#i can't believe the final prologue update is also the 2000th note...an omen...

[mumblesplash]

(part 3/3)

AAAAND THAT'S A WRAP ON THE PROLOGUE!!!

Z startles awake at his desk with such violence he nearly tips his chair.  The half-empty styrofoam coffee cup wobbles dangerously.  Before it can spill or settle on its own Z-piece backhands it himself.  Cold liquid splatters the purple-gray fabric wall of his cubicle.  Another mission, another stain.

Z screams.

He manages to steady himself just as the others start to return.  It doesn’t take long, of course.  I-prime is efficient, as always.

S-piece comes to him right away, sultry and queenlike, fresh gloss shining on her lips.

Where does she even get lip gloss all the time?

“Hey, darling.” S-piece leans over the back of his chair and drapes her arms around his neck.  “That sucked.”

“Yeah.”

“Sucked bad, used teeth.”

“Yeah.”

“I liked the part where you went nova, though.  Haven’t seen you like that in far too long.”

Z’s bad mood sweetens a bit at the weight of S’s head on his shoulder and the memory of blazing destruction.

Quick-approaching footsteps flips him back towards sour.  Z-piece knows that brisk, irritating tread, would know it in his sleep. 

I-prime blazes past Z’s cubicle without a sideways glance and—

It’s not like Z ever expects much from him after a mission, but…

I-prime could at least spare a glance!

Z explodes from his chair.  He storms after I, S-piece flowing in his wake.          

I-prime presses onward, his stupid wrinkle-free shirt perfectly tucked into his pants while Z isn’t even wearing shoes.

Z wants to tear that shirt from those proud, straight shoulders and stain it with coffee and blood.

That desire chokes itself out at the sight of T-piece, motionless, slumped over their desk.  J’s standing over them, her hand hovering like an uncertain moth above their shoulders.  L’s at her side, of course.  O-prime is seated at her desk across the aisle from T’s half-cube, watching with her implacable neutrality.

And there’s something wrong about how T-prime looks sitting there, in a way that Z can’t place.

“What are you all doing here?” I-prime says, as if he hasn’t just rushed here himself.

“We need to debrief,” says L.  “I wanna get the report in before the Boss asks for one, do some damage control, but—“

“But T-piece won’t wake up,” says O.

Shapeless dread, like a cloud of needles in Z’s chest.  He wants to rush to T-piece’s side but the corridor between cubicles is too narrow and fucking I-prime is in the way.

S leans over the chest-high wall of T’s cubicle.  She takes in his still form then shoots a dagger of a glance at I-prime.

“What do you know, I?” she says.  “What happened before you came back?”

I-prime’s face remains smooth and composed.

“I cleared him as quick as I could,” he says.  “But the crush of Z-clones got to him first.”

Nausea hits Z-piece like a wave.  He shoulders past I-prime and forces his way into T’s cube.  Behind him O says something about contamination, about how part of T-piece might need to be cleared.

Z shoves J aside, ignores L’s protests, grabs T-prime by the shoulders and drags him upright.

“Hey!” he shouts.  “Wake up, T! Wake up and tell everyone you’re fine!”

The body beneath his hands shudders.  Tenses.

T’s eyes open.  Z sags in relief.

“Let go!”

T-piece flails back, away from Z, tipping his chair and crashing to the ground.  He scrambles backwards, eyes darting between the people all crowded around him.

“Calm down!” L shouts.  “We’re back! It’s safe!”

“Back from where?” T cries, pressed against the purple-gray wall.   

“What do you mean, where?” Z says, dread like thorns in his mouth.  “From the mission.  The world I—from the world that spoiled.  Where else?”

“I knew it.” O stands up.  “They got spoiled.  The Boss must’ve cleared his recent memories to—”

“Cut out the rot,” I-prime says.  “Makes sense.  Could be worse.”

I's right. Locking corrupted memories behind a firewall is rare, but it's happened to most of them. This is normal. It's fine.

T-prime looks up at the six people gathered around him like a cornered animal.

“Don’t worry, T, you’re alright.” L speaks with careful kindness.  “You’ve been hurt on a mission, but it’s safe now.  What’s the last thing you remember?”

Before T can answer, Z-piece realizes what seemed so wrong about him before.  All of them carry a marker, a token, an icon of their names.  O’s icon sits over his eye like a stamp.  Z’s is a charm dangling from his collar.  T’s is a tattoo on his shoulder.

That tattoo is gone.

There’s a collar around T’s neck now, one Z’s never seen him wear, and that’s where his icon now resides.  Before Z can allow himself to contemplate what that might mean, T answers L’s question.

“Nothing.”

Icy silence.  O sits back down.

“Nothing?” L struggles to keep her tone even.

“I know I’m T.  That’s it.”

T’s wary eyes dart between them all.  He gives no individual preference, spares none of them his suspicion.  Z can’t see himself reflected in those eyes at all.

“You’re lying,” Z growls.  He swings to I-prime. “He’s lying! There’s no way my—the clones couldn’t corrupt him so bad the boss needed to clear everything!”    

I-prime’s cool resolve shows no sign of cracking.

“I saw what I saw,” he says.  “It’s done.”

Z screams.  He grabs the nearest object—T’s desk lamp, the one S and Z gave him after breaking his old model—and throws it as far and as hard as he can.  In the shattering he finds no relief.

T flinches back even further and it’s like a stab to the gut.

“Who the hell are you people?” they say.  “What even is this place?”

Nobody answers.

L turns pale.

“I need to send an email.”

alright here's the rundown. more detailed version coming soon probably. the things i do for you guys

(transcript of prologue below the cut)

It's a lavender sky this time, this world. A lavender sky deepening to aubergine over a city of neon and brass. It's beautiful in it's way, just like any other city on any other world.

I-prime hasn't bothered to learn its name.

He stands in the hotel window, watching the burnished streets below gleam with fading light. The rhythmic thrum beneath his feet signals the rousing of the club below. They're playing a song that I has never heard in his life, yet part of him remembers it all the same.

The blank-faced watch on his wrist chimes a single long tone. I-piece taps its face without taking his eyes off the path into the nightclub.

"Hello, T."

"You're not in position," T says through the speaker. Their voice betrays none of the frustration that I knows he must feel.

"I'm where I need to be," I-prime says.

"We talked about this—"

"Yes, you talked, that's what you do. I make decisions."

T-piece's response is cut off by further chimes from the watch. Short, long, short, short—then the voice of L comes through.

"There's no time," she says. "The Boss just Held onto J. It's on, it's now."

"As expected," says I.

With a snap of his fingers the air before him splits. I-prime reaches into the crack between two universes and retrieves his sniper rifle. He looks down its sights, out the window, down the gleaming street.

Someone approaches the door to the club. A tall, svelt man with a face that I-prime is so sick of seeing other people wear.

I wonder what this one's named, I-prime muses as he lines up the shot.

Izaak? Ignacius? Indigo?

As he pulls the trigger on himself from another life, I-prime knows it doesn't matter what this alternate is called.

He lost track of their names a long time ago.