Remnants of the Earth
AEDOLIS => Haviah => Topic started by: Tally on January 29, 2013, 05:10:05 pm
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Cross wasn't on leave, but he'd cleared the rest of the day to get out of the ATC and get some fresh air—if you could count Haviah's filtered, triple-sanitized, recycled atmosphere as fresh.
It was worse down here. Cross had descended nearly to the lowest livable stratum of Haviah, where the city didn't spend so much on circulating the air. The stale smell he'd gotten so used to up in the Citadel was overrun by the odor of human habitation down here. And it was so dark. The sky was lost beyond all the crisscrossing skyways, walkways, tubes, and platforms up above. Only orange, artificial light illuminated this level of Haviah.
He wore civilian clothes so he wouldn't stand out. His dark hair was getting long too, so he didn't have much of a military look about him, at least not to Havians unused to recognizing the bearing of a soldier.
A cracking sound split the air somewhere high above. Cross froze. A chunk of some skyway plummeted, striking a house, spinning, shattering a translucent walkway just a couple stories up, and slammed into the street not twenty feet away from him.
Well shit. He'd better keep looking up while he was down here.
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Okay, that was pretty loud! A grin found its way to his face as he lost concentration and totally forgot about the game he was playing with some other local kids (one where you guessed what was on cards before turning them over or something). He jumped up and was off like a rocket, not caring that his sneakers were untied (he was used to running with them like that, and they were starting to fall apart anyway), he ran toward the source of the sound.
He skidded to a stop as he rounded the corner and saw the big piece of skyway that had crashed down to their level. That was a big piece! His grin didn't fade at all as he looked up to see where it fell from and what kind of damage it had done in it's fall, all while walking towards the chunk.
"Haven't seen one this big in a while!" He said out loud to no one in particular, though there was some guy just standing a few feet away. Emery circled around the fallen debris inspecting it before doing the only obvious rational thing. Trying to lift it with telekinesis, duh.
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Emery?
That was definitely the mind of Raley Sade's little brother that Cross felt. Moments later and the kid was in sight.
It must have been because he was out of uniform, or else the dust was obscuring his face, but the kid didn't recognize him at first. Cross lashed out with telekinesis and trapped the broken piece of skyway in place before Emery could do any more damage. He closed the distance in case the kid tried to run.
"Cut that shit out, Emery. What are you doing down here?"
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Emery had managed to lift it off the ground before it kinda got stuck there, hovering only an inch or two above the street. What the hell?
Emery dropped his concentration, not caring about the chunk of skyway anymore cause he wasn't even doing anything at this point, and started to turn to actually look at the guy behind him that he had previously ignored completely. Meep... he knew that voice...
Crap. Emery froze in place, mind racing between the urge to run away and the more practical seeming option of staying frozen in place. Could Pilots still see you if you stayed still?
Shit.
"...h-hey Pilot Letendre..." Emery slowly turned to face the Pilot who was much closer now, and totally not in uniform. "...I'm not down here... I mean... down where? W-What are you doing here?" He was totally floundering and avoiding eye contact. Not that it mattered, he was an open book as far as a Pilot was concerned.
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*crash*
At the time Drew was just sitting outside, no peticular reason really. He didn't like being stuck in his small appartment all the time was all. Cross legged on the pavement when he heard a crash to his left.
Startled he looked over. Two men seemed to be talking about it, maybe Piliots? Drew had seen a lot of strange stuff, but not as interesting as that. He stood, his eyes pink, the smell of weed on him and smiled. He walked over to the nearest person, not really noticing who it was.
"Whats going on?"
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Cross scowled. He didn't drop the hunk of concrete just yet. It hovered in the air, slowly spinning.
"I'm allowed to be down here. Unlike you. Fuck, Emery, if you've hacked your chip again..."
He didn't have time to finish that line of thought, because some guy—Drew, he gathered from a quick mind check—had gotten all curious and joined them. Cross sighed. No hope of going unknown down here now, not with that chunk of skyway floating in midair.
"Just a construction accident," he said. "It'll be fine, I'm a Pilot."
He lowered the piece of skyway to the ground, where it settled with the crunch and crumble of shifting stone.
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He was about to deny the chip hacking, though of course it would do little good to deny since obviously the Pilot was going to find out anyway, when this other doofus showed up. Good. No. GREAT. Cross was distracted with this dumb guy. Time to sneak away totally unnoticed.
Emery started a sideways tiptoe trying to silently but quickly get out of the line of fire. The last thing he needed was to get in trouble, again.
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"Emery, the fuck do you think you're going?" Cross glared down at him before he'd even made it five steps. "You're not getting out of this. I'll ask one more time before I go into your mind and rip the answer out—what are you doing down here?"
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Damn it why did Cross have to catch on so quickly?
"I wanted to play with my friends..."
That was the only thing that sucked about living up top. His friends were down here. If Cross ripped into his head that was what he would see. The bratty kid who preferred running around down here with the 'street urchins'.
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Cross rolled his eyes. Of all the stupid—
"If you want to meet up with someone from below, you put a request in! You know I'd expedite it for you if you just asked. I don't know why you want to keep doing this the hard way."
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"I don't want to put in requests!" He practically whined. He had always been a bit of a troublemaker but had become more of an unruly brat since Raley die-- disappeared. Unlike the rest of his family he refused to accept Raley was dead.
"I just want to be able to hang out with my friends whenever. Besides, its not like we were causing any trouble today... we were just training."
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Cross narrowed his eyes at Emery. He was getting tired of all these bullshit excuses. They weren't even really excuses! The little fucker just didn't want to put the effort in!
"What do you mean training?" His voice took on a dangerous edge.
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Ok Cross was looking scary now. "...um well... psionics training..." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
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"Psionics training. Psionics training! Fuck, Emery! There is no psionics training outside of the ATC!"
Cross's hands had clenched into fists and he loomed over Emery. He wouldn't have hit him, but it physical intimidation was just in his nature. "Your training is just illegally fucking around with shit that could get people killed!"
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Emery shrunk back a bit. "...but... if I don't show any telepathy I can't get into the ATC..." He muttered under his breath. "...we weren't fucking around really... just playing games and stuff to help..."
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Cross rubbed at his temples. "That's not how it works, Emery, goddamn."
He sighed and reined in his temper a bit. "Who were the other kids? Do they all live down here?"
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"I'm not a snitch! ..besides I don't know all of their names... and.. wait you can't develop telepathy through guessing games?"
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"That's not what I meant! Admission to the ATC isn't based on whatever skill level you develop by—stop changing the subject!"
Cross huffed and crossed his arms, his anger now at a low simmer rather than the hot fury it had been before. At least those stupid kids hadn't hurt anything? "Fine, don't tell me their names. I'll get them from your head later. You ready to head back up now or what?"
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"Its not fair to be using your telepathy against me when you know I can't." Emery pouted a bit with his hands on his hips.
A grin spread across his face. "Wait... but can you do this???" Emery closed his eyes for a second and smiling mischievously as he lifted himself a good foot off the ground. "Can you do this?? Huh???" He said as he levitated, circling around Cross.
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"Yeah well life is fucking unfair so get used—"
Emery cut him right off. Honestly he might as well have been talking to a wall. For a second, he was so sure Emery was going to try some bullshit trick he and his friends has picked up, when instead Emery lifted clear off the ground. Lifted himself off the ground—levitated.
Cross darted a hand out to catch Emery's arm and stop his circling motion. He tried not to let it show just how surprised he was. "When did you learn to do that?"
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Emery kind of jerked when Cross grabbed him and started to fall forward but managed to catch himself and land back on the ground. "I don't know I just kind of started doing it about a month or two ago. Cool right? How many Pilots can do it??"
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"That's uh...I don't know exactly off the top of my head." Well that was a blatant lie. Levitation was rare enough among Pilots that Cross could name every single one that could do it without even having to think about it. Cross certainly couldn't do it.
"But it is impressive. I hope you're careful when you try that."
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He couldn't help but smile when Cross said it was impressive. Pilot Letendre was the only idol he had now that Raley was gone and he had managed to impress him.
"Careful? Its pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Easier than dumb telepathy stuff."
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"See," Cross said, leading the way toward a more well-kept road that could take them to a lift. "That's what I mean. You don't take this shit seriously enough, and lemme tell you—this flippancy shit? This thing where you handwave off every concern? That's what'll threaten your career in the ATC."
Not that words would convince Emery. Nothing but experience and maturity could do that. Hadn't Cross himself and nearly every other Pilot in the history of Aedolis been the same way at one point or other?
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Emery gave up and let Cross lead him. "Yeah but... I'm never going to get to the ATC... I'll never get to be a cool Pilot like you."