Primoday, Rami 22nd 067.M42 - Afternoon
They got to Mum and Dad. I don't know what to do.
I left the hideout and went out to forty-first. I figured going wallward was going to be better than coreward when it came to hiding where we were, just in case the worst had happened. I tried to stay off of the main streets and just make my way through back streets and along the side ways. I kept my eyes open, but I didn't see anyone strange looking at me again. Once more there were no robed figures with shadowy black eyes, or strangely bald and lumpish workers. Maddy had been pretty sure that they didn't have enough bodies to flood the entire hive - even knowing the level we were headed to, they couldn't cover every avenue without more or less making a concerted push, and that would surely get someone's attention. You'd hope. I'm not so sure now.
Oh frak. Throne. I got to forty-first, it's one of the warehousing districts. I thought if they were going to trace me, at least there there's plenty of potential hiding spots for them to waste their time trying to root out. The problem with forty-first is that public terminals are few, far between and in mostly very open areas where it would be easy to watch from a distance. But I had to take my chances.
I called Mum. It started okay. I didn't even realise there was anything wrong to start with honestly. She told me she was worried that she hadn't heard from me for a few days, that I was gone longer than she thought I was going to be. I apologised, used the excuse of the broken repeaters down in the lower hive to tell her at least part of the truth as to why I wasn't available. She tried to ask me a few times where I was, she could hear the traffic on the street nearby, and I wasn't calling from my personal frequency at home. We talked about the trade war that was just about on our doorstep, about how that's going to affect my work. And I tried to use that as leverage, to raise the idea that she and Dad and Mei should maybe just take a holiday, that I'd put my savings towards helping them get a ticket to Elysia to do some sightseeing.
She paused at that. I tried not to press her, I didn't want to come off as paranoid and overly crazy. That could come later. But I think it was too late. I prodded her for an answer and after hedging for a while, that's when she told me.
"Arlean" had called them. Told them that I'd gone to her rambling about some Xeno-influenced conspiracy theory, that I was convinced people were being replaced by Xeno clones and that she should get off the planet and that after I'd told her this, I'd disappeared into the lower hive, that I'd been missing for several days, and she was worried for me. Mum said they were all worried for me, that I should come home and we could talk about the problems I was having.
I could hear Dad's voice in the background. I couldn't hear exactly what he was saying, it sounded like he was in the other room, or at least not sitting very close to Mum, but it didn't sound like he was talking to Mei. I asked Mum who Dad was talking to. She's a terrible liar. She tried at first to tell me that he wasn't talking, then when I said I heard him talking she said that he was just talking to Mei and Noodles. I asked her if someone else was there, if Arlean was there. She said that Arlean wasn't, but she didn't answer my other question. She just tried to turn it back around again and ask me again where I was. When I wouldn't tell her, she told me to come home, that they just wanted me to come back and be safe with them.
I hung up on her, I didn't know what else to do. I don't know if Dad was on his personal vox to someone, or if there was someone else there with them. I didn't hear another voice, but that doesn't mean much. The cultists that I've run into so far don't seem to be very talkative types either. But I wasn't going to stick around to wait for them to find some way to give the public terminal frequency to someone to look up and figure out where I was calling from. I wanted to get away from there as quickly as possible.
I tried to take a different route back to our hiding place. It took a bit longer, and I got a little bit lost and had to double back a few times, but eventually I made it. Maddy's still not back yet. I hope that she gets here soon. I hope that her colleagues will be willing to help me. I'm just scared that if they have actually been there, in my Mum and Dad's house with them… That what Maddy warned me of will come to pass.
