2009-11-02: Got a Letter From a Messenger

Starring:

Gillian_V4icon.pngRudyard_V4icon.png

Date: November 2nd, 2009

Summary:

A visitor to the safehouse appears and Rudyard doesn't want to kill the messenger. Gillian brings good news!


"Got a Letter From a Messenger"

Upstate New York — Outside the Safehouse

Waiting.

It seems like there's a lot of waiting to be had since being freed. Ordinarily, Rudyard's a patient man. Under ordinary circumstances, this wouldn't be a problem. This.. waiting.

But these aren't ordinary circumstances.

Rudyard, like others on the run, are waiting on this mysterious Rebel to supply them with passports, fake id and more cash. To say Rudy is agitated would be an understatement. He's anxious to move again. Right now, the lot of them are sitting ducks. There's work to be done. Such as finding where the others are being kept, freeing them, maybe taking this whole operation public. Exposing how criminal this is.. and not to mention, finding Daphne.

Outside the safehouse, Rudyard hasn't ventured far. Only enough to grant him some momentary privacy. He's never been much of a people person, and there are just too many people, too many things going through his mind. A noise of frustration escapes as he leans against a large oak, shielding his thin body from view of the safehouse.

A lot of noise, but the footsteps that approach the tree don't get added in. The dried leaves don't crunch. The wind doesn't disturb clothes. The only warning he gets is the bugs able to see the approaching shape and chattering about it a little. "Are you the guy with the bugs?" a husky female voice asks, once she gets within a descent conversation distance. There's no puffs of air to join with her voice. It's almost like… she's not quite there.

Dark hair, dark eyes, solid form. She looks young, early twenties, with a beauty mark on one cheek, and dimples.

The information from Rebel on Daphne wasn't the most encouraging, but Rudyard's focused. He's not going to simply give up. Taken.. closed file. Not good news at all. If she's alive, he wants to find her, if not, well, he doesn't really want to focus on that. Yet, if she is dead, there are going to be some people in for a world of hurt.. and it's this scattered train of thought that has Rudy distracted enough to not pay attention.

Which needless to say, in his situation? Is bad.

However, the answer to the question would be an affirmative as he snaps to… and with him? A rather large and intimidating swarm of yellow jackets. "Who are you?" his voice is a bit harsher than it normally would be for such a question. It's almost tempting to ask 'what are you', seeing as he never heard her approach, and something isn't quite tangible about the woman.

"Yeah… you're the bug man all right," the young woman says, eyes flickering up to the intimidating swarm of yellow jackets. Someone else might at least back away from it, but she takes a few silent steps forward. Her foot goes right through a broken branch that she doesn't quite clear with her step. "A friend of mine sent me to give you some information. He knows things and he wants to help."

Eyes flicker toward the yellow jackets, then back at the man who must be controlling them. "I don't know much about you except that you can talk to bugs, or something, and you need help to find someone. A woman. Someone who talks to lions and stuff," she says, tilting her head to the side, hair swaying a bit, but not getting touched by the wind yet.

"And you can call me Gillian."

Wordlessly, Rudyard's dark eyes travel up and down Gillian, cautiously looking her over. She's making no noise as she moves and with the fall leaves upon the ground, that's no easy feat. And then there's that trick with the branch. Hmm..

"How do I know that this isn't a trap, Gillian?" It's a rather fair, if paranoid, question. "How can I be sure that you haven't seen the file my kidnappers had on me, and this is a ruse to lead me right back into a false imprisonment?"

The yellow jackets for the most part, remain in a swarm, seemingly ready for the word to attack. Either they're under his full control, or they have picked up on his agitation.

"Well, I know that the government is rounding up people who are different," Gillian says with eyebrows raised, and then suddenly she just vanishes. "And I'm not exactly like most people either," a voice says, to give a direction. One of the large oak trees. The foot comes out of the tree and she just steps out of it. "You don't want to trust me, you don't have to. I'm actually a bunch of miles away from here, so I think I'm out of range of getting stung by stuff. But I was able to find you, and I know where the lioness lady is."

Now Gillian has his full attention. Rudyard stares at her, and the swarm of yellow jackets disperses. "Since you know about this.. program, then you can understand why I'm suspicious." He's not quite ready to apologize for his brusqueness yet. He could go on about how he doesn't understand how she found him or how she knows where Daphne is.. it would be polite to apologize and such, however, he blurts out, "Where's Daphne?" Desperation spills forth in his voice, and the expression behind his unshaven face.

"I hear ya. My friend, the one who sent me here, he was on that train and being dragged off to God Knows Where," Gillian admits, letting her hands drop toward her side. "I wasn't. They don't know about me and I hope it stays that way, cause… I like being able to walk around and be free, you know?" She shakes her head a bit, as if she's stating the obvious, really. And in a way she probably is.

"I don't know how you'll get to here, and my friend gets things wrong sometimes— it took us hours to find you. He— it's a long story. Anyway, she's in Africa. Literally living with the lions. I left a drawing, with a map and instructions in an unused mailbox a couple miles away for you to pick up. It was supposed to be closer to you, but— like I said, he gets shit wrong sometimes." She rattles off an address of a upstate summer home. Which obviously isn't being used in the winter.

"Oh I dunno, it was a bit like being on holiday. A forced one, with tubes up the nose and very uncomfortable accommodations," Rudyard says a bit sarcastically. Walking around, free. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to do that still? "You're not exactly walking around free, if you're watching your back or wondering if they'll find you," he feels the need to point out.

As Gillian explains where he can find the instructions and map, a grin splits cross Rudyard's exhausted face. "I'll go get it immediately. We're waiting on fake passports and ID's. Once that's done, it shouldn't be an issue to leave the country." Or he could stow away somewhere, somehow. Not that he's sure how to do that. He was a professor on insects for crying out loud.

Alive. Daphne's alive. This news makes the man feel lighter than he has since before this ordeal began. Even if something is bugging him. (ha ha!) If this woman and her friend found him, it's a matter of time before they're caught up with here by others.

"I really hope the instructions are enough, then. There were… road signs and people talking. Some in broken English. Narrowed it down using Google Maps. Even looked at some satellite images to try and figure it out," Gillian says, showing that she's at least trying to be thorough. "He's trying to get people together, to warn them about what's coming. Cause… this whole thing with the government and the train… it's just the beginning. Something worse is going to happen, if— I dunno. People like you guys don't stop it. I'm just the messenger, though."

"Thank you for the message. This is more information than I had to start with." Rudyard's words now turn quite honest and sincere. "I don't think there are many of us who got away, who will be willing to just lay down and let this continue. I know I won't." But what does he do? Find Daphne, bring her back to the fight? Fight first, find her later? Or find her and stay with her? "I.. thank you again." He looks at Gillian before sprinting off towards the direction of the address he was given so that he can retrieve the information.

"I think a lot more got away than didn't. But whatever else he's seeing… he seems to think that at least some of you need to focus on what's going to happen soon." Gillian says, looking a little on the confused side, even as she sprints away from her. Suddenly she's floating beside him. Not quite flying, but definitely moving in a way that one might expect to see a ghost moving. "There's instructions on how to contact us once you get her, if you want to. Up to you. It's one of those disposable phones, so it shouldn't be traced as easily." There's a hesitant pause, before she adds on, "You might also need to take a first aid kit or someone with medical experience. He thinks she could be hurt. But— he gets possibilities, not definites. Which is why it was so hard to find you. You turned left when he followed the path where you turned right."

"I suppose it was naive of me to think most of my life I was the only person who could do something so different." Daphne and her friend opened up the door for Rudyard. "There's no way of knowing how many of us are out there, so how in the hell does the Government think they could round everyone up?" It's a rhetorical question, so isn't expecting an answer to that. "I.. alright. We didn't exactly get away from the train wholly unscathed." So it's a reasonable conclusion that Daphne may have gotten hurt, but obviously it's not life-threatening. (Otherwise, this conversation might be a bit more dire.) "I'll see what I can do about getting out of the country.. Perhaps someone who can teleport.. or.." That other Daphne, perhaps?

"Yeah, I thought what I did was all unique too," Gillian admits with a hint of a husky laugh. The good thing about float-walking, it doesn't make her breath difficult. "I hope you're able to get to her," she adds on, before she… changes shape. Suddenly she's not a person at all, but a falcon, which flies up towards the sky and disappears. The projection that she makes from miles away certainly seems to have the perks of a good messenger.

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