Andre sat on the floor, chin on his hands, legs crossed. A heavy sigh rumbled his chest almost as loud as the grumbling in his stomach. A ball bumbled toward his knee, and Andre picked up the soggy, sad little toy and tossed it back across the room. Toddling feet chased after the toy, but Andre returned his forehead to the bars lining the window. Far below, grown-ups stood in a circle. He recognized them, the ones with purple and black clothes. More grown-ups wandered into the basketball court; clothes blue and gold.

The ball rolled to his feet this time. Andre picked it up and tossed it without looking away from the window. The purples realized the blues were there; the basketballs were tossed aside as the two circles merged into one. Pattering feet chased the ball again. Andre rose to his knees, hands gripping the bars to pull him upward. The ball was ignored, now. Tiny hands joined his at the bars, nose tip-toeing high to watch with him.

Pop! Pop! Pop! went the gunshots. Purples and blues fell down into red lakes. From their window on the sixth floor, Andre and Marcus watched the fight unfold. A rock sunk low in Andres’ stomach. When Marcus picked up the ball, Andre turned away from the scary scene with little more than a shrug, and they went back to playing without watching the rest. Someday, when they were bigger, he’d take Marcus to play basketball for real. They’d have fun. Someday…

“Can I have a snack?” Marcus asked, tugging on his shirt. Andre cast an uncertain look toward the kitchen. The little door knobs were easy to pick open, but they weren’t allowed to have anything yet. He bit his lip, remembering the last time he stole food too early.
“Not yet, Marcus,” he said and pat his little brother on the top of his fuzzy head. He always rubbed Marcus’ head to make him feel better about the bad things.
“Come on, let’s go see the stairs,” he giggled devilishly, and they hurried to the hallway.

The front door was easy to escape. All the locks, latches, bolts and slats were on the inside. It just took one little chair to reach the top…. there! The door swung open as Marcus returned, pockets bulging. He had to hold his shorts up with one hand as they hurried down the hall. All their clothes were hand-me-downs, a couple sizes big. Using a rope, Andre cinched the loops snug around Marcus’ belly one day to keep them up like a belt. It was lucky he found that broken jump-rope in the trash.

The stairs were at the end of the hall beyond an elevator that was boarded up before they were born. The other kids said that the gears were pissed on too many times by homeless bums so that they rusted through. One day, the elevator plummeted to the basement and everyone in it died a smooshy death. Or so the kids said.  Andre thought it was a stupid story.

Marcus ran past him to the stairwell, plopped on the floor and dangled his legs between the poles, kicking happily. Andre joined him a moment later, smiling as they both emptied their pockets. A little pile of bullet casings formed mounds at their sides.
3…2…1 go! The gold ‘rocks’, as Marcus called them, dinged every time they hit the glass bottles strewn about below. Dings were one point. But if you hit Eddie, who lived in the corner of the staircase, it was two points. If you hit Eddie on the head and he woke up, it was five points. Andre always won; he had great aim.

Life wasn’t always so innocent. The horrors surrounding the Robert Taylor homes were not as bad as what sometimes lurked within. On their way to school, Andre and Marcus heard screaming from an apartment two doors down. The girl that lived there was going to have a baby – there were always babies around – but just as they hurried past, the screaming stopped. They huddled in the corner, trying to make themselves as small as possible, when a man stormed out, his face as thunder. Andre learned early on to not poke into other peoples’ business, but that rock settled in his stomach again. He peered in carefully, even as Marcus pulled on his hand to get him to leave it alone; Marcus was inherently smarter than him, something Andre would not truly appreciate until later in life. The pregnant lady of all 16 years old laid in a pool of her own blood: stabbed to death. The rock lumped to ice; numbness flooded his limbs as he stared.

That’s probably how their mom died.

That day something shifted inside. Andre refused, for the first time, to let himself cry. The tears sizzled on the heat of his own eyes, then he clenched his jaw and raced after the killer. Outside, the murderer pulled the soiled shirt overhead and dropped it in a gutter. Nobody was afraid of being caught for murder. Police avoided their streets.

The killer leaned on the hood of a car, laughing with some other men that Andre recognized. Rippling with muscles, tattoos covered his chest and neck, he looked like a giant. The rest paid no attention to a snarling kid on the sidewalk. The gangs were all killers. Every kid knew it. By ten years old everyone was sucked into one group or another. It started easy: stealing, begging, running or spying. By fifteen, kids had their own guns. There was a reason they weren’t allowed to look out the windows at home: stray bullets flew wild when fights broke out. Three holes already punched the walls of Mr. Pratt’s apartment before they moved in, and cardboard was stuffed into broken, neighboring windows. By seventeen, kill or be killed. Survive. Fuck the world and survive. That was the big game.

But not them. They would be different! Not them… Andre clenched his little fists and stepped off the curb. The killer looked up. Fear gobbled the rock in his stomach.
“You—” he said, voice breaking, then gasped.

Marcus grabbed his collar and yanked harder than ever before. He stumbled backward. The gang men laughed, but before they could get closer, the boys scampered to their feet and ran away.
“That was stupid, Andre!” Marcus said. Andre snorted. They fought their way to school but didn’t say anything else about it the rest of the day.

Nightmares lurked inside and out, but they were locked in a cage. The walls changed, but horror followed them to each new prison.  After the first half-dozen foster changes, Andre’s hope was razor thin, but every time the case workers showed up, he held Marcus’ hand and whispered that the next house would be better. They would go someplace better… someday.

By the time they were transferred to Mamma Lawson’s care, Andre was big enough to stick up for Marcus for real. He took a few cues from his wiser little brother and started to keep his head down. The only thing he wanted to do was make it to school and back without being shot, coerced, or attacked.

Those were dark times. Even Andre admitted their somber reality. Foster-siblings crowded the apartment. Babies were often left to his care; Andre always ended up in charge. He spanked one once for getting into the knife-drawer, but the crying ripped crags throughout his soul. He hated being the bad guy, but he knew no other way to protect them from themselves. He vowed to never hit a child again, no matter how bad they were, but shit!, he was only twelve. He had no idea how to raise a kid. Except Marcus, but Marcus never got into trouble. Besides, he didn’t exactly remember Marcus at one year old. Andre was only three, himself, at the time.

They were definitely dark times. Something happened under that roof that changed Marcus, but Andre never knew exactly what it was, but he had suspicions. A few months later, they were removed, again, and placed with a family that lived in an actual house with grass. The perfect picture of the place conjured bad memories of the religious, sickening Swerlin family, but like always, Andre said things would be better here. Silently, he braced himself for more of the same shit. Maybe he was numb to it all…

A year later, he allowed himself to believe that things were truly better. Maybe this was the family that was really going to look out for them for all the right reasons. Not only did they not beat or scream at them, but they always had food. They gave them real school clothes from real stores. There were no other kids in the house: just them. For Marcus’ birthday, their foster parents put up a basketball goal above the garage just for Andre and Marcus to use all by themselves. Finally, Andre relaxed enough to sleep well at night. Their high school wasn’t scary. He even played on the basketball team.

Those were the best years of his life. They had internet. Andre got a tablet as a present pre-filled with dozens of books. By the time he came out to his parents, and he actually began to think of them as his parents, he wasn’t afraid of repercussions. ”We just want you to be happy, Andre. You deserve a little happiness,” they said. Andre wept alone that night in his room. They were so lucky, but he was terrified of losing it all.

Marcus was brilliant and made the kinds of grades that only made Andre want to match them. Rather than math books, Andre devoured everything else; a mind that was desperate to be filled. Maybe someday he dreamed of being a lawyer, but nah, no, he held no interest for defending the broken laws of corrupt governments. He wanted to help real people. Go back to the place he began. Walk the streets boldly, show all those people that not everyone was a coward. He was accepted into police academy after high school. He was a street officer by the time Marcus got his scholarship to college.  

Channeling changed everything.

It made sense, the analogy to Star Wars; they didn’t know what to call the power anyway. At the minimum, Force meditation made Monday morning Yoga sessions even better.  At its best, it made chasing criminals a hell of a lot easier.

Street cop was a thrilling life, but he wasn’t naïve. All the daily dangers a patrol cop faced in the streets of southside Chicago made no serious difference to the lives of the people living there. It wasn’t long before Andre dreamed of being a detective. He aced the qualifying exam on the first attempt, and although interviews took months, and he had to finish his degree along the way, Andre walked the precinct with new swagger. He did look fine as shit in the uniform, too.

Meanwhile, the Force gave him a sense of peace, with that, clarity. He studied constantly, and he shrewdly completed all the case simulations training demanded. Life was good; he worked hard and studied harder. Then, at 24 years old, he happily agreed to his foster parents adopting him as their formal son. He was in a long-term relationship and had a stylish (although small) loft apartment. The day the Bureau of Detectives approved his transfer to homicide division was the proudest day of his life.

That gleaming badge lost its luster pretty quick. He was assigned to twenty cases the first day. By the weekend, hundreds of unsolved murders piled his desk. Some of them went back decades.

Throughout it all, the Force was his ally. He had no issues wielding that allegiance whenever it was needed. He did earn himself a reputation; a man who got things done, who dug out answers others were incapable of discovering. It was a gray line to walk, but he clung to his morals; walked the job according to a code.

We have a little rearranging going on.  We have a new category - Alternate Timelines, I've moved Past Lives and created a new board called Mirror worlds - mostly cause Asc didn't think the sharing of the possible route fit with the past lives board.  

You can post things that don't affect the game here but are still 'in character'  Like I posted the fluff piece I wrote because my muse couldn't shake Raffe from his head and I needed to get it out.

Also.

I created an Image resizer tool.  It takes any image url, and can tell you what the dimensions of it if you want to maintain the ratio so it doesn't squish, you give it a height or width and it tells you what the new dimensions are.

Fairly simple.  (to me - so if its not you need to let me know)

Enjoy

Nox gets in a mood some days and can't shake things so I end up writing them.

This was written shortly after Nox met Raffe and the other girls in A little head clearing  It actually ties in quite well after post #24

Thal liked it and we were torn between using it and playing it out.  Opting to play it out I'm sharing it here.

It felt strange to wake up in the old apartment after so much time away, and even stranger to wake alone. Early morning shadows seemed just the wrong side of familiar, settling like dust on a life she had all but abandoned after the break-in. Thalia was not fond of self-reflection; at least not the sort that forced confrontation with the obstacles jutting like rocks from the smooth bed of a river. But things had changed. Calvin’s kindness made them seem less like obstacles and more like curiosities glinting like half buried treasure, and for the first time she was beginning to consider them without the deep-set fear tight in her gut.

She remembered to message Nox to find out how his meeting went, but sank into the oblivion of her sketchbooks for a long time before she remembered to send a reply. Thalia rarely looked back as she chose to now. The books lay splayed in piles, innards bared, pages torn loose when whim caught on the images within. She didn’t question the instinct that sorted piles from the tapestry of old work. Words jumbled around in her head like stories spun from the disparate scraps gathered from years worth of scribblings, and she sat amongst the debris, arms and legs smudged by graphite. Hair spun wild about her face. She stared at the mess she had made.

How do you see my nightmares?

She had brushed off the accusation without choosing to acknowledge the truth. But there had been other glimmers of what lay beyond that thinning veil. Seeing the man on the subway risen like a spectre from the pages of her sketches had terrified her beyond comprehension at the time. She knew every mark on his face; the stroke of every eyelash, the slope of his nose and cheeks; the exact hue of his skin, and the colours that made up his irises. A name haunted on her periphery, uttered from both his lips and Calvin’s the day they’d met in the market. Nox called her a dream walker, but Thalia never remembered dreaming. The images came from somewhere, though, and believing the impossible was surprisingly easy, even if she remained wary of what that might mean.

But she had still not told Nox of the drawings that drew bloody and dripping from her very soul; compulsion enough to blunt her fingers to stubs should the need ever be denied an outlet. 

Thalia had destroyed the painting that scared her most, months before -- the same day Kat had died in her arms. But traces of it drifted like scattered ash through the work heaped around her now, unnoticed until the images had been drawn together. She wasn’t sure she wanted to root around for understanding. Even blinking down at it now, trepidation dug claws in her stomach, and so she eased herself into the questions of kinder currents. She plucked a single page and rested it in her lap; a simple spring landscape, if one did not look too closely.

Aylin wouldn’t understand, and though she knew with certainty that she could rely on Nox to help her, she also knew it would be a reliance. Nobody will help us except ourselves. She checked her phone, seeking the time, and promptly discovered and answered his message:

@Nox Talk to you later then. Let me know when your first show is. I’ll be there :) 

Then she carefully folded her drawing. Her thoughts rippled in strange waves, reaching new shores; the rush of a crazy idea, though Thalia rarely bothered with such labels. She stood, head tilted as she contemplated the sea of paper at her feet one last time, then picked her way through to pack a rucksack. The last thing she remembered to do was change out of her pajamas before the door locked softly behind her.

The room was hot and sweat slicked Marcus' naked chest and head. He was only peripherally aware of it, though, as the dream seemed to pull his physical sensations into his mind, to add them to the experience.

The tunnels were stifling, overhead pipes running the lengths radiating heat like an oven. The walls kept flickering. Dank dark rock and brick lined tunnels- black liquid gleaming from a light that came from everywhere and nowhere- that might be sewers in some movie, the overwhelming smell of detritus and decay and filth filling his mouth, roiling his stomach.

And suddenly the walls were clean cinder block, narrow spaced with lights hanging from the ceilings in between the pipes, the floor only slightly dusty, security cameras hanging at junctions.

The smell is...different. Not clean. Not filthy. But something dark is down here. Evil.

And he knows this place, looks up, can imagine looking past the ceiling to the farmhouse above, isolated and alone. The Butcher.

Malik pulls on the Force until his skin prickles, heightening his senses, sends out webs of compressed air and spirit to bring every whisper, every scrape, every prayer for mercy to him.

And the slow burn of the righteous fire in his heart grows, the hunger for judgement, the craving. Oh how he longs to hear the screams, deep throated and lusty with despair and with hope. And his heart begins to race and a slow tight smile spreads across his face, bearing his sharpened teeth, shadows of dark flame wreathing his face, a mist of black smoke emanating around him.

He is hungry. He feels that carnal desire, that burning need in him, in his heart and in his groin, his deft fingers on a lover's body, teasing her and hinting at pleasure divine, building the anticipation, stoking the fire, log by log, each erogenous zone gently touched and caressed, fingers and lips and tongue.

He is hungry. He feels the carnal desire, that burning need in him, in his heart and in his hands, the deft and careful teasing of this butcher, this evil incarnate, this emptiness walking in human flesh. Judgement has come to him, the very face of God. Darth Malik. Before the day ends, he will know....the man will know everything from the inside out. Every victim of his will have their say.

He stalks the halls- only they have changed. A door appears and he carefully opens it....

To find Ms. Swerlin's living room, filled with stuffed flowery couches they were never to sit on, the cloyingly sweet smell of body spray and perfume a cloud hovering over the cheap porcelain nicknacks covering the white doilies, the massive wooden framed television on the floor, ugly light blue wall paper mercifully hidden by ugly paints in ornamented frames or with cheap thick garish curtains.

And there, standing in the corner weeping silently- quietly because Jesus is on TV- while Andre's choking cries can be heard from upstairs, is little Marcus. I'm sorry Andre. It's my fault, my fault, Marcus is blubbering, sniffing and wiping away the snot running down his nose, the stain of juice on the ugly pink carpets suddenly appearing.

Darth Malik freezes, all control dripping away. Darth Malik...when he had just been an imaginary friend, the one Marcus spoke to when he was scared, whispered to in his head when he needed to go away. The friend who only listened. Who couldn't help him.

"I am here," Malik whispers to Marcus. Marcus doesn't turn and Malik walks closer, eyeing the stairs, waiting. "I am here, Marcus." Marcus turns and his eyes widen in fear at the terrifying image. Malik sees a child. He hears a child. He lays a hand of black flame on his shoulder. "She will pay."

The look of hopelessness fires Malik's heart and the fires surround him and he turns. The hunger of before is back again, stronger than it has ever been. The smile on his face is feral, his eyes furnaces ready to burn the universe to the ground.

At his first step, he is on Ms. Swerlin's porch and she is bringing him milk and cookies, just as she had when he was little, when he and Andre first came to them. Just before she taught them the rules of her house. "Oh Marcus, we are so proud of you," she is saying. He remembers this, now, remembers this and his friendly smile widens. This happened. Oh yes but it did.

She did like the bathroom, the tub in particular. His lungs would burn as they choked down water. Andre had tried to tell him, that first night, his eyes filled with terror and tears. But there's no way you can know without experiencing it for yourself. It was the next day seven year old Marcus had learned.

And now here she was, fawning over his attending University. It had been years since he'd seen her. Farian had been the catalyst, showing him what he could do with his power, with the gift of the Force.

Marcus embraced the memory, every gurgle, every scream, every cough and puke. During those times, the panic and terror covering her face, he was gentle, almost loving with his hands and a towel, soothing her, helping her to calm down, to ease her fear. His voice was soft and comforting. "There there, Ms. Swerlin. It's ok," until finally he saw the blossom of hope. It was over. This boy had had his revenge and now it's over. And she'd try to say sorry...

And Malik would smile and start over again.

Bad press was one thing Yun tried to avoid.  A cop having access to something they shouldn't usually resulted in the cops accidental death, or an early retirement - which ever was most beneficial to the cause.

There was a secret cult like organization that just as many if not more connections and maybe they could work together.  But really wasn't going to work with a low ranking agent who was only interested in one boy.  The meeting had been fruitful but not what she was looking for.  She kept that feeler out hoping to find something they'd be interested in.

Today's meeting was a lot less off the books.  She'd been called into Vaia Plus by the esteemed Dr. Flynn on a potential security breech.  They wanted to work with the cops on this, but he'd asked for her by name, which was strange.  She wasn't a beat cop - this was highly irregular.

In her business suit and badge on display Yun waited with her partner.  He wasn't on the take, and he wasn't part of the syndicate, but he was easily manipulated - a young boy in comparison.  Yun flitted through young boys as partners - she barely knew their names.  If they didn't result in much there was an easy fix - she was known to be a cougar by her fellow officers - it was playful, but they were right and wrong in so many ways.

But her and the boy waited.  He danced from foot to foot as he shifted his weight.  "Stand still."  She commanded and he stood straighter - good little boy she smiled. Fear was a wonderful tool.  But they waited - she had better things to do than wait here she growled under her breath.  This was taking too long.

Moving out was probably the easiest thing he'd done in ages.  Ana was right.  And he'd told her he'd sign whatever he needed to.  His father had Cruz.  He would be happy and maybe he'd disown Dorian.  

And in those lost thoughts Dorian removed his assets for any account his father knew about.  It wasn't hidden from Ana, but his father wasn't going to take what he'd given him already.  It was his money now, it had been for some time.  Jivana did not add to his riches.  He had long since given all shares to Cruz.  Along with the house in Madrid, and now this one.  

A humble apartment - though it was hardly humble if he were to look at it through Nox's eyes.  He knew that.  And no matter how many times Dorian thought about his decisions he would not change a single one of them.  His family came first - always.  Ana and Christian were family - Cruz was his son.  Nox was nothing but a man he hired, though he felt for the boy.  But even the look on his face didn't mean anything in comparison to his family's life.  It was worth the risk.  He'd gambled on more without knowing and lost it all.

Dorian didn't think he'd ever get any of it back.  How their loyalty had shifted to the boy so quickly was not something Dorian thought possible.  He was just a kid.  And he still needed that kid.

Nox refused to answer the texts.  He'd received them, he was sure of that.  But there was no answer.  The final text lead him to tell Nox why he needed to talk to him.  If anything the boy was Atharim to the core.  He'd come now, and he'd answered.

So with Nox coming, Dorian met at a coffee shop just a few blocks from Domovoi, and he invited Ivan and Lih as well.  Nox wouldn't work with him.  But he might with these two.  And he desperately needed Nox in the tunnels.  

[[ @"Ivan Sarkozy" and @"Lih" - this is for when Lih gets back so Ivan can finish what he's doing and when Lih gets back we can move this along - no rush at all here - just setting up ]]

The meetings seemed to go on forever. In between, it always took a moment for him to shift gears into whatever he needed to be. Lawyers and judges and advocates, he went into policy mode, thinking about tight legislation and their ramifications. Application specialists, it was contemplating the future roles and careers in the CCD. Curriculum, research and training. Not to mention all those applicants who needed to be vetted and categorized, their abilities and skills and gifts studied and understood.

Soon, he'd be meeting with Leonid and Alexandrova regarding shaping the public's view of channelers. A Captain Drayson would be coming by too, to begin the process of enfolding Domovoi into the Consulate and expanding it.

Marcus had some thoughts on that and on field readiness for their members. Though now a Rod, Sanjay had not been deployed yet. Any channelers in Domovoi would need field training and he'd be crucial to setting up the training parameters if not teaching the first few himself. Marcus would have to eventually find someone to oversee that, though.

And then there were small things. A message from Natalie Gray peaked his interest. He couldn't help the smile that formed.

As it happened, he liked her. He studied her work in the app. Not a scientist or engineer, she nevertheless had a flair for exploring and working off hunches. And while he hoped her explanations and testing could become more rigorous, the work she was doing was good. She was in truth an artist, driven by instinct and feeling.

Some in the STEM fields discounted that as a valid approach. And perhaps in the very end, they were right. The foundations had to be solid. In the end. But, he knew better. Srinivasa Ramanujan was one such artist, exploring and discovering mathematical islands and continents, spelunking caves and ascending mountains, all based on instinct. He claimed his family's patron goddess inspired him. And while Hardy tried to force him to adhere to rigor, Ramanujan's artistic whimsy was still more often right than wrong. There were now entire fields based soley on deciphering and understanding his work, as if he had peeked into the mind of god and had seen too much.

Maybe she wasn't a Ramanujan, but she was an artist. And her work hinted at promise. And now she needed a favor. Sometimes he marvelled at the universe. As if the Force were making things work out for him.

Of course he knew that was mere confirmation bias. How many threads had he tied, how many connections? He couldn't begin to know. Clearly, some of them would bear fruit. The old story. "Oh my god, I was just thinking about you when you called!" And yet, how many times had you thought about someone who hadn't? The human brain- that most exquisite of pattern finding objects in the universe; a device that saw faces in clouds and Jesus in a water stain- only noticed and stored recollection when the pattern matched, reinforcing an existing belief. Confirmation bias.

So probably not the Force. Just a single seed coming to fruition. And yet how wonderful it was. Not only helping a Northbrook Gray- and banking a favor, a lever, should he need it- but also helping one of the Rods. He remembered Carpenter. Providing asylum to his family...well, if he had the measure of the man- and he knew he did- that would not be forgotten.

Neither would Vellas fail to take note. Marcus almost smiled at his imagined irritation. Why Marcus and not himself? Sanjay was already his man. The others would not fail to see that Marcus was the one to go to for sensitive issues- or for pressing ones.

All for something that was quite easy for him to perform. Indeed, the request was made and approved within the hour. Answering her other question took a bit more time. Dr. Weston had been hard to catch, but he had spun a story- Consulate related. He wasn't sure his information was helpful but it was all that was available.

Finally, he was done for the evening. Oddly, the sun was still out. A pleasant surprise. His meeting with Ms Fisher had sparked something. Rekindled an interest in his own work. He wouldn't head home yet. A walk in the adjacent park would help center him and get him in the right mental place.

Hate you all.
My head is so loud and buzzing with words, I basically can't sleep any more. 
Nox, help.

*sad puppy eyes.

Hi guys. How do you put pictures on the top of your posts like you do in shared posts? I figured out how to attach an image and insert the attachment into the post, but not sure what to do next to make it look right. Can someone help?