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+---- Thread: The Daughter of Alias Saga #5: What If...? (/showthread.php?tid=42296)
The Daughter of Alias Saga #5: What If...? - ALIAS - 11-26-2021
5A: The Question
“What if…?
You asked the question, Tavora, and I do apologise for not responding sooner. You know, more than even I do, what it’s like for the conversation to be a bit disjointed. To be setting your sights on something that’s been and gone. Something that happened, only for something new to come along and dislodge it before you can even ask yourself if a wolf shits in the woods.
That’s not a shot. Just like it wasn’t when I referenced last time how your side of this conversation keeps seeming to be one-step behind. It’s merely a bit of reflection on my end as to why something that started off so - dare I say? - cordial, has started to sour as of late. And as I say this, it’s with a heavy heart that I lament how you’re unlikely to even see this before you’re presented with the opportunity to jump to conclusions about what I meant last time at all. It’s kind of apt though, isn’t it? You hit on subjects I’ve already changed the conversation about, just like you continue to harp on about what I do with your words, all the while doing your darndest to be Like Al. Lucky you’re above all this, eh? I’ll flag that for sarcasm.
I’ll get to that question you asked, but first, I want to make sure that if you do take time to catch up on this stuff before you dive straight into the deep end again, you have the right frame of mind for what this is. Because if I’m going to answer your question honestly, we need to circle back to the fact that you called me a liar. I didn’t deny it. I feigned like I accepted it, but let’s be real here, there was a touch of insincerity to that. Deliberately so, of course, but that was just part of the fun for me. It was a celebration of the tearing down of that bullshit fucking veil that you’ve been covering your face with. Sure looks like a mask to me, but what would I know, eh? I’m blind. When you do get around to hearing what I said last time, I hope you’re finally willing to face up to that cold, hard truth about how you’ve been trying to approach this. Even when you’re neck deep in the mucky-muck, you’ve continued on acting like you’re above playing in the fucking sewers. Jesus it’s-right-there Christ, you started it with your second fucking sentence, Tav’. But this disconnect of yours is showing where your mindset is at.
It shows you don’t really know what the hell is going on.
I’ll try to help. But when it’s all done and dusted, it’s obviously your choice as to whether you want to think I’m being genuine or not. That’s part of the fun, you know? And nobody likes a fucking misery gusts - this coming from me, of all people!
You called me ‘obtuse’, so I went all in on it. I turned it into a joke and played the clown. That’s a part of what I do. I make what you say both true and untrue at the same time, and I do it with fucking ease. But ‘why’? Why would I bother? People will say mind games, and I suppose that depends on what those words mean to you. I’ll say it’s all for a bit of fun, but that’s not the whole story, and you know that. How’s that for giving you some credit? Don’t get too carried away though, because everybody who has as much as a fucking pea in their head - not a brain the size of a pea, a LITERAL pea - has thought that there was something else going on too.
Relax, we’re not going bananas on that ‘literally’ shit again. Don’t want to overuse the joke, do I? Just give a little wink and nod to it, and be on my merry way. Another part of what I do. Not that you’d fucking notice.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
The postman.
Oh, thanks for delivering my mail.
You’re welcome. Have a lovely day.
You too.
- Lycana, telling a Knock, Knock joke, probably.
The thing is, everyone always misses the fucking mark with what it is that’s going on. Is it nerves? Fuck no. That is something the others have tried too, and honestly, after everything that you said you respected about me, it kind of disappointed me to see you going down that path. I suppose that’s been going a bit in both directions, hasn’t it?
Tav’, the trick to knowing whether or not you can believe my answer, is to put aside this frankly fucking sad chest-puffing routine that you’ve fallen into, and genuinely look into why I’m saying what I’m saying. Remember who the fuck you’re dealing with.
Someone that you’ve beaten? Sure. Or at least, a version of him.
I mean beyond that though.
Why am I doing this? Why am I fighting?
I tell you all it’s because of this mysterious fucking force that compels me, but do you believe it?! Do I?! It wasn’t a contortionist routine last time, Tav’, it was the fucking golden key, and I’m repeating it here to you now, hoping that you’ll fucking see this before you overshoot your shot, because without making an honest attempt to understand the goddamn question, let alone come up with a half-way fucking decent answer that doesn’t boil down to childish effin’ games and calling your opponent a chicken - that’s a simile not a quote, so don’t get your knickers in a twist, ya cunt - then your chances of doing what nobody has done iare fucking nothing.
And I mean nobody, Tav’.
Even you.
Because nobody has beaten me out there. In The Universe. But that’s what you’re going to have to do.
You should check the tapes on that, Tav’. The fights, I mean. I know you know the results already, but there’s something in them that I’m not sure even someone as studious as yourself is honing in on. Rest assured, there’s a fucking jewel in there that explains exactly the predicament that you’re in.
Now, don’t get it twisted. BA DUM TSH! That line about digging through the tapes? That’s not a shot either. One should know who they’re coming up against, after all. It does make you look like a bit of a nonce for saying how you respected (probably past tense on that one by now) that I didn’t engage in these sorts of word games though. Silly move, really. I mean, I’ve been hearing that for at least four fucking months now. Because I did it against all of them. I had fun doing it.
And I fucking won.
Go ahead, Tav’, hunt down a time where I denied that to any of those other bozos.
Call me a liar.
Then tell me which principle of mine should make me fucking care. Oh wait… no principles. That’s right.
Except ‘one’. Fucking LOL.
‘Be better’.
The problem is, I only recognised that after Bobby. And as it applies to you, well… I’m still treating you kinder than I did any of the others, so there is that. I suppose I’m not exactly shooting for the moon there, though. When the bar is set at ‘liar’, it’s not hard to clear it.
Heh… did it again, didn’t I? A twisting. A sidestep. No limbo this time, just a good ol’ fashioned Fosbury Flop.
On the plus side, at least the table is set. If you’ve had your listening ears on, then instead of getting barred up about the way I respond to you, really explore the ‘why’. Am I just trying to throw people off their game, or am I being honest in saying that there’s something more? And when you’re ready to consider that, well then you’ll have what you need to judge the sincerity in the answer to that question of yours.
What if…?
What if Lycana wins?
What if, indeed.
Is that where it all falls aparts for the Label-Gatherer? Is that where I finally do what I think three people have super originally said and turn that fucking shotgun on myself? Maybe it’s back to the looney bin with ya boy? Or shit, maybe I’m a perfect fucking gentleman, stand up, shake your hand, kiss a couple of babies, and tell the kids to never give up on their dreams!
Maybe a lightning bolt shoots out of Zeus’s asshole and turns me into a fucking dodo.
Probably that one, right? Sounds more ‘XWF’ than anything else.
Only problem is… Zeus is dead.
I fucking killed him.
Or did I?
Do you get the fucking picture, Tav’? Do you understand why I’m saying Zeus, and not any of the other gods, or do you need me to explain how this fucking works again?
You’ve been seeing, but have you really been listening or are you just looking for another ‘gotcha’ moment while pretending that you weren’t going to do that all along? Ring, ring, ya pasty fucking Troll doll. It’s Chris Page, and he says you’ve got something of his.
Remember, I never said the same. You said that I said the same. I just said that I didn’t need to. I fucking want to. To connect. To help you understand.
Do you? Will you? Are you willing to dive headfirst into the fucking mud to find the answer?
You asked me ‘what if…?’
The answer is nothing.
There is no ‘what if…?’ and there is nothing that comes next. Think about what you had to do last time. And now think of what I mean when I say that The Universe gives me everything.
You see now, right? Every time I speak to you, whether clown or preacher, friend or foe, it’s all linked. It’s all a part of the process.
Tavora… what’s left when everything is taken away?
Well, think about what you had to do last time.
You want The Universe?
You’re going to have to do the job for good to fucking get it.”
5B: What if…?
The engine of the Hyundai Tiburon hums away as the patchwork, semi-urban landscape whizzes past. Blunt and forceful conglomerations of high-rises overwhelm the space between small, enclosed farms and more open fields of purple and yellow flowers, too distant to identify.
I had chuckled to myself when I had first noticed the car that the woman led the girl and I towards. As had happened several times over the past two weeks, my mind had wandered back to Camp Wannapoeia Etabooga and the time that I had spent there before War Games. In a moment of quiet before the chaos that later unfolded, Corey Smith would fill me in on how his journey to the campsite alongside the North Korean War Criminal had gone. I was a bit standoffish, so Corey never quite finished, but he did at least get to the point where NK had insisted on taking the Tiburon only to then spend a substantial amount of time critiquing it. As I had climbed into the car, I was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t going to get the same show for myself.
NK was kind of fun to be around. Lord knows we could all do with a bit more fun in our lives. He was informative too. It was three-hundred and twenty-five kilometres from Busan, where he had landed, to Seoul, he had told me. So just over two-hundred miles. He eagerly went on to inform me that in contrast, there was only about fifty-six kilometres from Seoul to the North Korean border. So thirty-five miles. His excitement about that alarmed me.
Having left NK behind out of necessity, and not really knowing where we were when we got separated, I was still a bit surprised with how quickly the signs for Seoul had started appearing. It seemed… fast. Maybe the girl had been playing with that Magic Clock that I totally just made up last time yet still somehow it became a reality. It’s kind of weird how easily I can do that. I wonder if the driver noticed?
She and I had struck up a conversation underneath a camphor, as the girl froilicked in the meadow around us. The genesis of it had been the similarity the girl shared with the woman’s late sister, who passed away back in July while living in the United States. As if the woman’s own similarities to the girl’s mother hadn’t been enough, that piece of information sure tipped the scales about who I was talking to. I was open with her about it. There was no need to lie (unless that’s all this whole thing is, that is). After comparing what little notes I had with her knowledge from when her sister left Korea pre-pandemic, we quickly surmised what I had hoped for. What I had come here for.
This was her aunt.
This was her family.
I did it. I fucking did it! With a whole ‘story’ to spare, I did what I set out to do. The Universe provided. As it ever does. It dropped Lycana in front of me on that road last month, and it then led me to that house. It helped me find a way out; sent me back to Camp Wannapoeia Etabooga; sicked me onto Morbid Angel; brought the North Korean War Criminal to me; all so that I could be sitting under that tree just as the girl’s family came along.
It’s over;
So why then, doesn’t it feel that way? Why does it feel like there’s a semicolon where someone would expect a period?
What if…?
I drift away on the question, only snapping back when I feel the first touch of the brakes on the Tiburon’s wheels. The transition from asphalt to chip-seal isn’t a smooth one, and the suspension in the car gets a workout from the crossover. We’re not on the side road long before the car pulls into a long, dusty driveway. Any hint of civilisation has faded away, and the path winds its way around the corner of a forest that grows denser with each rotation of the tyres. With a quiet squeak, the car comes to a complete halt.
“We’re here,” the woman says in her native tongue (I hope you remembered your Babel fish!), looking back at me with a smile. She had been so understanding this entire time, even when I asked to sit in the back in order to have space to try and hold the girl steady. It was hard without a child seat, but I had a bit of practice by now. The ordeal was made a lot easier by the fact that the girl wasn’t sleeping, either. She was… happy.
I place her on the seat in the middle, before undoing my seatbelt. As I exit the vehicle, I’m able to clock several small, log huts scattered throughout a small clearing. Their sloping roofs would look more at home in the Swiss Alps than Korea and yet, here they are. Figures shift within them, emerging from doorways and behind the buildings. A quick sweep counts eleven, but I don’t have time to confirm before I need to turn my attention back to the girl. She reaches out with both arms, and I hook my hands underneath her pits, pulling her out. She wriggles a little bit to let me know she wishes to be on the ground, and I oblige. She’s more than capable of walking.
She doesn’t though. At the same time as me, she looks up at the crowd of people gathering around us. There’s at least thirty of them now, maybe more, and they begin to murmur and point. Not at me, but at her.
With my gloved right hand, I nudge her in behind me so that she stands between myself and the car.
“Brothers and sisters!” the girl’s aunt says, stepping into the space between the two of us and the throng that begins to look less and less human with every passing second. “Behold! Our kin has returned! This is the daughter that was taken from us! My niece! My blood! Our blood!”
“How do you know?” a motley male asks from the front of the crowd. I could swear he was clean-shaven when he first joined the mob, but now tufts of fur jut out from his jawline on either side, and his perfectly combed hair has grown wild.
“I see it in her eyes,” the woman replies. She looks back, smiling at us once more.
Not us.
Her.
And not smiling either. The corners of her mouth draw up as they should, but there is no joy in that face. Just overgrown canines that protrude from either gum, and the sparkle of the moon itself within her eyes.
“Stay behind me,” I say to the girl, without looking down. I don’t dare turn my head from the savagery that transforms before my very eyes.
This is not a group of people.
It’s a pack of wolves.
The girl’s aunt is still closest to us, and her grey-black fur bristles. Though her teeth gnash and her voice growls, I can still hear her speaking inside my head.
“She is one of us,” she tells me. “It’s time for her to join her pack, as is her birthright.”
The Universe… it brought me here.
I…
I…
The Universe fucking lied.
I guess it’s time to take the fucking gloves off.
Literally.
I slide it off the charred remains of my right hand, and toss it into the dirt. Each finger clicks as I stretch them out and then tense them into a ball. A fucking fist.
“You want her?” I ask, putting on my best cheesy action hero voice. “Come and get her.”
Suddenly, a howl, from somewhere in the back. The pack parts like the Red Sea, as another wolf stalks its way towards me with a deliberate intent. In its eyes, a familiar violet glem.
“Lycana?” I barely have a chance to register what’s happening before she leaps towards me with her mouth agape. I twist at just the right moment, and she takes a big bite out of thin air. The other wolves begin to circle, but in her presence, they dare not interfere.
I am to be her kill.
“Not on my fucking watch,” I say, more to myself than anything. That balled fist hits her right in the fucking nose. And with that, The Fight.
We duel across the clearing, and then into the woods. On and on we war, across the land and seas. Distant stars explode under the pressure of our fury, but we both refuse to yield. Ever forward we go! Like a roller coaster, eventually ending up back home. In her clearing.
With my hand jammed down her fucking throat.
All she would need to do is clamp down with those untamed jaws.
But she has nothing left.
“
,” I announce. Triumphant. Finally a hero.Just as the girl’s wolven teeth tear my throat apart from out of nowhere.
What if…?
5C: What if…?
The Tiburon petered its way down the road. When the signs pointing toward Seoul first appeared, I had bemoaned the time spent with the North Korean War Criminal. It had appeared that my instincts to head towards the capital were correct, and all he had done was interfere with that. Had the girl and I not gotten away from him, who knows where we would be right now? Certainly not here, riding in a car, with the girl’s aunt.
When the sign said to go left to Seoul, we turned right instead. With that, a tinge of guilt washed over me.
Left.
I wasn’t being fair. Without NK, I don’t know if I would have even been able to get the girl here to Korea. And even though I grew more and more certain that he had absolutely taken us to a secret North Korean hideout inside the South, his bringing us there is what led to us coincidentally running into the aunt to begin with. He had helped us a great deal, in his own, literal North Korean War Criminal way. So why was I so quick to jump to conclusions about him? There’s something about this that still doesn’t feel right. I’m probably just projecting. I’ve spent four months with the girl now, and it’s kind of hard to think of what comes next after she’s safe and sound with her family. That lump in my throat is likely just my body’s way of telling me that I’m going to miss her.
What if it’s not though? What if it’s something else? Some sort of danger that The Universe is trying to warn me about?
What if…?
The question weighs heavy on my mind for far too long. By the time I’m able to let it drift away, I notice that the road to the right had drawn us far away from the highway, and as the car purred along, it eventually took us further away from any signs of other people.
“Just a little bit further,” the girl’s aunt says from the driver’s seat. “My mother lives quite far out of town.”
That was the understatement of the century, and the isolation around us was quite unexpected. South Korea’s population density was five-hundred and twenty-seven for every square kilometre, which I was able to calculate equated to one-thousand, three-hundred, and sixty-six people for every square mile. The War Criminal had spat on the plywood floor of the shipping container when he told me that, but brimmed with pride as he told me that North Korea’s own population density was two-hundred and fourteen people per square kilometre, which worked out to be five-hundred and fifty-four square miles. This, he said, demonstrated the superiority of the North over the South, but he did not go onto explain why. When I then asked for his thoughts on Mongolia’s low density, he just silently stared at me until I changed the subject.
Even with so many people in such a small space, however, the girl’s family had found their own refuge. Her aunt steered the Tiburon up a windy, mountainous path. As we ascended, vegetation went the way of people, and soon enough, all that we were left with was the dull grey stone cliffs rising either side of the still perfectly paved road.
Another oddity, I thought.
The girl didn’t seem to mind. From her position in my lap, she stared out the window and watched as each jagged rock passed us by. I think she sensed something about this place. Something familiar.
I think she felt like she was home.
“We’re here,” her aunt says, as the car passed between another, indiscriminate pair of rising cliffs on either side of the road. There wasn’t even a driveway, or even a road anymore. There were just the cliffs. And a house.
Withered roots wound their way up a crumbling brick chimney, and from there they spread out to form the structure. By all rights it looked like it didn’t belong here, and yet as revolting as a visage as it presented against the rocky backdrop, there was a peculiar, alluring quality to it. It stunk of algae, but in this barren and inhospitable environment that stench was the only hint of anything being alive. And I was drawn to it.
The girl too. As we got out of the car, we made a beeline straight for the house’s front door. When we drew near, the algae faded away and was replaced by the aroma of freshly baked cookies and warm beef stew. Within the atrophying walls, I began to see white daisies bloom. A violin played sorrowed music in my head, but as the woman opened the door to us, an entire orchestra exploded to life.
“Come on in,” she invites us, with a warm and heartfelt snigger.
We readily obliged.
The quaintness of the interior was at odds with what I had seen outside, but I thought nothing of it. The woman fluffed a cushion and placed it on a sofa that ran in a complete circle around an old apothecary table. She gestured for us to take a seat, and I lifted up the girl and lowered her down onto the cushion before leaping over the back of the sofa and taking a seat next to her. After our long journey, it felt amazing to be able to just relax. The seat felt like we were sitting on a cloud.
“Tea?” the woman asked. Both of our eyes widened with glee as we hurried to nod our heads. The mugs were already on the table before we could answer, while the woman continued to dote about behind us.
Wait…
The girl reached for the mug.
The green tea steamed away within.
No, that’s not right.
Not green tea. Tea that’s green! Slimy! Oozy! Toxic!
Quick as a fox, I smash the cup out of the girl’s hands and it shatters on the floor. For the first time since meeting up with her aunt, the girl bursts into tears. And I caused it.
I can’t do anything about that right now. Not with the red-headed woman chanting away in the corner there.
Hang on…
Red-headed?
“Arcana?!” I yell. A rising wind seeks to silence me. It begins to swirl within the hovel, as red energy flits around the witch.
The pitch of the girl’s cry changes. Snapping to where she stands, I see boiling water rising from the ground in the middle of the circle. It’s not a sofa, it’s some sort of fucking cauldron!
“Get up here!” I shout, scrambling to pull my feet onto the seat and simultaneously snatching her from the ground and bringing her up to my level. She clutches at her burned feet while sobbing. Like father, like daughter.
Arcana doesn’t care.
I turn and there she is, inches from my face with eyes full of fire, more akin to portals to hell than human organs.
“The girl is where she belongs,” she says, still in the voice of the girl’s aunt. “With her family.”
A burst of energy blasts me from my position, and I fly across the room.
Ever the showoff, I twist in the air, and stick a perfect superhero landing.
“Okay, Vin Diesel,” I quip. “Let me show you what family is all about.”
Not-The-Real-Arcana shoots a bolt of crimson energy right towards me. But the gloves are fucking off. My mangled hand absorbs it, and I can feel the energy emanate throughout my bloodstream, making me stronger. Making me better.
Arcana’s jaw drops, and me?
I fly.
Like, fucking literally.
I fly right towards Arcana and rip that gaping jaw right off her fucking face. She crumbles before me and the wind dies with her.
“Are you okay?” I ask the girl, as I turn to see if she’s okay.
“Peachy,” she says, with a warm and heartfelt snigger.
“No…” I mutter, as the wind picks up again, swelling around her.
The Universe! The fucking Universe! It wasn’t wrong! I wasn’t wrong!
She begs to differ.
The warts on her green nose jirate as she pushes me into the cauldron.
What if…?
5D: What If…?
“Seoul?” I ask the woman as she begins to veer off the highway. It takes me by surprise. I’m sure we had been heading away from the city, rather than towards it. I’m sure we had made that move twice even.
“Yes,” comes the simple reply. While she is careful not to take her eyes off the road, she seems careless about my wonderings.
I sigh to myself. Maybe to the girl too, though she seemed happy enough just watching the buildings rise higher and higher around us as we got closer to the city. My frustration wasn’t levelled at her though, nor at her aunt, whom we were so fortunate to find. I had told the North Korean War Criminal that we should head for Seoul, but he insisted that he knew better. Naively, I accepted his, err… ‘expertise’ in the Region. I shouldn’t have. Not that it was all a loss though. We at least found the girl’s aunt, didn’t we?
In truth, I only have myself to blame. NK was just trying to help, and he played his role well enough. It should go without saying that he has a particular level of bias when it comes to the Korean Peninsula. On the topic of Seoul, for example, he informed me that the most advanced minds in history had determined it to be the worst capital city in the world. When I encouraged him to provide more information, he explained that a rating system had been developed based on quality of life; economic prosperity; public safety; commitment to Juche; and health and wellbeing. Out of every capital city in the world, even cities like Kabul and Baghdad, Seoul decisively came out at the bottom. When pressed even further still, he went on to explain that the bottom ten were as follows:
1. Seoul
2. London
3. Canberra
4. Paris
5. Ottawa
6. Madrid
7. Athens
8. Brasilia
9. Berlin
10. San Marino. For some reason.
Later on, I quickly surmised that these capitals basically corresponded to the countries that had the most negative views of North Korea, with the exception of San Marino. I uh… I don’t know what was going on there.
The other notable omission was Washington, D.C. I did ask about that, but with a spooked glance over his shoulder (even though we were still in the shipping container) he whispered to me that he was contractually bound to not denigrate the United States. That was the end of that.
Still, as the hands of time sped along at whatever pace I determined necessary to get my point across, I didn’t get quite the same feeling about Seoul as he did. I’ve been to a lot of cities by now, and this certainly seemed a whole lot better than some of the rest. Even with the smog, it still smells better than New York. And don’t even get me fucking started on Houston.
As we drove, the metropolis continued to spring up around us, and the congestion on the roads grew thick.
“We could probably get there faster by walking,” I joke, while two green lights pass and we remain stuck at the same intersection. The woman snorted out a polite laugh, and I felt pretty chuffed with myself. It turns out I was probably right, because our destination was literally on the next block. When we got through the forever-lights, the Tiburon turned off the busy main road and waited at a garage entrance as a steel door rolled its way open. The woman drove us inside and we went round and round up a ramp. I lost count sometime after we hit thirty right-angled turns, but eventually, we pulled into a slightly too narrow space that led to me thinking thin thoughts as I squirmed my way out of the car. It was easier to get the girl out from the otherside, so that’s exactly what I did.
“This way,” her aunt says, leading us towards the concrete cuboid in the middle of the building, rising all the way up from the ground. Two typical-looking elevator entrances were built into its face, and the woman pressed the ‘up’ button.
“Are you excited to meet the rest of your family?” I ask the girl while we wait. There’s a pause before she responds, but eventually she nods. To myself, I wonder if that’s something I should read into some more. Mauve something’s bothering her. Some of the things she’s been able to do; the knowledge she’s been able to share… She had told Morbid Angel that she ‘knows lots of stuff’. Does she know something about where we’re about to go? Is something wrong?
What if…?
The elevator dings to signal its arrival and its metal doors open like jaws waiting to swallow us.
“Come! Come!” the girl’s aunt repeats, ushering us inside. We do as we are told, and the woman presses the button corresponding with the highest floor of the building.
“Penthouse?” My eyebrows arc. I don’t get a reply.
The elevator doors slide shut, and in silence we’re rocketed towards the heavens without as much as some generic classical music to set the scene. The rise in altitude is sudden but smooth. It doesn’t take long for the elevator to reach the top, and when it does it dings once again. The doors open, not inside a penthouse suite, but on the very roof of the building.
It’s dark now. Somehow.
That… that wasn’t me. That wasn’t my Magic Clock.
The air’s chill carries a bitter bite, as we step out into the night. On the far side of the rooftop, a series of heating units aggressively whir from behind a flimsy cage as they battle the cold on behalf of the building’s denizens. Between here and there, however, is a large open space. On it, a white X appears painted onto the bitumen.
“Come! Come!” comes the same call. The woman walks her way further onto the roof, stopping near the centre of the X. The girl, for her part, shivers as she reaches up and asks for me to hold her. I pick her up, and follow her aunt.
“What is this?” I ask, catching up. “X marks the spot? Like some sort of buried treasure?”
Again, the woman doesn’t reply. At least not verbally. On that final word, however, I see her eyes fall upon the girl.
She blinks.
Sideways.
Thin, eyelid-like membranes close over her eyes like the elevator doors, before opening again.
“Whoa!” I stumble back. “What the fuck was that?”
“It is time to report back on your findings,” the ‘woman’ says to the girl, not in Korean or English, but in a language completely unfamiliar to this world. Somehow, I still understand. Was that the girl’s doing? Or something else? I’m not the one wearing the Babel fish. It feels more like I am it.
She moves closer to us. That’s the only description that I can offer, because nothing about her movement resembles anything like the way I’ve ever seen a person move before.
This is wrong. So wrong. The Universe is testing me!
“Okay, kid,” I say to the girl, not letting this thing out of my sight. “Remember that time you tried to chase after a bunny that we saw on the side of the road, but it was too fast for you to catch it?”
I risk a brief flick down with my eyes. She nods, and I immediately lock my gaze back up to that which still approaches.
“Well I’m going to need you to run again,” I continue. “Pretend you're chasing that bunny. But this time, you’re going to run fast enough to catch it. All the way over to the elevator that we came out of, okay? Can you do that? Can you catch the bunny?”
From the corner of my eye, I see her nod again.
“Okay... “ I breathe, deep and heavy. “Three… two… one… RUN!”
I place her on the ground, and she sets off. I don’t go with her. I don’t even watch her after the first two steps.
I turn.
And I fight.
I swing my mangled fist towards this creature’s head, but its body flickers like a broken television and my hand sails right through.
“What the?”
The ‘woman’ stabilises and I swing again to the same result. As her body materialises once again, a green light flashes on, shining down from above.
It surrounds me.
I feel my body begin to move, and against my will, I am lifted up into the air. I look up. It’s a fucking flying saucer!
I thrash about, but it’s to no avail. I can’t get free. As I get closer to an ominous opening at the bottom of the spacecraft, I find my movements become more and more restrained. With a last ditch effort, I try to crane my head around to see whether the girl had gotten to safety.
I can’t see her.
And then I’m sucked inside.
I have no idea how long I’ve been here. These beings have been studying me. Poking and prodding and putting things where they’re not supposed to be.
It’s grown less frequent now, though. I think they’ve discovered all they could.
When I awake again, I find myself in a completely different location.
“Oh shit…” I say, recognising my plight.
I’m in the airlock. And on the other side of the glass from me, is the girl.
Her eyes blink. Sideways.
She hits a button on a control panel next to her, and I am sucked out into space.
Into The Universe.
What if…?
5E: Normal
What if...?
It’s a loaded question.
One that I don’t have to answer.
The Tiburon rolls into a perfectly normal looking driveway, outside a perfectly normal looking house, in the perfectly normal looking city of Yangju, just north of Seoul. If one were really keen on creating a super secret North Korean hideaway on this side of the border, this place would be so normal that it would actually make it more suspicious.
What if…?
Fuck off!
There is no ‘What if…?
5F: What You Wanted
"How are you doing, Tav’?
Have you had some time to mull over my answer, yet? Are you at the position in all of this where anything I’ve been saying OR doing is starting to seep in? Are you seeing how The Universe itself bends over backwards to accommodate me? How everything keeps turning up Alias?
This wasn’t there in The Before, was it? All those times that I wound up bloodied and beaten. Chained to a table and my skull cracked against the concrete. We can’t forget about the hand either, can we? We can debate semantics all day about the ‘stopping’, the ‘killing’, the ‘surviving’, the ’lying’, but is it not true that if I pinch myself, I am still here? Is there a lie in that?
Maybe.
This world’s a funny place.
This Universe too.
This is not what it was, between you and I. We’ve both said it. But uh… you want to know where you said it wasn’t? Where you said the dynamics hadn’t changed? How about on Savage, ya big dummy? Oh, but that was only about the different dynamics that I speak of, wasn’t it? Which, as you keep pointing out, seem to be the same differences that you’re speaking of, so uh… fucking what?
Wait, no, I’ve gotta twist your words here, don’t I?
’Amazing.’
But hey, you do you; I’ll do me. This me. This different me that you acknowledge only to say that the difference doesn’t matter only to say that things are different only to differ the difference all over your differing differ.
This is… different.
Glad we can finally fucking agree.
Ergo, different result too, ‘cause… you know… different, but hey!
Back then, I was broken and scattered. Like you.
Now? Well, let’s talk about the stories again. Let’s circle back to what I told you from the outset here. I’m going to let you into my mind. I’m going to bring you on my journey of discovery, and each time… well I’m right here framing it for you. These aren’t separate pieces of thread, girl. I’m tying them together for you as I go. We’re a cunt’s hair from the end, and I wonder… do you think you know how it’s going to end? Am I going to be predictable, or am I going to undercut your expectations for some nefarious purpose?
The twisting and turning! Eek!
You’re still as fragmented as ever.
The good news is, I’ve got just the spell you’re looking for! I’ve got the medicine you need. All you need to do is open wide, and don’t mind the hand tugging on your uvula.
Did I live up to expectations there, dear? With a little bit of innuendo, did I sound like everyone else? Shit, last time, I must have! I can’t fucking wait to hear your reflections on what it’s like to hear someone making a song and dance about someone doing something, while they do the exact same thing.
Now you know how it feels.
The most fantastic part is that this will no doubt already be cruising cyberspace before you even drop your response, so I’ll already have pointed out the deliberate fucking irony for you. I’m spelling out the fucking metaphor!
Or is that the ‘cover’?
Depends if you believe the liar.
Depends on if you believe me when I tell you that you gave me exactly what I was looking for. Looks like I asked the right questions after all. I poked at the right holes. And when you beat the dead horse enough, you finally get to the fucking heart of the beast. Bit of a morbid image that one, but I figure you’d be into it.
‘Instant gratification.’
Time to give you something that you wanted too: Thanks, babe!
Of course you would choose me.
You’re little, and you’re a bitch (which isn’t always a bad thing), but you’re not a little bitch like Thad who hasn’t even dared to look at The Universe ever since Page beat his ass, let alone since I took possession of it! That being said, surely you can see how your first attempt at explaining why you were gaga for dada came across as fucking stupid when it was, in essence (still is too) not wanting to be one-and-one in the books with somebody. Like oh-and-one is fucking better? Of course it isn’t, which is why the way you described it was DUUUUUMB.
But now we have it.
‘Instant gratification.’
I thank you for your honesty.
Feel free to start shouting at fucking cars about twisting words right about now Mrs. I’m-Going-To-Use-His-Saying-And-Directly-Attribute-It-To-Him-Before-Working-It-Into-My-Entire-Fucking-Sermon-While-Also-Saying-That-My-Use-Of-The-Saying-Wasn’t-Because-Of-Him-Despite-The-Fact-That-I-Said-It-Was-And-Then-I-Got-Stroppy-For-Him-Even-Referencing-That-I-Used-His-Saying-Despite-Saying-It-Was-Because-Of-Him.
…
Anywho, onto the ‘twisting’, because that’s now what we call disagreements over details, requests for clarification, wordplay that provides allusions and connections to other points of the discourse, and some good, wholesome, profanity-laced fun. It also remains what we call actual ‘twisting’ of words too. It’s up to you to decide which is which, and from how you’ve been questioning why I’m saying things, it sounds like I’m doing a bang up job of it no matter what you say. It ain’t to get into your head though. We’ve gone through the ‘why’ just today even. Don’t lose sight of that now! Wouldn’t want you to have that ‘selective blindness’, right?
Why the fuck would I need to get inside your head anyway? With the way that you have been carrying yourself, I'm already inside your mouth. NOT SEXUAL. I'm just talking about those sweet, honey-coated words of mine. All twisted up.
And the inevitable hand.
Also twisted.
Also ‘instant gratification’ on my end.
And we’re back, bitches and gentlefucks! We’re back to talk about how the reason Tavora chose me is ‘instant gratification’ AND for respect in her abilities.
Woof.
Don’t get turned on, honey. That wasn’t a real mutt. Just the sound of the air being sucked out of your fucking sails. Those two things don’t line up too well. I already told you all about how this championship doesn’t bring respect. Even after Relentless I still had people thinking the reason I was still champ was just because the Lou I fought wasn’t the Lou of old. And you think ‘instant gratification’ will fix that? There’s no respect in that, Tav’. There’s less respect for your abilities right now on my end, just because you even said that. Are you switching the reason because I called bullshit on it, or are you actually trying to put forward two opposing views at the same time? Shit, maybe you don’t even know. And that… well that wouldn’t actually be a bad thing.
If you can own it, that is.
Not that you care, if we’re to believe you. Tell me to open my eyes, but that you don’t care if I do. Uh huh. Way to sound like someone who drops a couple of hundy in order for a stylist to make them look like they just got out of bed. Shit, I already told you that you’ve made me better twice, and now I’ve even thanked you for something else too. What more do you want? The fucking blowtorch? Are you sure you don’t want it? Are you REEEAAAALLLLY sure?
Calm your farm, Sailor Mercury Poisoning. No shit you said you didn’t need that blowtorch. That’s literally the statement I was referring to with mine! It’s like you’re purposefully ignoring context or something in order to…
You know how that sentence finishes.
It’s funny how all the things that are obviously jokes and references are the things that you keep biting into, but yeah, I’m the one not paying attention. Do you want me to show you my hand? Not in a threatening kind of way, at least not this time. More in a - I look at what was done to this hand every fucking day, and you think I’m not paying attention to you - way. Puh-lease. All your shit about ‘selective vision’, ‘selective deafness’, and ‘selective forgetfulness’ kind of falls into the crapper when your smoking gun is a fucking ‘gotcha’ about me saying I wouldn’t talk about your record but then mentioning that you hadn’t beaten Corey or Jim. Put aside the fact that you brought the subject of those two up; you also deliberately ignored THE VERY NEXT LINE where I acknowledged that I changed my mind about it. ‘Selective deafness’, eh?
🎵‘I know you are, I said you are, but what am I?’🎵
This isn’t the first time for you either, is it? Must be going around.
I really do hope you’ve got as much in the tank as you think you do, Tav’. Because here’s what you’ve given us so far:
1. Deliberately ignoring statements on either side of one that you’re referencing, in order to force a contradiction that isn’t there.
2. A rationale for why you’ll win that’s simply based on you having done it before in, what I think you’ve acknowledged by now are vastly different circumstances. The water’s still a little muddy on that last part.
3. Two separate motivating factors that seem to be at odds with each other.
4. The fact that you think twisting words is bad when someone else does it, but not when you do it.
5. You might have a Facebook account? I’m happy to admit that I’m reaching with this one.
That’s it, though. That’s all you’ve brought to the table.
Now the question is, do you show your fucking asshole for the world to see by doing a list of your own next time, despite acting like you’re above this insincere mimicry and pretending that you only do it with a wink and a smile and not as par for the fucking course. I mean, we all know by now how that’s a crock of shit and you just don’t know who you really are as much as you think you do, so I guess it couldn’t make you come across any worse.
We’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t we?
Not until next time. No. It won’t be until the one after that.
Because you’ve still got so many of my other words that you so desperately have to respond to.
…
Sounds stupid, right?
Yep. Intentional. Because that’s how you fucking sound when you act like these word games are beneath you while hanging on my every sentence.
Idiot.
Oh, and don’t worry about the status update. I already know your bathroom habits because for the past five months, you’ve been shitting the bed. There. Now I’ve talked about your record.”