trustfell | Looks like this will be a weekly thing

Looks like this will be a weekly thing

[This whole week has been awful. This whole experience has been awful. Mordecai wants to go straight to his room and deal with his frustrations, but that's not what a mayor does. A mayor takes charge, a mayor fixes what's wrong, a mayor makes things better. Even if he can't do everything on his own, he's has to do something.

Two hours after the end of the trial, the living will find another note slipped underneath their doors.]

There's cookies in the kitchen. The dining room is ready for anyone who needs a quiet place to talk it out. I'll be in the bar if you need a drink, alcoholic or something more appropriate for the underage crowd.

-Mordecai Benmont Jiminy

[There's a pile of warm chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen. Two more candles are lit at the memorial - one for the victim, one for the culprit - and Mordecai has left a pile of blankets from the storage room on one of the dining room tables.]

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[Susan's instinct is to avoid Mordecai. That's what she normally does, run or hide from the things that make her nervous. Eric always said that, and in the end it was right.

Funny, how she's more at ease facing down death than some stupid fight.

But they're still locked in this place. She can't avoid anybody for long, and anyway she's sick of watching everyone snipe at Hibiki every week. Mordecai's not exactly malicious, she thinks. He's a damned idiot and doesn't seem to consider that other people have feelings, but she doubts he's really trying to hurt the girl.

She'd almost rather he were. She knows what to do with that. Funny...

She won't spend whatever time she has left in this place scurrying around like a reprimanded child. So she walks into the bar with her head held high. If he wants to start something, let him.]

Is there any wine up here?

Susan Ashworth - wine

[With one hand propping up his head, he looks up from the notebook. Susan is alright, but her withdrawn attitude makes him concerned what she's been teaching Hibiki. The person she trusts most withdraws to her room for a huge portion of the day and snaps at so many other people...it worries him. Like many other things.]

Evenin', Susan Ashworth. I don't...want to trouble in my place. [It's almost mechanical, the way he says it. Like it's a phrase he's supposed to say, even if he doesn't feel it. He can't feel anything after that trial, only dread that he might die next. This is all a game to the Conductor. A terrible reality TV show that includes murder in addition to petty fights.]

We got quite a collection of red and white wines. I even brought some spices us here if that's more your thing.

[She arches an eyebrow a bit at that - both the warning, if it was meant as one, and the form of address.]

Susan's fine. Or Miss Ashworth, if you like. It doesn't bother me.

Red. You can pick what kind. [She likes wine okay, but she's no expert. They could never afford the fancy kinds anyway.]

Susan, then. [He rarely calls people by the last name. It's either the full thing, their title, or just their first name.]

This one's got a full body, but a bit of nutmeg is adds more flavor to it.

[He certainly knows his way around the bar, pouring the wine into the glass without a single stray drop, then eyeing the amount of spices needed to complete the deal.]

On the house, this one.

As opposed to what?

[Does he want her to pay him in little vending machine coins? But she sounds faintly amused as she takes the glass, swirling the wine inside contemplatively.]

You're wasting your wine talk on me. I never did more than pick up some cheap bottle from the store...I don't even really drink it anymore.

As opposed to regular money or gossip, that was a little joke of mine.

[He brushes that query off his mind and leans on the counter, closing the notebook.]

Most folks don't think much about what kinda alcohol they're drinkin', only care if it's the strongest thing on the planet. Never had the time or money for taste. With all this at our disposal, might as well make the most use of it.

Edited 2015-11-29 23:07 (UTC)

I suppose you're right.

[She looks at the wine, brow furrowing visibly. Dammit, don't think about it now. Not in front of him.]

It's - it's just that I had a prescription for sleeping pills before I came here. Sort of limits your drinking. [She takes a quick sip, without tasting it.] You might want to pin something about that up around here. I was going to put a note in the infirmary, but you can't be too careful.

[Siiiiince apparently some people around here don't know you can't do that, Logan.]

[He gives Susan a concerned look. He hopes she still isn't using them.]

I need to get that up here as soon as possible. I do not tolerate trouble in my place, and anythin' that involved death falls under that clause. [He rips out a page from the notebook and writes the beginning of a warning note.] Thanks. I forget that medicine from a thousand years ago had a ton of awful side effects, I don't understand how anyone could live with that.

Sometimes we don't.

It's a lot better than it used to be. But that's not saying much. [She leans against the bar, setting the wine down as she watches him write.] On the other hand, I've never had a robot try to kill me before.

If we ever do get out, and my powers let me, I need to introduce the lot of you to thirty-first century science. I don't think I woulda survived bein' stabbed out in the wilderness if it weren't for healin' gels and stitchin' machines.

Well, exchange one danger for another, right? Funnily enough, this week I remembered an incident where a robot tried to kill us all. Thankfully we have more than one quickdraw in down, and that's over.

Your world sounds so...American western.

[That's just ridiculous. He lives on Mars, how are they still operating things like that?]

Wait. What powers?

...Well, we are called America's newest frontier, after all. It's mostly a coincidence Mars is in the western sector of space.

[Fashion comes around in cycles. In a thousand years, the Cowboy Western aesthetic becomes popular again. Apparently.]

Oh. Right. See, there's these cosmic beings that form the Galaxium in my universe. The Force Galactic is what they call the omnipotent power they wield. Remember that time I talked about an evil version of the mayor of Mars killin' a bunch of people that were sent to fight it? One of those cosmic space beings was the one who picked them. Only instead of usin' his powers to save the universe, he expected us to do all the world while he - the one guy who could fix it all - stood back and watched.

...Much like the Conductor. Always the neutral party, no interferin', just observin'. That's the role he's been given in this experiment, though I'm not sure if he gave it to himself or someone else did.

[V'Stalu is a jerk. The Conductor is even worse, having been the one to create this scenario in the first place.]

Where was I? Space powers, yeah. This week I dreamed about a day where I was mayor while zippin' around to faraway moons, freezin' time, alternin' the timeline, and fixin' weather with those powers. I have no idea how I went from witnessin' the end of the universe to that.

[There's another thing he wants to add, but he stops himself when he opens his mouth and looks away. He holds a fist to his lips as his eyes stop focusing on what's in the room, but instead to the memory.]

[...well that is a dramatic reaction. Susan sits in silence for a second, watching him as if she expects the flow of mostly inexplicable words to start up again. When it doesn't, she glances around for a second, finds no one to help, and decides she had better say something herself.]

Well...I imagine you should be able to take people around after here if you like, then. If only we could figure out how he's suppressing people's abilities.

[Mordecai nods slowly.] Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was thinkin'.

[Get his powers back, get everyone out, find a way to travel to other universes, and fix everything. Everything.]

I also brought someone back to life. [He was so sure Felton was dead on Mars. His strange dream went from another adventure to a nightmare for a few minutes.] I...I might be able to bring back Luna, and Ashley and...well, anyone we want to come back.

.....anyone from here, you mean?

I'm sure I could, unless there's some restriction as to which universe the person I'm revivin' is from. Which I do not hope exists.

[And whether being dead for weeks would nullify his attempts. Felton had been dead for a mere minute, but then again, gunshot wounds were hard to fix no matter how long he was dead.]

But at least I now know why the Conductor calls me Universal and why he thought I was interestin' enough to take. But this also means that once we all get our powers back, there's no way he's gonna get away with all this.

Right...

[That's not exactly what she meant to ask.]

He has to know that. I think quite a few people here could be dangerous to him. Maybe that's what he meant when he said we'd get our chance to hold him accountable.

You know, I asked him about that rule about explicit permission to hurt him, and he made it sound like it was some kinda precaution, like he was expectin' for us to kill him eventually. Makes me wonder just how much he really wants to do this.

We might have to kill him.

[And Susan really won't care. Not if it means everyone finally getting out, and especially not if getting out means Mordecai can help ~~Ashley~~ the dead too.]

But he's survived doing this to other groups before. If he expects people to kill him to escape, that doesn't mean he'll make it easy. It just means he's prepared.

[He's taken aback and how easily Susan says that. As if killing someone is the first answer to all solutions. Shoot first, talk later. That never ends up good.]

No, there's always a way to solve problems that don't involve killin' someone. If it's a method he ain't expectin', all the better for us.

Who knows, killin' him might make things worse. What if those shadows try to avenge him?

Honestly? I think if it came right down to it, those shadows would kill us all before we got within a metre of him anyway.

[She thinks it might be necessary, not that it's an easy solution. They still haven't figured out a way past the shadows.]

But you can't possibly think he's just going to let us go.

'Course he ain't, but he seems to stick to the rules as much as he can, so we can't think it's impossible just yet. Outlaws never prevail in the end, and once we find a way to stop this experiment of his, that'll fix things.

[Now he's starting to sound more like Sparks Nevada. Of course justice will prevail. Villains lose in the end. If Mordecai can run a town successfully, he might be able to figure out something.]

There's somethin' about all this that makes me wonder if the Conductor is behind everythin'. He talks more about this experiment like a job instead of a hobby, which ain't how most mad scientists operate. He apologized for gettin' too into Asuka's execution when I asked him about Ashley.

...he told me it was human error. Something he's apparently unaccustomed to.

[Mordecai, you are hideously naive]

We talked about something like that. It's certainly not a job. He said... [She pauses for a second, looking past Mordecai as if recalling the specific wording.] ..."if anything, getting to do this is the payment."

So he ain't used to emotions, apparently.

[His guess with him being an AI wasn't too far off.]

He has a history of takin' opportunities he likes, this experiment included. Said it was payment for his service to the company that took care of him, which most likely ain't the sort of organization you want to exist in the first place. And now he's gettin' attached to us instead of treatin' us like subjects, which he doesn't like.

...Reckon he was one of the lower rank scientists before moving up to his current position.

I don't think he's getting attached to all of us. [Dryly, because we all know exactly who he got attached to, and it isn't going to happen again.]

He mentioned he became involved with them because he had some very specific things they wanted. And in return, he gets his very own little murder dollhouse. It certainly sounds like this whole thing is his pet project.

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