Your hopes have become my burden. I will find my own liberation.
Forever Fall National Park
2 April 79 P.B.
6:15 AM
Blake Belladonna had been staring at the top of her tent for a good fifteen minutes before anyone decided to check on her. Not moving, not checking her PDA, nothing, just staring at the ripstop ceiling, dyed pink by the camouflaged netting that hid it from the occasional airborne patrol. She rolled over, and her view turned to off-white. This far in the Forever Fall there was no need to hide the sides of the tent from view. No one in their right mind would ever come out this far unless they didn't want to be found - and those sorts wouldn't come close enough to a cluster of tents to see who was in them.
Or what, Blake thought as she heard the rumble of an engine. Dolor was back with the week's supplies. As noisy as that beat-up old truck of his was, there was no longer any excuse for her to pretend to be asleep, certainly not with her tent being so close to the 'motor pool'.
She snorted as she sat up. Motor pool! A grandiose word for the tar paper
shack they had built this temporary hideout around. But the roof didn't leak, it was big enough for their four smaller vehicles, and the lean-to was high enough to shelter their big box truck for anything their 'woodies' couldn't handle.
Someone tapped at the pole splitting the entry to her tent. If Blake were a betting woman…
"Blake? If you stay in any longer, there won't be any hot water left for your tea."
And it was Ilia. Faking a yawn, she slid off of her cot and stood up. "I'm up, Ilia. I'll be out in a second."
Dressing quickly, she walked over to the entrance and put her mask on, adjusting it slightly so it sat snugly over her face. Red marks across the cheekbones and down the 'fangs' of the mask, along with gold piping on the jacket instead of the usual silver, denoted her status as an officer. Second-in-command of the Vale branch, in fact, but besides distinguishing between the rank-and-file and commanders, the Fang made no distinctions or alterations to the uniform within regions. To be legion in war and individuals in peace, that was the way of the White Fang.
The mess hall was the largest of the tents, and usually the busiest. Blake walked in and made a beeline to the drinks, and sighed. Already the hot water urn was being carried away to be refilled, leaving her stuck with the coffee.
With a groan, she poured herself a cup, black. She didn't even
like coffee, let alone the horrid, grainy powdered kind they used out on long missions, but it was strong and caffeinated and that was what she needed.
Especially with what was planned today.
Especially with what
she had planned today.
A voice interrupted her musing of the menu's fish options, which consisted solely of various types of vacuum-sealed tuna in tacos.
"A-ahh, Lady Belladonna?"
Resisting the urge to sigh, she turned around and spotted a new recruit. A damned
young recruit to be in a full-on combat unit of the White Fang, but Blake was hardly one to talk – she wasn't an adult either. Many of them weren't. What was her name? Bianca… Bianca…
"Moralez, I've told you, I'm not 'lady' Belladonna anymore. We haven't been in charge in years."
The mouse faunus blushed, then lowered her head slightly. "A-ah, sorry, La-Miss Belladonna. Still getting used to the…
lax structure of the White Fang. And your family was in charge since-"
Blake held up a hand. Moralez was a good kid, but she had been raised in Atlas, among a longstanding family of servants to an upper-class family, one that had a hand in a major history museum whose name escaped her. Moralez had been working there a docent before joining the Fang under circumstances she had refused to tell to anyone, even Blake, who normally was the first person anyone told.
"What is it, Moralez?"
"Right, right – Mister Taurus wanted to see you early, ma'am. Something about a change of plans to today's operation."
Frowning, Blake took another sip of her coffee. "Did he say if it could wait until after breakfast?"
"It cannot, ma'am. He's taking his breakfast in the command tent himself."
With a groan, Blake downed the last of her coffee in one swig, wincing at its heat. "I'll grab something and be right over, then."
..-. .-. --- -- / ... .... .- -.. --- .-- …
Logic would normally dictate that the command tent be located close to the center of the camp. But the center of the camp was taken up by the motor shack, and that was too noisy a place for planning, especially for faunus. So it was near the 'back' of the camp instead, opposite the shack from the mess tent and with its own back up against a small copse of trees.
Adam Taurus stood with his arms resting on a table with a map in it, flanked by two men, both lieutenants that were
de jure (inasmuch as the White Fang cared about such things) of equal rank to Blake. Lucan Calano and Walton Palmer were their names, and despite how well they got along the two men could not physically be more opposites.
Lucan was a lynx faunus, short in stature, light of build, pale of skin, with hair that was too light to be auburn but too reddish-brown to be anything else. Walton, meanwhile, was dark-skinned and bald, with square, office worker glasses that belied his linebacker physique but fit perfectly with his no-nonsense personality. An eagle faunus, how he managed to keep his
enormous wings folded so flatly and neatly was always a mystery to her. But then again, he was Atlesian.
"Belladonna, glad you could make it," Walton said. Blake nodded to him, and walked up to the map. Adam looked up at her approach and smiled. The hint of his old self was in it, but only the hint – like her mask, it hid the upper half of his face, making it impossible to read his eyes. Regardless, he turned to the other two.
"That should about do it for your tasks. Sorry you can't be at the tip of the spear, but-"
Walton sighed. "Zheltov
needs us in Atlas, and this is something the two of you should be able to handle yourselves, and if not, the people you have here should be enough. I should be able to get back within a few months."
Adam sighed. "All I really ask. Ask Zheltov if he can send anyone else, though."
"Grunwald should be free," Lucan said, then shrugged as he headed towards the exit. "But he isn't exactly the 'following orders' type."
"He has his own reasons to fight," Adam said. "If they don't always align with the Fang's, they at least never align with the
Schnee's."
Blake nodded as she walked in. Grunwald – that is, Ewan Grunwald – was a former Atlesian Specialist who was discharged from the military for being too much of a loose cannon, and as such joined the White Fang. Unfortunately, he wasn't any less of a loose cannon than before, but the White Fang could handle such people much more easily, and at least he did his job without complaint or indulging in less legal pursuits on the side.
More than I can say for some of the newbies, Blake thought darkly as she walked up to the table. Blake liked Ewan. He was honest and to the point, if a bit rough. More like the old Fang than...
"So, what've we got?"
Adam smiled again, this one a true smirk. "A good old fashioned train robbery."
"Yeehaw," Blake replied flatly.
..-. .-. --- -- / ... .... .- -.. --- .-- …
10:30 AM
"Blake, it's time."
Blake shut her book with a barely-audible snap and sighed, brushing a crimson leaf from her hair. She turned to Adam. At one point, she would have followed him into the depths of Hell.
Now, she was debating following him to a simple SDC train robbery.
"Okay."
Several minutes of running later, they stood overlooking a steep decline, just barely level enough (if you ignored the rocks) to run down without equipment
if you had aura, all the way up to the cliff edge. Not something she'd normally risk, but it was the easiest way onto the train without getting shot at. Below it, a bridge with a double-set of train tracks curved over the uneven ground. The thunderous sound of steel and crossties heralded the approach of the train, using a patented blend of Dust to keep it moving at nearly one hundred fifty miles an hour. For any normal person, human or faunus, a fall from that height would be lethal without aura.
Neither Blake nor Adam were 'normal', and they would not be falling.
They jumped, half-running half-sliding down the slope as they dodged trees and rocks at ever-increasing speed. By halfway down, they were using their legs to steer, not run. They leapt over the cliff itself, dropping a hundred feet onto a train car and digging their blades into the roof to keep from sliding off. Blake grit her teeth from the impact. Aura prevented injury, but it could only do so much about the kinetic energy that slammed through her bones.
Two cars behind the target. Sloppy. Adam must've been thinking about this as hard as she was to be this distracted. At least entering the correct car was easy. One knock from Blush was all it took to shatter the lock on the hatch. Adam motioned for her to follow, then jumped down into the pitch blackness below.
He pulled out his phone and frowned. "Lotta readings in the area on the Cognitive side of things," he said in a half-sigh.
"Should we go back for a Navigator?"
Adam shook his head. "No time, and even the SDC isn't that paranoid, not for a single train. Enter in the Passphrase, if the guards are in the Cognitive World, then so's the cargo."
Blake did so, bracing herself for the transmigration. It was an unpleasant sensation every time. A slow, throbbing vibration of one's very existence, like being too close to a metal concert's subwoofers but slower and more constant, like standing on sand in an earthquake but rougher, like being battered by the waves but on and
in every inch of your body. All while your vision faded in and out of darkness, sound flickered like a bad radio signal, and taste, touch, and smell shook at the same time.
An old Huntsman back in Menagerie had told her you never really got
used to it, you just learned to tolerate it. Three years and she had yet to develop such tolerance.
Adam recovered first, as he always did. "Looks like we're going to be doing this the hard way," he said as no less than two dozen AK-130s powered up. Their helmets clicked down in a single echoed
thunk as the railcar was bathed red by their running lights.
"Don't be so dramatic," replied Blake as she stood up, but internally she agreed. Going straight to combat mode on activation? Either the SDC knew about the raid, or they really didn't want anyone boarding this train. Both were possible, though only the latter was terribly likely.
One of the AK-130s shifted its arms to guns and leveled them at Adam.
[[Intruder. Identify yourselves.]]
A burst of blue flame expanded outward from Adam, followed shortly by one from Blake. Adam's suit and trench coat shifted at once to an old-fashioned, blue-and-white military uniform reminiscent of those of southern Mistral in the age of muskets and sail, complete with a black kepi (through which his horns protruded) and a solid chunk of silver metal covering his eyes - through which he didn't seem to have much trouble seeing. Behind him floated a gigantic murmillo, his body covered with scars where leather and crystal have replaced flesh. A white fire burned inside his helmet, and instead of a feathered plume, a pair of bull horns stuck out from holes in the top of the helmet. Blake's outfit, meanwhile, became a mix of cotton sashes, gauze wrappings, leather sandals, and leopard-prints. Her mask, such as it was, was something resembling a Sphinx's skull, but more angular and simplified - similar to the 'wolf-skin hood' of the White Fang's dress uniform mixed with the bone plate mask of the Fang's foot soldiers. Behind her was what could best be described as a feline, feminine Alpha Beowulf, wearing at once a more regal and more ragged version of her own outfit. Blue lines instead of red crossed its body, and the bones protruding from it appeared as solid gold. The gladiator carried an enormous gladius, naturally, and the feline carried a huge kusarigama with a sickle-sword of bronze instead of a kama.
Adam fired Blush again, knocking the AK-130 back, before he rushed forward to grab Wilt and cut the offending robot in half.
"We're phantom thieves," he answered.
Returning Gambol Shroud to her back and her mask to her face, Blake watched mutely as the rest of the train cars, separated from the locomotives, slowed and slowed until they disappeared beyond yet another ridge. She felt the train and her body leave the Cognitive World, but this time she didn't bother to brace herself. She simply rode the wave of nausea until she flopped assfirst onto the hard metal… floor? Deck? She didn't know, and her mind was far too occupied to care.
I actually did it!
I abandoned the Fang…
Did Adam let me go on purpose?
Her breaths came faster with each inhale and she tore off her mask, staring at it, the rails, the spot the train had once been, the mask, the rails, the spot, over and over again as her mind accelerated in lockstep with her heartbeat.
I got away!
When Sienna finds out…
She shook her head. Sienna didn't know, and she didn't like Adam to begin with. And if she disagreed with her ultimate plan, well, by the time she would know anything about it it'd be too late to stop her.
Why did Adam just stand there?
Chernov is still in Vacuo, right?
The very
thought sent a shudder through her whole body. A nice guy, Grigoriy Chernov. But he was the sort of 'friendly' only a lifelong killer with a passion for the job could be, and he was as much an expert at it as she'd ever met. He was also the preferred tool of Adam's faction to deal with deserters.
I'm finally free!
Always stop a traitor before an enemy – father always said…
I didn't betray the Fang, they betrayed themselves-
That's right – her ideals hadn't changed. Violence was one thing. But going out of your way to kill, even humans? True,
Adam only said 'what about them?', but there were others who felt the only good human was a dead one, and it was their Khurnaz-given duty to send as many to Arcadia for judgment as they could get their hands on.
Always kill a traitor – Adam always said…
But I don't plan to rat out anyone, Adam knows I would never-
Does he? Did he suspect this before?
No, no, she had to focus on her next steps. Adam was completely blindsided by this – he had to have been, that's why he just stood there staring stupidly instead of stopping her. She had told no one, written down nothing, made no indication that she was planning to leave, and she still had too many friends in the White Fang to sell them out.
Is there a trap ahead?
Did they know? Did HE know? Didheyknowdidheknowdidthey-
It was all too much, too fast, too soon, and Blake found herself spread out on the flatcar's deck, trying to force her breathing to steady, squeezing her eyes shut.
At some point she felt a turn on the track send the mask tumbling away. Leaping after it like a startled animal, she caught it in her hands and herself in a body roll, continuing until she unceremoniously slammed her back into the flatcar's safety rail. She stuffed it in the pocket of her jacket, not quite wanting to abandon it yet. It could be useful.
White Fang…
Whether by time or the blow to her upper spine, rationality returned to its rightful seat on the throne of her mind and she sat up. She was on a Schnee Dust Corporation train. A train that had just had most of its cargo stolen by the White Fang, and she was wearing a White Fang uniform. Looking herself over, she focused on the jacket and gloves, by far the most incriminating part of the uniform.
With a "hup" of effort, she got up to discard the jacket, turned around, and froze at the sight of a skinny man in an SDC Freight uniform.
A skinny man in an SDC Freight uniform with a shotgun pointed directly at her torso.
Head still tilted halfway down, she let go of the zipper and slowly started to raise her-
"Freeze!"
-hands.
Blake paused, eyeing the position of her hands relative to her body. They were pretty close to her pockets, so she-
"I said freeze!" the man commanded, sounding more terrified than commanding. Before she could retort, he realized where her hands were going and thought better. "E-empty your pockets!"
It was a struggle not to relax her shoulders, and a still greater struggle not to smile at her predicament. The White Fang had many plans for how to deal with capture, one of which she had intended to use in the first place if she had been caught on her way out. Pity she had to use it so soon, but it was far better than getting buckshot to the chest.
Oh well. Blake reached into her pants pocket with her fingers and with a scooping motion tossed the contents onto the ground. A leather wallet with a few receipts and Lien sticking out of it, a keyring with several keys and tags, one indicating it as belonging to an Orange Storange unit, and an ID. One that indicated her as an agent of the Mistralian Royal Ministry of State Security.
The guard swallowed, looking at the ID like one might a coiled snake. Slowly, he lowered the gun, and motioned for Blake to pick it up. She did so, struggling greatly to hide her relief as she steeled her expression to one of vague haughty disdain.
"Marina Calfuray, RMSS. Your timing is impeccable," she half snarled. "Don't you know it's rude to sneak up on a lady while she's changing?"
"I, ah, that-"
Blake's look of disregard turned to one of disdain. "Just go get the engineer and tell him I'll be getting off at the nearest town," she said as she turned around. "And tell him he's lucky a bit of cargo is all he lost, had I not been here, he could have lost most of his crew as well."
"Buh-But this is Vale, not Mistral, you-"
Blake craned her head around and gave him a withering glare as she continued to ignore him. Finally, the guard lowered the gun and walked off the train car and back into the distant crew car. A minute later, she caught the movement of a camera turning away to give herself some privacy.
Satisfied that she was alone enough, she tossed the jacket off the back of the train, then the black overshirt and gloves, bent over, put her hands on her knees, and vomited her breakfast onto the rushing rails below, hoping that her stress would follow.
..-. .-. --- -- / ... .... .- -.. --- .-- …
Radheath, Kingdom of Vale
That same day
6:30 PM
Blake had stayed out of the cabin for the entire rest of the trip.
It wasn't
entirely out of not wanting to be with any SDC employees, even now. It was part of it, yes, and it was also part of the Marina persona, but it wasn't why she had stayed on her own.
She needed the time to think and think on her own. She would have preferred the quiet of one of the private cabins, but she doubted her fake ID could be pushed
that far. It was less than a full day to her planned destination, anyway.
Blake arrived in Radheath just as the sun dipped below the horizon, gave the train's crew a dismissive wave, and took off at a brisk jog towards the rail yard's depot. The moment she sensed that the SDC train had left, however, she turned on her heel in a random direction and disappeared from sight among the cars. A few seconds more of running, taking turns at random, and she decided she was in the clear enough to stop.
The Radheath Marshaling Yard was a sea of dusty brown dirt and rails about one and a quarter square miles in size, broken up only by concrete truck parks festooned with wire-net fences and warehouses, and the rare scraggly patch of grass hundreds of yards long but only a few feet wide. Even under the setting spring sun, the cars were a riot of every color except black or white. It was a safety measure to make them easier to spot from the air in the event of accident or attack. It was nothing the White Fang couldn't deal with using spray paint or cargo netting, but it was better than nothing, and more reliable than a radio beacon.
Speaking of spray paint, Blake thought to herself as she spotted what she was looking for: a yellow-and-brown cargo container bearing the insignia of Boyer-Jelen Transport, with three white scratches marked onto the car itself.
Looking over first one shoulder then the other, and ensuring she was entirely alone with not even a camera's electronic eye on her, she pulled a small knife from a pants pocket and pried open the hidden compartment, containing an 'official' White Fang stash - spare clothing, a stack of Lien cards, a few water bottles, a safety helmet, and a burner scroll.
She grabbed a water bottle first and poured some of it out on the ground. Cringing at the thought of what she ought to do next, she got down and smeared the mud on her legs, arms, and shirt. Once she was suitably dirty, she put two of the cards, the fake ID, and the burner scroll in the pocket of the spare clothing, then bundled that up under her shoulder with the helmet in her other hand, and headed again towards the depot, deliberately messing up her hair with alternating hands before putting the helmet on.
The guards didn't give her a second glance as she gave them a dismissive wave and crossed the street to the Redhorse Travel Stop and hoped she would find an open shower. With all the semis and cars parked around it, and the dinner rush stuck in the drive through on the left, she was doubtful.
It took eleven minutes, a bottle of water, and a fish taquito, but she finally got her shower and emerged clean, pine scented, and dressed. A Pumpkin Pete hat, a white tank top, grey cargo pants, and black combat boots. Her old clothes were left forgotten in a washing machine at the travel stop.
She hailed a cab, taking her into the suburbs of Radheath. She then took another cab, taking her deep into the city's poorer section, stopping at a small Dust and weapon shop, where she bought a box of 9mm for Gambol Shroud. She slid her wrist through the handles of the plastic bag and took yet another cab, this time taking her out of the suburbs and to a trailer park.
Her traveling took her at last to a single-wide mobile home with a second one attached directly to it by a tunnel of corrugated rubber. Sheets of slapdash corrugated metal and plywood covered nearly every surface that did not have a window or a door, and iron grates covered every window visible except the two on each side that led to a sort of mini-deck - the one in the back was shaded with a quilt (for lack of a better term) of T-shirts from various seafood, burger, and barbecue restaurants, each T-shirt featuring a greasier old man than the last surrounded by more or more intensely sexualized women in swimsuits or less than the last. Each metal sheet had a bit of cheap-looking yellow fiberglass sticking out from underneath. There were even pyramids of metal on the roof and at the rear of the… domicile, and the far end of the second mobile home's roof was festooned with a forest of antennas and CCT dishes. At one point, it may have all been spray painted blue, or white, or gray, but it had faded into a dirty mix of those and browns, as had the pickup truck that was as ancient as it was enormous resting in the patchy grass yard. The truck was no escapee of the carnage. Its bed, as long as the crew cab and hood combined, was covered in boxes, old plastic toys, discarded beer cans and bottles, and a tarp lazily tossed over the lot of it. The metal trailer behind it had a tarp hiding some kind of large side-by-side beneath it. The yard itself had a few lawn chairs, plastic flamingos, empty beer boxes, and a small banner on a metal pole proudly proclaiming that anyone reading it was now in range.
It looked like the typical rural trash house. That was the point, and only someone like Blake would know better.
Hanging from the truck's winged pig hood ornament was a wooden sign that read "THE DOC IS IN, Y'ALL COME OVER". Leaned up against the rear wheel was a trio of white Bear Claw energy drink cans at an angle, though one had been knocked over by the wind. She propped it back up, then walked up to the sole balcony that had a regular door. Through the thick wood she could hear a sports game on a television she couldn't identify, as there was also music, playing much too loud to make anything out of the game. The instrumentation said bluegrass, but the lyrics said gospel. She knocked on the door.
Duncan Hosea Auburn was a short man, maybe an inch taller than Blake herself, and nearly as wide as the door. He was big but in the way that circus strongmen were,with skin ruddied by the sun and tawny brown hair that seemed unable to commit to balding. Were it not for the tiger tail, one would be forgiven for mistaking him for a walrus faunus, based on the shape of his body and the enormous mustache he sported. He wore a T-shirt with the logo of a tractor pull event on it that at one point had been white, loose-fitting jeans, workman boots, and an old watch with a leather band on hairy arms that had a distinctly orange tint.
"Bla-" he started, but she held up the fake ID. "A-ah, Marina. Yes, I remember. C'mon in, c'mon in, gonna get chilly tonight." He stepped aside and back to allow Blake through the doorway, and the interior mostly matched the exterior - a cheap table, an enormous rear-projection physical TV displaying a gridiron game between Radheath and Ansel, a huge green couch with square cushions, and a bookshelf that consisted largely of history books and maintenance manuals. Next to the couch was a minifridge that was doing double duty as an end table. Off to her left was the small kitchen, yellow with paint and yellowed further still with tobacco smoke that she didn't smell.
"Siddown, siddown," he said as he maneuvered himself into the kitchen. "Got some gaspergou I was fryin' up, was gonna have the leftovers and all m'self, but I got enough to share. Beer's in the minifridge-"
Blake shook her head. "You and I both know I'm not old enough to drink."
"Pop, then. Gotta few cans a' Dr. Piper an' Sylph in there," Duncan said, his voice trailing off as he returned his attention to the pan in front of him on a crusty gas stove. Blake pulled out a can of Sylph and watched the television. A few minutes later, Duncan came out with a pair of paper plates, each with a trio of fried fillets, a paper tub of seafood sauce, lemon slices, green beans, and roasted potatoes. Blake started to clear her throat, but he interrupted.
"Naw, naw. Food first, then we'll talk."
..-. .-. --- -- / ... .... .- -.. --- .-- …
The meal was delicious, as she had expected. Duncan had been a chef once upon a time, working at a famous seafood restaurant in Kuo Kuana while he studied forensics at the university there. When they finished, Blake had almost offered to help clean up before remembering that she had eaten off a
paper plate. Duncan interrupted her anyway by simply setting his plate on the coffee table and muting the television, before fixing her with a sharp look.
"Now, I'm guessin' ye ain't here for some a' my famous cookin'." He retrieved a silver can of light beer from the minifridge and took a sip. "So what can I do ya for, Miz Belladona?"
She held out the Marina ID and deftly tossed it onto her plate. "I need a new long-term identity. Same age as my actual one, and it has to be a
strong one for where I'm going."
"Where
are ya goin'?"
"Beacon."
Duncan froze for a few seconds, then slowly lowered his can onto a coffee-stained ceramic coaster depicting a military airship Blake didn't recognize. He puffed out his cheeks, and placed his hands on his knees.
"Beacon. You, ah, got some assignment from the Khan or somethin'? Some big grand plans fer the White Fang?"
It was Blake's turn to set her drink down. Now wasn't that the question? Was she still a member of the White Fang? Did she want to continue being a member of the White Fang, with Adam being in charge of the Vale branch and her not being familiar with any of the other cells? Could she, with her having abandoned - and some might argue deliberately sabotage - an op?
The answers came in reverse order. She couldn't possibly stay in the White Fang. Not after what she had done today. And she didn't
want to, not with Adam in charge of the Vale branch and many of the younger cell leaders looking up to him almost as much as they did to Sienna, almost as much as they once had done to her father. She couldn't, she didn't, she wasn't.
"I… may be taking a break from the White Fang," she said at last. "For a while. It's part of why I
need this ID to be solid."
Duncan sat silently, turning to the TV before Blake had finished speaking. Duncan wasn't the violent type, so at first she wasn't sure he had heard him. However, he was also the type to say what he thought instead of trying to imply it, so she waited for him to respond.
"Never could figure what-all ye saw in Mister Taurus," he said, emphasizing the honorific with more than a little lack of honor in it. "You or Sienna. Oh, I agreed that yer father's way just weren't gettin' results anymore - no offense,"
"None taken," she said as she gestured for him to continue.
"But Adam had a pow'rful temper. Much too pow'rful to be gettin' any real control of a major cell, let alone all a' Vale. Always figured one day he'd just snap." He took a swig of the beer and tilted his head towards Blake. "Did he?"
She shook her head, and shifted in her seat to face him more fully. "No, but… he was probably going to. He's been caring less and less about human casualties over the last year. Today was a train robbery-"
"Yeehaw."
Blake shot him a look but resumed without otherwise commenting. "And he made it clear he wasn't going to lose any sleep if any humans died as collateral. Not even as guards protecting the cargo - I would've… I could've borne that, I've done it every time it happened, but he- He sounded like he
wanted to kill the humans on board."
She looked down at her can of soda.
"There were
passenger cars on that train, Duncan."
He took in a sharp breath, then let it out slowly. "I'll tell Sienna. Not now, and not fer a while. Adam may be losin' his religion one prayer at a time, but he knows what he's about, and he'd take care of OPSEC himself. If someone leaked out that he tried to kill passengers on a train, he'd wanna know who."
He stood up and gave his beer can an underhand toss, landing it perfectly in a half-open garbage can. He stretched his neck first one way, then the other, then turned towards the hall leading to the second mobile home. He gestured for her to follow, walking down a narrow hall with a few doors either side, then to the 'airlock' that divided the two mobile homes. She winced as she stepped through, hurrying past Duncan on the other side as she did. The airlock's walls were made of rubber, and were perfectly happy to trap an unbearable amount of heat and humidity even on an April night such as this. The other mobile home's living room had been converted into a true mancave, with its dining room now a small bar. The first bedroom behind it was storage of a hoarder type.
"Through here," Duncan said as he deftly maneuvered among the piles of paper, glass, and metal odds and ends. Blake shoved a box of old scroll chargers aside with her foot so she could stand while still giving Duncan room to open the back door.
The 'Computer Room' took up the entire second master bedroom and the hall and bedroom next to it. Duncan had had to knock down a few walls (and void the warranty) to pull it off, but it was worth it. The entire back wall was dominated by a six holoscreen computer that either had towers on either side, or the entire desk was one giant tower. From the glow coming from within it, she wasn't sure which. A card printer sat next to a giant wardrobe on one wall, and on the other wall, a giant wardrobe stood next to a bookshelf full of textbooks, travel guides, and language primers. Everything was dark and dimly lit thanks to the shades and the hour, but there was sufficient light to see. Just not in full color, except for the screens.
Duncan Hosea Auburn may have portrayed himself as a poor old hillbilly, and in many ways he was, but he was also the White Fang's best creator of fake identities, and one of Sienna's most trusted and loyal lieutenants. With a grunt, he sat down in the supercomputer's massive chair, then gestured for Blake to sit on the small couch-like chair just behind it.
"Have you heard of Rhosmynydd?" he asked, typing away.
"I've been there a few times," she said.
"Good, good. Lovely country up there. Miserable weather all winter, but bee-a-utiful all summer. Not as big as Radheath or Argus, but bigger than Ansel. Are ya familiar with the accent?"
Blake thought for a few moments, screwing up her face, then nodded, not that Duncan could possibly have seen her expression. "I 'ave 'eard it, or ov it." She shook her head as if to clear it. "I'll need practice, though."
"You'll have it," he said. "You want somethin' that'll pass Beacon's scrutiny, then it's a good thing you asked me now, with the admission deadline in September and initiation first Monday of November. We'll have plenty of time to work on your backstory and accent."
He turned his chair to the side, revealing a photo ID of Blake brought up in an imaging program she didn't recognize. The name next to it read "Ciara Bowen," and described her as a resident of Rhosmynydd.
"Any preferences on this one?"
Blake nodded. "I don't want some haughty, better-than-you personality like with Marina. I can't stand people like that, and I always felt awful treating people like that."
"Well, how about a well-meaning hardass?"
She snorted. "Speaking from the heart?"
Duncan snorted right back. "Aw, Blake, you know I ain't no hardass, I'm too much of a big softy." His grin was positively leonine.
Blake shrugged, then nodded. "I guess I can work with that. At least it'll give me reason to speak my mind."
He laughed uproariously, then opened a word processor on another screen and started typing. Into the night the two worked, creating a whole new persona for Blake to slip into, one airtight enough to fool a wizard. Or at least one a bull couldn't sniff out as shit.
It was around eleven o'clock. Blake felt herself starting to drift to sleep, her conscious thoughts drawn away from her and Duncan's conversation about Ciara Bowen's nonexistent grandparents, and their service in the war. She'd need a haircut to be Ciara, and maybe a bit of dye. Something with purple highlights, perhaps.
She took out the mask, staring at it like one might a photo of an old friend you'd just learned had gone off to become a hired gun.
Duncan's voice cut off abruptly as he looked up, then down at the mask in her lap. In a quiet voice, he asked, "Y'gonna be alright?"
Blake took in a long breath through her nose. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, just… gonna be some big changes in my life.
..-. .-. --- -- / ... .... .- -.. --- .-- …
Forever Fall National Forest
That same day
6:30 PM
Adam sat on a cargo crate, one leg hanging off the other bent, with Wilt leaned against the crate where he could draw it at a moment's notice. His one hand was on the crate, the other was holding an apple, his eyes were on the curve on the rail where Blake, his love, and his ride out of this damned ravine (until the trucks got there) were waiting.
"A-ah, Mister Taurus, that is-"
He swallowed his bite, then shifted just enough to look behind him with his head turned all the way.
Moralez. Mouse faunus, from Atlas, daughter of house staff of some noble he couldn't be arsed to remember the name of. Good kid. Good gofer, ironically. But if she ever got the guts to fight on the front line, he'd eat his sword.
"What is it, Moralez." It was a question, but it wasn't spoken like one.
"I-well, that is, the logistics team, we've, ah, packed up all the rest of the cargo, and – ah, you haven't really moved from here, this one, all day, and…"
He raised an eyebrow.
"...well, that is, I, and Ilia I guess, but mostly me, and Perry, 'cause he's in charge of logistics were wondering, if- if it's not too prying to ask… are you OK?"
Adam didn't answer right away. He turned back to the curve on the line, and finished his apple. Tilting his neck left and right, hard enough to hear the joints cracking, he pitched the apple core off the side of the car and picked up Wilt in one swing of his arm, then turned around.
"I'm fine," he said at last. "Blake won't sell us out, she knows better. And she's not going to turn into some Schnee-worshipping traitor, either."
Smiling, he lifted Wilt onto his shoulder and walked back towards the caboose, where he could just make out the trucks.
"She just needs to find her own reason to fight."
