanatorium. The guards frowned at her quiver and bow, but didn't make a matter of the many sharp edges she was bringing into a building full of the mentally disturbed.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Raveled

[Avenger Assembled]

Thomas Cleary, an older man in his mid-fifties, was waiting for Blue Jay on her arrival. "Welcome to Project Freedom, mademoiselle." He shook her hand, and walked with her into the building. This was Tona's first time at the facility, which looked more like a high-tech college dorm (at least from the movies she'd watched) than what she knew about Earth prisons. "Mr. Accolon is waiting in our medical unit, under guard." Cleary shook his head as he led the way through the hallways of the facility, the noises coming from some of the rooms letting Tona know some of the residents were still awake. "It's such a shame; he was doing so well! He and Ms. White both." He shook his head as they reached the medical bay, looking a bit like a hospital floor, where a wooden door (and the guards) separated the resident within from the rest of the facility. "He's in there. Are you sure you're comfortable with this?" The middle-aged civilian was obviously worried about her, even as the guard took her weapon. 

 

Peering past the door, Tona could see a man with a badly-bruised face staring with hawk eyes at a small television against the wall; his head bandaged and arm in a cast. He was not an immediately familiar face, with a short beard and sharp nose, but there was something familiar all the same about those craggy features. When she stepped inside and addressed him, those eyes locked on her with a cold, bitter fury. "Are you here to kill me, then, witch? Do the job your pet monster couldn't finish?" 

[Avenger Assembled]

"I did!" croaked Aquaria. "It was awful! Jessie was just washing pans like she usually does, when that weirdo guy came over and started yelling at her!" She waved her long, suction-cupped fingers for emphasis. "I was jamming to the music so I couldn't hear anything at first, but when I turned around he was saying..." She cleared her throat, thick muscles in her neck bulging, and said in what was obviously an impression, "Murderous devil-witch! What have you done with my family? With all that was? You killed them! You killed all of them!" Aquaria pulled a brush from her belt and gestured, "And Jessie was putting up her hands over her face, and so Roland grabbed this knife and he cut her face, super-duper-fast! He must be really fast to cut Jessie, she's super-tough." She blinked those huge eyelids and went on. "Anyway, that's when Jessie grabbed his arm and broke it! Just like this!" She bent her elbow in an alarming direction that turned out to evidently be an ability of hers. "And then she kicked him in the head so he went through the door, and then the guards showed up and she started crying, and it was awful!" 

[Gizmo]

Retrieving a silk handkerchief from inside his jacket, Trevor wiped the mucus from Aquaria's handshake from his fingers as politely as possible, listening attentively to the frog woman's recounting of the conflict. It was sounding more and more like Accolon had some connection to the medieval world that had briefly rewritten reality and if he was looking for someone to blame for the truth reasserting itself it occurred to the dark haired detective that it hadn't been Jesse he recognized but someone with the same face. Letting out a slow, silent breath, he pinched the bridge of his nose with his empty hand. "Hn. Thank you. Beginning to understand." Taking note of Aquaria's continued distress, he added with the slight hesitation of someone unused to providing comforting words, "Don't worry. Be alright." At least so far as one extradimensional White was concerned.

[Raveled]

Blue Jay paused before entering the room, observing the man for a moment. He seemed intensely ordinary, with no glow of powers or obvious weapons on him. Still, he had attacked someone and it had been serious enough to call her out in the middle of the night. That accorded respect, so she stood just outside of range of a lunge as she addressed him. "I am not a witch," she said, keeping her tone flat and calm. "I didn't come here to kill you, and I don't know any monsters." She stepped closer, keeping her eyes fixed on his as she switched to her second mother tongue. "<Why don't you tell me why you tried to kill someone and were shouting my name?>"

[Electra]

"Well that can't be right," Erin told Jessie, trying to inject her voice with a confidence she wished she could feel. "You've been monitored every minute since you came here, by me or the Blackstone guards or the staff here. And we know you haven't killed anyone." 

 

"But I was here before," Jessie retorted in that same hollow tone. "You went into my box, and I came here. And... and it was bad." 

 

"I didn't think you remembered that," Erin said softly. 

 

"Only parts," Jessie admitted. "Psyche couldn't sort out everything that was erased or changed. But my therapist showed me the videos from the office building." She blinked when Erin made a noise that was suspiciously like a growl. "He says it's important for me to own my crimes, even the ones I don't remember, so I don't forget how dangerous I can be." 

 

"That's stupid," Erin shot back, shaking her head vehemently. "He never should've made you watch that. It wasn't really you, it was what happened when you were crazy with fear and so messed up in your mind that you barely knew what was happening. That wasn't your fault." 

 

"Two people still died," Jessie pointed out evenly, drawing her legs up into the chair and wrapping her arms around them. "I don't think their families probably care how I felt." She ran a hand over her cheek, perfectly unmarred but for a line of dried blood. "I don't think Roland thinks it wasn't my fault." 

 

"Then he's wrong," Erin maintained, her voice even. "But I don't really  think that's what this is about. Can you tell me exactly how it happened when you fought him?" 

 

Jessie shrugged. "It was after dinner and I was washing pots and pans, cause that's my job this week. It was lasagna tonight, and it's hard to get everything off without bending or breaking the dishes, so I was concentrating on that. Roland... I think he was sanitizing the hard surfaces tonight. But he was in a weird mood, being jumpy and mean and staring out the windows all day. He brought his bucket over to the sink, but he was staring at me." 

 

She twitched, her arms tightening around her knees. "Just staring, like he was getting angrier and angrier. So I asked him what his problem was, and he started just screaming at me." Her body jerked slightly, as though physically recalling the moment of shocked surprise. "About how I killed his whole family, and I was a murderous witch, and I didn't know what was happening! And I could feel-" she shifted uncomfortably, "I could feel a flashback starting, and I think I put up my hands, but I didn't want to hurt him! But then there was a knife, and blood, and..." Jessie trailed off, staring at her knees as one hand idly rubbed her cheek. "I didn't mean to break his arm, or put him through the wall. I just forgot." 

[Avenger Assembled]

"<Then it was the golem, then, or the circus freak with his spellbook. Never mind that. I saw you together, and I know you for what you did. You, the golem, the circus freak, and the madwoman.>" He pointed at her with his good hand, limb trembling with pain and suppressed emotion. "<Did you turn on each other? Is that why she's here with her mind taken like everyone else?>" The hand fell, pain twitching on the man's face. "<Aye, I remember, girl. I remember the world that was, before you devils swept it away behind yon cloak of lies and treachery.>" His face hardened into a snarl, but his voice never rose above a pained whisper. "<I had thought I had fallen into a doorway between worlds - I had done my penance for wounding those constables, and I would have gone to find my way home from here. But then I saw you on that box, with that Congressman, and then the circus freak, and the others. I only knew the madwoman tonight, when I heard her speak and I knew she was the last of you.>" He tilted his head back. "<Kill me if you dare, but God will strike you down for all you did.>" 

 

-

 

"Oh, that's great," said Aquaria. "They get some pretty bad people in here, you know, for surfacers and all, but Jessie's not bad. And she's really understanding!" She blinked her eyes and looked at Trevor for a silent moment that stretched on just a little awkwardly. "Is it true you have a lot of gold? I mean, money? Because I've only got another month here, and I don't want to work one of the boring jobs. I mean they're good, but they're not super-good, and the grease smells really bad!" 

[Raveled]

Blue Jay blinked and put her head to one side, trying to figure this out. The madwoman, the circus freak, and the golem? One of which was in this building. Jay was fairly certain that no one from Claremont was at Project Freedom or a sanitarium. But Callie Summers had said that Wander had a double here. Thinking about Wander lead her to thoughts on the Curator's world. Harrier could be the golem, and Bee-Keeper's costume was colorful enough. The only thing she couldn't figure out was why Accolon would care.

"<I don't kill,>" Blue Jay said. She didn't add on this world. "<What exactly did we take away from you, though? That world was horrible.>"

Edited June 9, 2014 by Raveled

[Gizmo]

Trevor blinked one behind his sunglasses as he reprocessed Aquaria's abrupt change in subject, distracted as he was by more pressing matters, watching for Erin to come back into the hallway. "Engine...? Ah. Fast food grease. Reasonable." Meals that came in dripping paper bags hadn't been a fixture in his childhood and he'd found that where some of his classmates at Claremont and later FCU found the instantly recognizable aroma of chain burger joints nostalgic and comforting he mostly found it mildly nauseating. It wasn't hard to empathize with the amphibian woman's desire to avoid that sort of employment. "Wealthy, yes, by some measures. Hnh. Not the time but could assist job hunt. Skills?" The Hunters didn't own any large businesses directly but between a truly impressive portfolio and numerous contracts they did have significant pull when they cared to exert it. If Aquaria was remotely employable he suspected he'd be able to at least get her an interview somewhere promising. It was actually a bit of a refreshing change to help someone in his civilian identity.

[Electra]

"So he attacked you first," Erin repeated slowly, wanting to make sure she had everything straight. "He yelled at you and he came at you with a knife, and that's when you fought back?" Jessie nodded, back to looking at her knees as though she had answers printed on them. Erin took a deep breath, made sure her voice was totally calm, as reassuring as she could be. "All right. I need you to stay here while I go talk to Mr. Cleary and some other people. But I promise, I promise," she repeated, crouching next to her counterpart for a moment, "you're not going back to Blackstone, or anywhere else. You didn't do anything wrong tonight, and that's what matters." 

 

Erin could feel Jessie's eyes on her back as she walked out, and knew that her counterpart probably didn't truly believe a word of that. Once enough bad things happened to you, it got a lot easier to just stop believing that life could get better. She wondered for a moment how it would feel to worry that one day she could be permanently jettisoned back to EZO1 without a chance to so much as say no, but the thought was disturbing enough that she didn't want to hold it for long. She had too many other things to think about right now. 

 

In the corridor, she nodded to Aquaria but zeroed right in on Trevor. "Where's that jackass Cleary gotten off to?" she asked, her voice quiet and full of wrath. "I want to ask him why he didn't think to mention ahead of time that Jessie was attacked with a knife before she started hitting back. And I'd like to know why she's locked in her room and wondering if she's upped her body count now because of some psycho's ranting. And I'd like to know why her shrink-" She broke off and shook her head. "No, I'll save that one for another day. Cleary first." 

Edited June 10, 2014 by Electra