Starring:
Date: January 27, 2010
Summary:
In the end, your conscience always catches up with you.
"The Woman in the Mirror"
Trenton Hawthorne's Penthouse
One Year Ago…
It was all fun and games the first time Emily had come to New York City. Ostensibly, the trip was to visit NYU. Actually, it was to visit friends. To drink and shop. To have a good time. Granted, there was actually a trip to the university, a few hours spent wandering around, if only to check out the men rather than the library and research labs. Besides, she'd already "earned" her two degrees across the country at Stanford. Her methods weren't honest, they weren't exactly subtle, but goddamnit, they are HER methods…
Bitch. Princess. Spoiled. They've called me a lot of things. There's one that they haven't yet called me that they really should. God. For as long as I can remember, I've been good at getting things, and making people do what I've wanted. Maybe that comes with being the youngest child out of five. Maybe it comes from being a good actress and selling the role. Whatever you want to call it, I've always had that knack. I can read people like a book, and get them to do what I ask. So imagine my surprise when I realize that I could do that on a whole extra level. I can get in people's heads; I can make them do EXACTLY what I want. Just like a god.
Three Weeks Ago…
She was only at the dock because someone had asked her to get some information. Gene had brought her in on the plan to take down Alpha Protocol, and she had wanted to impress. The unique skills she brought to the job made it easy for her to gather information this way. Emily wasn't alone in her efforts though. Other folks were out and about. Even so, even though they had planned to be there, those men had gotten the jump on all of them. Foreign men. Big, burly men, armed to the teeth and possessing a borderline fanatical devotion to their leader-the one responsible for throwing women into a shipping container and loaing it on a boat to who knows where.
Payback in kind had been her motto. When the chance had presented itself, she took one of them, used his body for her own ends. Though she had managed to shoot one of them, in the back of the head in ice-cold blood, they never stopped to question it. The puppet body was mowed down, and the men had gone on their way. They had managed to get away, leaving Emily alone in an alley, all-too-aware of the fact that she had utterly failed. Failure doesn't sit well with her.
I don't what I was trying to prove, really. Maybe it wasn't about proving anything other than the fact that I don't have to kill to feel good. Prometheus would say it's about redemption, about forgiveness, or some other such nonsense. I don't believe in that though. Good and evil are subjective. There are only the powerful and the powerless. I'll be damned if I'm going to be among the latter, and I prove the former by killing, at my discretion. Afterall, that IS what gods are responsible for…right?"
One Week Ago…
Trenton Hawthorne was a cheating bastard. He had everything in life, and yet, he could never be satisfied. Money, beauty, fame…all of it was his, and more. He had the tabloids about his finger, and had the girls hanging off his arms. Even so, he couldn't stop himself from trying to take more. When he had tried to roofie drinks at a club, Emily had decided to act on behalf of a kindred spirit she had recently met and taken a liking to. After a week trapped inside his own mind-plenty of time to think about what you've done wrong when you're allllll alone inside there-Trenton had been more receptive. Recently, he'd been totally overhauled, totally reformed. Trenton had been the world's most supportive little boy toy, and clearly the emotional center of his "relationship" with Emily.
Even so, the last few weeks haven't necessarily been kind to the woman who's usually in charge of her own destiny. Since her perceived failure to help others, she's been in a funk. And that's putting it lightly. Mostly, she's been in the bottle. Never a stranger to drinking before, gin had become her friend. Shopping (well, mostly stealing) and clubbing, partying and dining at the city's most esteemed restaurants had fallen from the dockett completely. The only comfort she had been able to find was at the bottom of these glass bottles, despite Trenton's protests. Thanks to her efforts prior to this, he didn't quite have the gumption to step up to the plate and stop her, either. Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned…
If I wasn't out to prove anything to anyone, why do I feel this way? Why does it feel like the weight of their lives is on my head? I've killed before. I'll kill again. Those deaths though…were they as meaningless as I thought? The incident at the restaurant…those were the people like Trenton. The stuck-up individuals that wouldn't go out of their way to help anyone. I was just making a statement then…right? Nobody's going to miss them…I hope? So why is this different? Why do I feel responsible for this, even when I didn't think twice about shooting a dozen people while they ate dinner? Was it the simple act of trying and failing? Is that what terrifies me? Am I so far gone that I can kill without a second thought, but so egotistical that failure sends me to rock bottom? Gods CAN'T fail…can they?
Trenton's ministrations haven't exactly been met with gratitude. With her bitchier than ever, his attempts to soothe Emily's broken spirit have been met mostly with bottles and shoes flung in his direction. She knows he's right, of course. She needs to get out of this funk, but how? She can't spend all day moping around in bed again. Somewhere along the line, in her tumultuous squirming in bed to find a comfortable place away from the sun, she sees…something she's forgotten about for a while. It's a strange-looking little watch. It's her direct line to Prometheus, the one that started her on this whole path.
"Trenton…" she calls out from the bed, rolling herself over and sliding out. When he appears, he can't help himself from looking at her long, long legs, bared of course from sleeping in something FAR less than flannel footy PJs. "I've got a job for you. I need you to go get me a few things," she starts out, her head throbbing from last night's binge. "I'm going to need some strong coffee, first of all. Other sundry items…" She goes on to list a bunch of things from the drug store that she'll need to put her face back on. For the first time in a while, she intends to go out and right some wrongs. Trenton seems to glow in knowing that he can help as well.
There are many types of gods: benevolent gods; vengeful gods; absent gods. What type of god will I be? I've shown the world that I can be vengeful if want to be. The NYPD is very familiar with that. But maybe I'm wrong in wanting to be that way. Maybe this world isn't for me to take charge of. I couldn't even keep thugs from kidnapping people…people like me. If I can't do that, even knowing that my attempts won't at all lead to me getting killed, are my desires to run EVERYTHING beyond me?
The door to the penthouse the two of them share is opened and closed when Trenton scurries off to help her out. The tall blonde stands at the bureau, looking into the mirror. Just a few months ago, this was the mirror that had Trenton's guilt sprawled out on it in red lipstick. Now, the only thing in it is a very haggard, dejected looking god brought low. Pride before a fall, right? Well, she's fallen. The woman that looks back has bags under her eyes, a wild mane of hair all over the place from bed, and lacks any makeup at all. In a fit of rage, she takes the nearest significant object, in this case a lamp, and throws it at the mirror, issuing forth an animal scream while Trenton isn't around. Maybe for the first time in her life, she can't stand the sight of the woman looking back at her in the mirror.