Author's Notes: I'm back. Did you miss me? The answer is probably yes if you're reading this. As you may or may not know, I've been SERIOUSLY bogged down by classes for a while. But I'm back(ish) and hope that I can return to a (mostly) regular update schedule. For now, how about we just pretend I didn't disappear for a while and embrace some Sollux? A really shorter chapter this time because I do still have things that must be done.
Doomed to Dream – Part 2
Thing that Terezi tended to forget was that most members of Beforus's Enforcers weren't exactly the most open minded of trolls. Enforcers worked by the books, reacted by set procedures. It was up to their Detector forces to think outside of the carefully scripted dance of legal requirements. The Detectors and technical wizzes of Comtrolls like Sollux did the real work, the believing and looking outside of the realms of the normal. Detectors and Comtrolls and Legisticators thought. Enforcers did. Which meant until there was a questionable death on the table, or something else they needed him for, Sollux was nothing more than a techie in the eyes of the Enforcers. A techie that rarely was good new the few times he made the jaunt out of Cyclos's comfortable hive and into the core of the town where the local Enforcer division he was assigned to had a building.
Still, at least he had a proper excuse for going in today. It was time for the bi-perigee apiculture review, and if necessary, upgrade and system reinforcement. Sollux would be expected by two hours past sundown. And if he showed up a bit early to try and get whichever old coolblood was on desk duty to take him seriously enough to file a report, well that was something, right? Still, it meant Sollux had an hour or two to blow before he even had to start preparing to head out. Which left him needing something to do to pass the time, something other than sit around and try desperately hard not to think about what he'd dreamt.
With a sigh Sollux turned his attention to sorting through the variety of forums and discussion threads he followed religiously. Nothing new on Cyclos's latest movie—not that he liked him, Sollux just liked to keep up with what people were saying about his guardian—or on the production process of the pending Modern Trollfare 3 release. In fact, the only things that seemed to have seen any activity over his 'sleep' cycle were the forums that one could only get into through some creative hacking. It was pretty much the test of worthiness to be there since most of the discussions were on apiculture development, specialized coding methods, and other things that the members tended to float around.
The activity was mostly based on the boards that people created at three in the afternoon, unable to sleep, talking about purely ridiculous stuff. There had been some activity on the discussion of different merits and shortcomings of the ApisAF versus the classic ApisBB apiculture alignments. Yet there was one other thread, new since he'd gone to 'sleep,' which drew Sollux immediately to attention. A new thread in the less commonly used 'sights and theories' board. Most of the stuff here was pure stupid conjecture, or conspiracy theories with little to no basis in reality. Every now and then, though, someone hit on things that made Sollux nervous. One of the most common forms of this was rumors related to the hemohierarchist movement.
Most trolls didn't believe in hemohierarchists. Treated them as if they were little more than boogie-trolls to be used when some troll was treating others inappropriately. People didn't want to be accused of hemohierarchy, it wasn't something that the Enforcers took well. Still, it wasn't something that people thought were all that common. Why would trolls hate each other because of their blood color? Sollux, though, he couldn't help but believe. The screams were too common in his dreams, they changed too abruptly and frequently for him to believe that there wasn't someone out there wishing ill on people, especially since the screams were always from lower bloods. No, hierarchists were real, Sollux was sure of it, and while there were few people who agreed with him about it, those few that he knew did tended to frequent these boards.
And in Sollux's sleep cycle one of them had posted something new about the person referred to only as 'the shadow.' One of the greatest mysteries about the hierarchists was that, about a sweep ago, something had changed. Someone, apparently, was taking the hushed whispers about hierarchists seriously, and rumors began to spread that the troll was helping victims. The hows never really came to the surface, and there was little to confirm or deny the existence of this 'shadow,' but the rumors were enough to start people talking. To make guesses at which suspected hierarchists victims that had rebounded was the work of this individual. To wonder whether or not the shadow was keeping others from getting hurt. There was always something flying around, speculating on the whos and hows of the shadow. Tonight there was something new along those veins.
User SapphiricDreaming_xX had posted a new thread, filled with vague statements and yet absolute certainty that what they were saying was true. Most of the others who had responded to the thread so far were easily blowing off Sapphiric's rambling, calling it baseless conclusions and witless raving. Except Sollux wasn't sure. Everyone had heard about Sapphiric's beating at the hands of suspected hierarchists for the simple act of 'getting in their way.' A lot of people thought that the troll had lost it a bit after that. Which wasn't too out there of a comment, seeing as Sapphiric had changed a lot since they'd recovered from the assault. But Sollux knew Sapphiric better than that, had worked with them on a few occasions while following strange leads on cases into the parts of the web that they were more familiar with. Sapphiric wasn't the kind of troll to make up baseless allegations, and if they were claiming that just two nights before they had been approached by a strange troll offering assistance after their attack, provided they promised to say nothing of where the help came from, well, Sollux believed the obviously frantically typed words.
Eventually he'd have to go after Sapphiric, figure out just what they knew. In the mean time, though, he really just needed to get ready for work, didn't he? Well, not needed, it took way less time than what he had to do it in, but if he got caught up in the still ongoing debate he'd never make it in time. With a sigh Sollux closed the window, directed his computer to shut down for while he was gone, and then set about preparing himself to head in for a day or more of annoyance.