"Who are You?" the Caterpillar said. "I can't explain myself,
I'm afraid, sir," said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see."
-Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"
Away...
"Hello? You okay? Can you hear me?"
The girl in the green coat was finally starting to move. He wasn't sure if she
could hear him, even understand him if she did. His Chinese was limited, but
since that was the semi-offical language here, it was the first thing he tried.
Although truth be told, the girl really didn't look like a local. From her clothes
he would guess she was American, but it was impossible to be sure.
She didn't look hurt, not a scratch or drop of blood visible, but she was unconscious at the bottom of a large hole on the side of the road. Never a good indicator of health. Actually, the hole more resembled an impact crater, like something large had hit the earth at an angle and then ground to a stop. From the size and the amount a dirt displaced the cause should have been something like a large semi-truck or a small ballistic missile. Something like that was bound to catch a body's eye even if they were driving too fast on the main road into Lowtown. Curiosity being one of his worst personal faults, he just had to stop and take a look. Instead of finding a large truck, there was a fairly small girl, cute, but nowhere near big enough to cause that kind of damage.
The... uniqueness of situation had initially stopped him from calling what passed
for the local authorities in this place, but if the young lady didn't wake up
soon he would have to try and call someone. Although, since Madripoor was a
small country, best known for it's lax police force and lack of extradition
laws, he wasn't sure how much he trusted emergency response personnel here.
Well, that probably wasn't true for the the entire country, but definitely
this area.
There seemed to be voice. It sounded far away, but couldn't be too far if she could hear it. Slowly opening her eyes, she saw ...dirt and some rocks. Lifting herself off the ground, she tried looking around again and saw a large ...hole and a man at the bottom of the hole next to her inquiring about her health in what sounded like Chinese.
"I don't speak Chinese," was the nearly fluent reply that
seemed to contradict that statement.
The guy next to her stared at her for a second, but then just shrugged his shoulders
and smiled. "That's probably a good thing, it's not xactly my best
language." This time he spoke in English, going with his initial guess
that she was American.
"Oh," was her only response as she continued looking around a bit
dazedly and started brushing dirt off her clothes. "I guess I was flying...must've
crashed," she said both to herself and the bilingual gentleman who must
have found her here. Actually, he didn't look like a gentleman. With his sunglasses,
seven-o'clock shadow and long, slightly battered leather coat, he looked like
someone most people would cross the street to avoid, but she'd dealt with worse
so wasn't overly concerned. At the moment, she couldn't remember exactly when
she'd dealt with worse, but for some reason not remembering didn't bother her
either.
"You crash a lot?" Between the lady's unusual hair and finding her
at the bottom of a large crater without a scratch, Remy had suspected she might
be a mutant, but was slightly surprised she admitted it so quickly. He wouldn't
have, but then again, his power didn't involve flying or staying in one piece
after a crash landing. She probably wasn't afraid of much anything.
"No, not really," was all she said as her eyes continued to wander
and hands occasionally brushed away stray locks of hair and bits of dust.
"Are you hurt at all? Should I call a doctor..."
She cut him off immediately, "No! No doctors. I'm fine. Really."
She really didn't seem to like the idea of a doctors. Okay... "Do you need to call someone?" a blank look as the girl shook her head no. "Do you need a ride anywhere? I could take you into town, if you want. I ain't sure if you're up to flying anywhere right now..." Again the petite was absently shaking her head and wandering in the general direction of the highway, although it looked as though she wasn't really heading anyplace specific.
"Okay. Listen, chere, if you don't want to mess with doctors or
cops, I don't blame you, but I would advise getting away from the giant hole
in the ground." While he was talking, he was trying to steer her towards
his bike parked on the side of the road. "I know this is Madripoor, but
eventually the cops are gonna notice something." The expression on her
face changed somewhat and it finally seemed like she was starting to hear what
he was saying. "You need a ride into town?"
She exhaled slowly and finally said, " Yeah, I think I really need a drink."
Remy laughed a little under his breath thinking that was the first thing she'd
said that made any sense.
Margaritaville...
"Bethany?"
"No,"
"Betty?"
"No, don't think so,"
"Bertha Sue?"
"What? No!"
"It's a name," he said innocently.
"If I weighed two hundred pounds and drove a semi-truck it would be a name."
Talking to the girl from the crater was one of the more interesting and entertaining
things that had happened in the past few days. He had driven her into the city,
the "Little America" section of Lowtown. They were currently in a
corner booth of a not-quite-so-rundown bar called "The Princess."
She couldn't recall her name or where she had been going when she crashed, or
even what she was doing in this section of the world. He had gotten her up to
speed on the current date and location. None of this information seemed surprising
to her, which he guessed was a good thing. But it didn't seem to help trigger
any memories either, which probably wasn't a good thing. The strangest thing
was that her current amnesiac state didn't seem to worry her at all. She repeatedly
insisted that she was fine, didn't need a doctor, just a good stiff drink. Then
she nearly choked to death when she had tried to do just that, like she had
never had a drink before. Currently, the petite was giving him a dirty
look across the table, while he was trying to think of a horrible name that
started with the letter "C."
"I can tell you're up to something, so don't even think about it,"
she warned. Remy tried not to laugh while looking "innocent" again.
"Moi? Up to something? I'm wounded, deeply. Here I was going to
say "How about Christine?" but now there you are throwing around accusations..."
"Yeah right. And no, Christine doesn't sound familiar either. Why don't
you pick a name...pick a normal name and just call me that."
"Ah, dat's no fun. Carrie?," a shake of the head. The girl looked
like she was starting to get bored with the name game. She was rummaging around
in her pockets and pulled out a pair of gloves. "You cold, chere?
I could help warm you up," he offered, oh-so-helpfully.
A somewhat pointed look, "I think I'll be okay with the gloves. Thank you
so much for the offer though," she said sweetly, not meaning one word of
it. As she pulled on one of the gloves, her coat sleeve slid down the other
arm revealing a nasty looking bruise on her wrist. Bits mottled of purple still
encirled her arm, but it was mostly covered in yellow and flecks of blue, indicating
the bruise was at least a week old, maybe more given the size. So there was
no way it couldn't have happened during the "crash."
Remy reached over to lightly take her hand and inspect the injury. "You
literally fall from the sky, put a gigantic hole in the ground, but still look
perfect. So how on earth did you manage to do that?" His
fingers gently traced the yellow skin. It looked to be healing fine, but he
wondered how someone indestructable could have been hurt like that. When he
thought about, though, she did come out of the crash without a scratch, but
also without knowing her own name. Maybe she wasn't quite so indestructable.
She started rolling her eyes when he had taken her hand, although he wasn't
even hitting on her this time. He really was just checking to see if
she was okay. His somewhat injured-but innocent look tried to convey that. Stifling
a laugh at his reaction, she replied in complete seriousness and looked at him
as if he was a little slow, "Well, obviously, I don't remember how I did
this," holding up her wrist just a little bit.
"Obviously, Of course. What a stupid question." he also said in complete seriousness.
"Exactly. It does look like it hurt though." she remarked absent-mindedly and with half a shrug she pulled on the other glove. Then she held her newly gloved fingers out in front of her and stared, a bit perplexed, shaking her head. "I must have really weird taste in clothes."
The gloves were, well, kind of weird. "They're unique," he said trying
to be polite, even though she was wearing opera gloves with jeans.
She sounded a tiny bit defensive at that, "Hey, I could ask you what's
with the glasses? It's not terribly bright at night, indoors,
in a dark bar."
"What if I said I was visually impaired," he said trying to sound
injured again.
She leaned back and crossed her arms, "That would explain your driving,
but I don't think I'd believe you."
It was difficult to sound injured when trying not to laugh, especially when
the laughter was winning. "Again, you wound me, but seriously, they're
a force of habit," sliding his glasses down a few inches, his eyes, his
black and red colored eyes, peered over the top, "to keep from freaking
out the norms." To her credit, the girl looked slightly taken aback, but
didn't flinch. Being an admitted mutant herself, she shouldn't have, but one
can never be sure. "We got something in common, but not all of us can be
as beautiful as you, chere."
For some reason, this seemed to strike the girl as terribly funny, " Red
eyes aren't that unusual, especially in this place," she jerked her head
gesturing to the rest of the bar and the obvious drunks in it.
Leaning back and replacing his glasses, he chuckled, "I've been worried
over nothing then. Carmen? Cecilia? Caroline?" a pause this time, she was
looking thoughtful. "Is that it?"
"If it was, I think I'd go by Carol," she said slowly.
"Carol?"
She sighed and slumped a bit, in what was the first evidence of any frustration
on her part, "It's a definite maybe,"
"Hey, "maybe" is the best I've done all night," and then
she smiled. "Carol" had an incredible smile.
Somewhere darker...
Mystique was a thorough women and usually a quite effective one, but over two months of banging her head against the wall and nothing to show for it were starting to get to her. She knew Rogue was alive, the books were clear on that much. At least, she thought they were. Other than that, they were maddeningly unhelpful.
Mystique slammed the book in her hands shut and angrily threw it across the
room. Although she was one to anger fairly easily, she never lost her
temper. That was a sign of weakness, loss of control. Far better to remain calm
and plot a particularly vicious way to get even. Pausing a second after her
momentary lapse, she walked over and calmly retrieved the book, inspecting the
aged leather spine for damage. Despite their ineffectiveness so far, the diaries
were still the only lead into Marie's disappearance.
She flipped the book open for the thousandth time and stared at the page. For
the millionth, time she wished Irene was still here. Deciphering the "prophesies"
was difficult at best when Destiny was still alive. Ever since she had died,
it had been next to impossible. That's why she had warned Magneto not to rely
on them.
Magneto may still be in prison, but she still kept an eye on things at the X-Men
headquarters. Only now she had to be more careful because Xavier was watching
things much closer. She couldn't do any in depth infiltration; just a cursory
look around, which is why it took her so long to realize that Marie had disappeared.
It was full day after it had happened before she heard a rumor second hand from
some student. The "teachers" were supposedly trying to reach Wolverine
to help track the girl because Cerebro couldn't find her. If Raven thought it
would have been the slightest bit effective, she would have dragged Creed, a.ka.
Sabretooth, down to help in the manhunt, but by the time either one of them
got to New York it would be too late, if she was reading the diary right. She
would track the girl down again, no question about that. The question was what
exactly she would find...
Way to early in the morning...
Black wrapped around, thick, suffocating, quiet... light...find a light, there was a scream, who was screaming? Is it me... no, she couldn't scream, it was lost in the muffling, horrible black..couldn't move, couldn't even open her eyes to get rid of the dark...Voices...who was there, they could talk...in the horrible dark screaming place, open my eyes, move, run anything.....The sound of insistent knocking shook her from the nightmare. Although she was unbelievably glad to be awake, who could be knocking this early in the morning? The clock on the night stand was trying to say it was actually 10:17, but that was clearly impossible. It felt like 4:17.
Dead tired but with no desire to sleep, she grudgingly went to the door. Through
the peephole, she saw the distorted, grinning face of the guy from last night,
Remy, he said was his name.. Oh yeah, he had a room a few doors down. He had
suggested this motel, because it was cheap and since all she had in her pockets
were those gloves, forty three dollars, a lipstick and a hair scrunchie, she
decided to try it. Remy had gallantly offered to let her stay with him, but
even through she seemed to be losing her mind, she wasn't that crazy.
Question was now, was she crazy enough to open the door. What the heck...
"I brought doughnuts," was Remy's pronouncement upon entering. She
looked surprised and not entirely happy to see him. He couldn't really blame
her; he was just some strange guy she had met the night before. Wasn't sure
what exactly he was doing here himself. It just didn't feel right to leave her
alone in a foriegn country with no money and a potentially serious head injury.
"Doughnuts? They have doughnuts in Madripoor?"
"But of course," he said in an exaggerated French accent. He
sounded more or less Southern most of the time, but had a weird habit of slipping
into French. Supposedly, he was Cajun. She wasn't sure if she believed him,
only chicken fingers and cartoon characters with pet alligators were Cajun.
And he was apparently still talking, "Like I told you last night, this
area is popular with certain American -cough-expatriates-cough-..."
"You mean fugitives."
"If you want to get technical, yes. So, anyways, it has all the comforts
of home. Speaking of which, how are you feeling today?"
He sounded just a little too chipper for so early in the morning. "Just
peachy. I have twelve time zones worth of jet lag and I'm in a seedy motel talking
to a possible serial killer," she grumbled while nearly collapsing into
a battered chair next to the window. Her rumpled shirt was rapidly getting more
rumpled. Wasn't much she could do about it though, being as she had no other
ones to change into to. She was still wearing the gloves, too, even though she
wasn't remotely cold.
"Thief, actually, if you want to get technical, but a thief who has doughnuts,"
he answered triumphantly, waving a large box around.
"How much do you think I eat?" Carol asked as she eyed the box.
"I didn't know what kind you liked, so I got a little of everything. Ain't
I sweet? Sides we can have the rest for lunch." Lunch? He was
planning on sticking around? Maybe if she pretended to want to go back to
sleep, he'd leave. Of course, if he did leave, what would she do then? True,
she could fly, she could go anywhere she wanted. And then she could wander around
those streets aimlessly with her scrunchie and Rum Raisin lipstick.
"Lunch? And what's with this "we" stuff? Do you think
I'm going to spend all day eating pastry and hanging out with a thief/possible
serial killer in a vacation spot that's best known for it's non-existent extradition
laws?"
He merely leaned back and said quite honestly, "You got something better
to do?"
It really was too early to be having this conversation with someone who was
clearly insane. "I'm sure I do... I just don't remember what exactly."
"Hmm...Well, in the meantime, chere, have a doughnut."
----------------------------------------------
I couldn't resist bringing in Mystique. She's just so much fun. "Bertha Sue" is from Lori McDonald's "King of Theives" story. Excellent story.
Ishandahalf-Sorry for giving you a heart attack. I wasn't trying to be that
evil. I like Wolverine too. Just not with Rogue. Gambit and Rouge are just too
perfect together. Didn't like the Bobby part? Maybe I'll look into changing
that. Like I said at the beginning, I wasn't quite happy with that chapter,
but I wasn't sure why.
AngstWolf- You figured it out? Cool, you're probably right. But here are a
few more clues for you to check.
Muccamukk()-Yeah, you wouldn't think that a country like Canada would have so many dark secrets. It's always the quiet ones...:) Hey, I pay for lots of government officals that I'd rather not. Seriously, though, a movie fan should be able to follow the story pretty well. The country of Madripoor is from the comics. Wolverine used to hang out there alot. And the book Mystique has and Irene/Destiny are both from the comics, and will be explained more later on. You know who Remy is, that's the most important part!