Chapter Text
YOU - Your mind swims. A haze of consciousness rises from nothing. You blink. You’re in a forest, early morning. Fog hangs thick. You’re standing atop a road, pavement gray and cracked. Smells cling to the moist air.
PERCEPTION (SMELL) - The strong aroma of pine hits your nostrils, blended with the tang of motor oil.
PERCEPTION (HEARING) - The needles of the pines hiss as wind churns the fog before you. A distant rumble bleeds through the silence. It hums and groans and grumbles and shouts. It’s getting closer, and closer, and closer.
YOU - You blink. The sound stops. The forest is gone. A single tree remains, crooked and dying.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - It is surrounded by lights - no, by stars. They dangle below the barren branch.
YOU - You blink. You’re on the water. The sky is dark, but the water and the sky seem to stretch forever. You’re sailing forward, a sail bulging in the wind above you. You look out but see no horizon. Not at first. Slowly, a line bisects the darkness. It’s not light, not exactly. It slowly peels away the black, a roiling gray seeming to eat away the waters as you approach. Beyond this line is… nothing. You struggle to perceive it. It’s black, but not. It’s void, but there is no darkness in it. As you approach, it subsumes you. It swallows you whole. Before long, you are nowhere.
YOU - You’re in the void. Silent. Empty. Meaningless. A voice echoes in your mind, of your mind.
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - Good morning, Harry. Did you sleep well?
YOU - What is it to sleep well? What is it to wake? What is it to be awake at all? Waking is a cruel fate, made even crueler by dreams that haunt us no matter our conscious state.
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - Would you rather stay asleep? Fall back into the darkness and forget this all happened? That any of this exists?
YOU - Is that a choice?
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - Existence is a choice. Every day, every moment, we choose to exist, to engage in the world, to think, to remember, to forget.
YOU - So I can choose? I can choose to shut out the world, to sleep forever?
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - You can.
LIMBIC SYSTEM - But you shouldn’t.
YOU - Why?
LIMBIC SYSTEM - For today, you’ve been given a new lease on life. A second chance, another spin of the wheel of fortune.
INLAND EMPIRE - An opportunity afforded to few.
VOLITION - An opportunity to make something of the pieces of a life you’ve been left with.
LIMBIC SYSTEM - And what a waste it would be to give up a chance like this.
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - Like it or not, Harry boy, but rouse you must. After all, today is a big day.
LIMBIC SYSTEM - Oh yes… The biggest…
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - For today, the most important thing in your life returns…
YOU - The… what? It couldn’t be… no, there’s no way…
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - Wake up, Harry… Wake up!
YOU - You jolt out of bed. The alarm beside you whines insistently. The shock of being wrenched from sleep takes a moment to wear off, and even as it does, you’re still not entirely coherent. You paw at the small table beside you and wrest the clock from it, almost disconnecting it from the wall as you glance at the time through misty eyes. 7:18. Somehow you slept through your alarm for nearly twenty minutes.
EMPATHY - The neighbors are likely furious.
HAND/EYE COORDINATION (Medium: Failure) - You distractedly attempt to place the alarm clock back in its rightful place while turning it off. It crashes between the bed and the table and manages to come unplugged in the process. Nice one, butterfingers.
YOU - Groaning at your misfortune, you pick yourself up from your sagging mattress, trying to get your wits about you. You’re at high risk of being late, even with just 20 minutes chopped off from your slapdash morning routine. Without a motor carriage (yours still being in the water, as far as you know), you’ve had no choice but to walk to work in the few days you’ve been properly back on the force. And with your injuries still healing, it has not been a particularly appealing prospect. If you’re running behind, the bullet wound in your leg prevents you from picking up the pace to make up time.
ESPRIT DE CORPS - Jean is going to be pissed. Or well, more pissed than usual. It’ll be the fourth time this week.
VOLITION [Easy: Success] - You try to stuff down the worry and focus on getting to work. What’s first?
- Food. A nourished cop is an alert cop.
- Hygiene. A clean cop is a respectable cop.
- Clothes. A naked cop is nary a cop at all.
YOU - Taking stock of your current situation, you conclude that the highest priority is likely putting on something other than the aging briefs you slept in. And maybe a change of those too. The one thing you did actually manage to do in the past week was laundry, so you manage to wrestle up a clean, albeit unsalvageably wrinkled, shirt, and a fresh pair of underwear. Or as fresh as they come, anyway. Your pants, goldenrod and flared at the bottom, are hung carelessly over a chair, with the accompanying jacket not too far, in a pile on the seat. You shake them both out as you carefully put them on, not wanting to harm these disco antiques.
INTERFACING - The pants slide on over your shirt almost effortlessly. If anything, they seem a bit… loose?
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT (Challenging: Success] - It seems you’ve lost a kg or two with the Al Gul no longer clogging up your metabolism.
YOU - You put on the jacket after, which also feels a little less snug. It’s interesting that you’re only just noticing this, but you decide a gift horse is still a horse. Best not to look in the mouth.
CONCEPTUALIZATION - The ensemble, however, isn’t complete without the piéce de resistance . The garish, colorful tie for which you have become infamous is easily found where the rest of your outfit once laid. Knot still in it, you straighten it out and pull it up.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - You catch a glance of yourself in the nearby body-length mirror. Despite its cracks and chips, you still see yourself clearly.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - And you like what you see.
DRAMA - You look so very disco, my liege.
CONCEPTUALIZATION - The very image of it.
YOU - You continue to admire yourself as you walk back towards your table, pawing around again, this time for a different time piece. Your hand clasps a watch, which you wrap around your wrist to complete the look. Out of the corner of your eye, you glance at it.
ESPRIT DE CORPS - You’re laaaaate!
YOU - Shit. No time for breakfast or a shower. Looks like another morning of stale pastry and whore’s baths.
ESPRIT DE CORPS - You’re missing something.
YOU - You fumble through your pockets and pat down your breast. No badge.
ESPRIT DE CORPS - And no gun.
SHIVERS [Easy: Success] - A certain Satellite Officer is pacing behind his desk, contemplating the list of profanities he’s prepared to direct at a certain lieutenant double-yefreitor.
YOU - It must be here somewhere. Losing your badge is one thing, but the gun is hefty and noticeable.
LOGIC [Challenging: Success] - The table, perhaps? Maybe its falling is what woke you up, if the alarm couldn’t.
HALF LIGHT - It wasn’t loaded… right?
YOU - Trying (and failing) to stay calm, you scramble to the bedside table and nearly throw yourself over it. Behind it, wedged between the wall and the wood, is a belt with a holster, and the unmistakable glint of gunmetal inside it. Gingerly, you lift the holster from its hiding place and place it on the bed. As a bonus, you discover a set of keys beneath it, likely collateral of the gun’s tragic fall from grace. You also grab the clock, though you don’t have time to plug it in and reset it. You give it a forlorn pat, as if to promise it you’ll make up for the unfortunate incident it just suffered. You put the gun on your hip, but, just to be sure, unsheath it and check the chamber.
INTERFACING [Trivial: Success] - It was, in fact, loaded.
HALF LIGHT - Yikes.
[MORALE DAMAGED -1]
YOU - Trying your best to bury any speculation on how that could have gone worse, you reholster the gun and glance down at your wrist once more for a time check. If you hurry, maybe you can make it without Jean - or anyone else - noticing.
ESPRIT DE CORPS - But even if you do, he’ll still be mad about the lack of badge.
YOU - Well, what now?
- Search for your badge and risk being even later than you already are.
- Head out and hope your badge is at work.
- Scream and cry.
- Give up and go back to bed.
YOU - You decide to give looking for it another shot. You glance around the room and decide that if it was here, you’d probably have found it by now. Instead, you leave the bedroom, entering the small living space afforded to you by your small apartment. It’s messy and cramped, but it’s in a far better state than how you found it. Gone are the empty, stinking bottles and strewn about cushions. Though its furniture and general feel is still a bit haphazard and worn, it’s decidedly much cleaner and more livable. That said, you’ve done some work to undo some of the effort put in by you and a very generous Kim - who spent a day of his mandatory leave from the incident in Martinaise and the pending transfer - helping you out. Without him, you’d surely have slipped into your old habits, or at least failed to pull yourself out of this sinking pit of chaos and messiness that surely persisted for long before you, or this version of you, returned. Kim really has kept you from falling flat on your face and into a pile of your own filth.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - So cool.
YOU - It was cool of him to help out.
INLAND EMPIRE - Kim, standing there, eyes surveying the mess you - or some former you - left. Disgruntled but still compassionate, running his gloved hand through his hair as the other adjusted his glasses. He was there for you, to help you in your hour of need, like he had many times before during that week in Martinaise. In that moment, you remember thinking there was something about him that was exceptional. Something that you’ve never seen before. Something that you wanted to see more of.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - And his body. Lithe but strong in all the right ways. He lifted and carried and shoved with both effort and ease. You remembered always wanting a body like that - effortlessly athletic - but you were stuck being a lumbering hulk of a man.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Let’s think about his body more.
ESPRIT DE CORPS - Tick tock…
SHIVERS [Trival: Success] - From a certain old silk factory, the Satellite Officer’s rage builds as he eyes the clock…
YOU - Right. Badge. You begin to look in all the places a thin rectangle of plastic might like to hide. Under the coffee table? No, just some kebab wrappers and a can. Between the couch cushions?
Obtained - ✤1.10 Reál
YOU - Maybe you could buy a badge? Not with that though. Surely a badge costs more, and even the ✤ 20 or so you do have wouldn’t be enough. Under the couch? Just dust bunnies. Behind it is nothing either. And there are only so many nooks and crannies in this cozy flat that could house a police officer’s badge. You’re about to give up the search when…
PERCEPTION (HEARING) - You hear the distinctive roar of a Coupris Kineema rolling down the street.
YOU - You lean over to the window and peek through the blinds to see a blue motor carriage pull up outside your building. The safety orange of his jacket is unmistakable. Glancing through his glasses, the morning light glinting off the edge of the frames as he leans his body towards the other side of the carriage, peering up towards you. In his hand, he waves a little rectangular object that also catches the sunlight.
ESPRIT DE CORPS (Trivial: Success] - Your badge!
CONCEPTUALIZATION [Impossible: Failure) - How on Elysium did he manage to get a hold of that? You haven’t seen Kim in a week.
INLAND EMPIRE - Though you’ve thought about him. A lot.
YOU - And here he is, once again, showing up to save your ass from what would otherwise be certain demise - and ejection from the RCM. You burst out of your apartment, nearly forgetting to lock up (a bad idea in Jamrock), and rush down the stairs to meet the lieutenant.
KIM KITSURAGI - “Missing something, detective?” he asks in his wry tone, holding the badge to you as you lean into the car.
DRAMA [Legendary: Success] - You just barely catch the hint of a smile at the edge of his cheeks. He’s relishing this.
EMPATHY - Or maybe he’s just happy to once again come to the rescue. To save you .
- “Where did you get this?”
- “Thanks.”
- Say nothing.
KIM KITSURAGI - “Where do you think?” he quips, “From your desk.”
LOGIC [Trivial: Success] - You must have left it sitting there in your hurry to leave the precinct yesterday. Jean was on the warpath and you were not about to stand in the line of fire.
- “Yes, but how did you get it?”
KIM KITSURAGI - “I went to the precinct before I came here,” he explained, eyebrow raised. “You haven’t forgotten, have you?”
LOGIC [Trivial: Success] - He went to the precinct because today is his first day at the 41st.
- “Of course not.”
- “Remind me again.”
- “Er, no.”
- “Yeah.”
KIM KITSURAGI - “Get in, we don’t want you to be late,” he said, turning his attention to the road, “Jean was fuming with even the mention of your name. I can’t imagine what he’ll be like if you show up after 9.”
HALF LIGHT - You don’t want to imagine it either.
INLAND EMPIRE - Even I’m good there. And imagine is all I do.
YOU - The drive from your apartment to the precinct is short. After all, it was walkable - though only just - but at this moment you find yourself wishing it weren’t. Kim’s eyes are fixed to the road ahead, but yours are fixed on him. You watch as he handles the Kineema with ease, pulling at its levers with pinpoint precision as the motor carriage accelerates and slows. The turns are accurate but graceful. For a moment, you’re lost in his movements, admiring the delicate dance between him and the machine.
INLAND EMPIRE - You wonder what it’s like - him driving, like really driving. In TipTop, or just out on the open road, outside the city. The wind, the adrenaline. Maybe someday you’ll see it in action for yourself. That air he has about him, turned up to eleven with the intensity of the speed flowing through him.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - So cool…
INLAND EMPIRE - Indeed…
YOU - The vehicle comes to a stop. Kim turns his glance towards you, eyebrow arched, but this time less inquisitive.
REACTION SPEED (Challenging: Success] - More concerned.
KIM KITSURAGI - “Are you alright, detective?” he asks, his tone not betraying the same sympathy his face does.
VOLITION - Are you alright? What is alright?
- “I’m great, now that you’re here, Kim!”
- “I’m ok, just didn’t sleep well last night.”
- Say nothing.
KIM KITSURAGI - He sighs lightly. “I haven’t been sleeping too well myself these past few weeks. Let’s get some coffee in you. Maybe that will help.”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Mmmm, coffee…
YOU - Nodding, you slide from the Kineema, waiting for Kim to lock up his motor carriage before following him to the back door of the precinct.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - With the poor sleep and the panicked morning - not to mention the nagging hunger you just noticed and the healing wound in your leg - you’re in no state to jog ahead like you might otherwise.
KIM KITSURAGI - “After you, detective,” he says, almost a little playfully, as he opens the door to the precinct to let you in ahead of him.
YOU - Almost instinctively, you throw him a little smile as you walk ahead. It makes you feel a bit better.
[MORALE HEALED +1]
YOU - However, you swiftly realize this may have been a strategic choice of gallantry.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Wow, the shitkid is finally on time for once,” Jean chides, seeming to have been waiting by the back door, ready for an ambush, “I’m so sick of dealing with your shit.”
KIM KITSURAGI - “Luckily for you, officer,” Kim begins, coming to your rescue as he follows through the door, “you won’t have to deal with it any longer.”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Oh, yes, you’re quite right, lieutenant,” he says. His mood seems to be quite lifted at the prospect of not ever having to work with you again. Giving you one last bitter glance, he strolls off, slumped over as he sips coffee and finds somewhere to be - likely away from you.
[MORAL DAMAGED -1]
KIM KITSURAGI - “Well, partner, what do you say to getting some coffee and… I assume you haven’t eaten either?” he guesses - a guess which is unsurprisingly correct. It is Kim, after all.
YOU - You nod feebly, not feeling terribly enthusiastic after the morning you’ve had thus far.
KIM KITSURAGI - “Cheer up, detective,” he says, cracking that subtle smile again. He gives you a bit of a pat on the back. The show of camaraderie is almost… electric.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Cool…
KIM KITSURAGI - “It will all be just fine. I’m here now.”
YOU - Yeah. It will be just fine. Kim’s here.
[MORAE HEALED +1]