A Shadow in Red

Okay, I know I owe tags, etc. My health hit a nice decline where I couldn't get out of bed for a few days. I had AIM up on my rather incapable old laptop that can only run AIM or a browser but not both, but couldn't get to my desktop where I had all my emails and so forth telling me what I owed where, and I doubt my brain could've done the RP thing anyway.

So then my health gets back up to where I can get to my desktop. I check my mail, go to do an E-Rewards survey, and the very first survey I do gives my computer a rootkit, and my video card (which had already been ailing) went bad all at the same time.

My desktop has to be reformatted. I've not lost anything but the mails that were in my inbox at the time, but I'm in the process of building a new system anyway. Until then, I have my slightly more capable laptop. Within a couple of days, if I can make the cables in the new system go where I need them to go, I'll have a nice, shiny new desktop.

I'll try to catch up, meanwhile.

Okay, I'm amused now. XD

Routine.

Preparation.

It wasn't so different from every time he'd done it before. There was a little more baggage than usual, but that was all. He sat to himself in one of the seemingly seldom-used hallways in the manor house, palace, whatever. There wasn't such a thing as guaranteed privacy here. That wasn't so different, either. But he'd gone here, away from everything, to start pulling away what bandages remained on his hands.

The bandages came off reluctantly, those few remaining gauzes sticking to the wounds that had mostly healed. The new scars were no paler than the rest of his palms - but then, the rest of his palms were so pale that they were almost vibrantly white. Just like all of his scars. The paleness of his skin in those places was nothing new. Just like the appearance of more scars.

The last of the gauze pulled away, bringing an old scab with it. It wasn't a pretty wound, still pink (that would fade), but it would do without bandages now. And with that done, he could pick up his clothing and go. That was all that remained. His clothes, maybe what was left of his pills.

And maybe the next world would smell less like smoke.

He stood, gauze dropped into a small trashcan as he headed for the outside. He'd lied to himself. There was one last thing to do, and he was on the way to do it, with a particular anklet in hand. Maybe he wasn't as coarse as he could be. He'd see this thing explode outdoors instead of in.

In the room that he'd been staying in, Ethan paced.

He was clean. The pillow and the blanket were on the bed again. But he felt sore, like his head was heavy and his knees were weak. This wasn't really normal. He was used to feeling ill, but this wasn't ill. His stomach felt fine for the first time in years, but something was wrong.

He paced.

"I know," he murmured. "I know. Shouldn't be here, I know, I see, okay, shut up." His voice was muffled intentionally. He knew that whatever he spoke to, it wasn't something anybody else could hear.

But he could hear it. He could, he did, it was there, he couldn't stop hearing it.

The glass of the window was cool as he rested his cheek against it, hands fisted against the window sill.

"I know, I know, not yet, I know..."

He got sick regularly. He was used to it. Spoiled food, water that tasted like oil - there wasn't much he could do to avoid sickness in his day to day life. But he hadn't thought he was that sick.

When he felt like this, he would usually find some out of the way place and sleep until his stomach would stop cramping, beg on a streetcorner until he had enough money for some kind of carbonated drink to make the nausea ease. He didn't pay attention to how long he spent sick. It ebbed when it ebbed and then he would move on. Having medicine to take for it - meds that weren't antipsychotics - was novel.

He'd found his shoes at long last and had gone outside, back pushed against the wall as he weathered another round of nausea. He was used to it, but that didn't make it pleasant. But he'd had to go outside.

Too many roofs over his head, too many walls around him. He could feel himself starting to hyperventilate in that room, and he'd had to get out, chill notwithstanding. Even if it did make his nose run.

Once the nausea passed, he did the only thing he could do, even with an arm still held over his stomach. Ethan started to walk in whatever direction he was facing. And he breathed.

The bed had been too soft. Not that it surprised him - the softest thing he'd slept on in years was the occasional cot or the padded floor of a cell in the psychiatric ward. The bed had reminded him too much of that. He'd ended up on the floor at the bedside, the rug being the only padding he could stand.

Half asleep, Ethan made his way out of the room he'd been pointed toward and toward the front door - or what he thought was the front door. Either way, it was a door to the outside world, and he stood just outside.

He didn't fit here. Didn't fit here, wouldn't fit here, and there were worlds he had yet to scour. The wounds on his hands would take time to heal, though. Longer than usual, thanks to the cross-ocean trip.

Eyes narrowing, he lifted one arm to swipe at his nose where it dared to run. The anklet he'd removed would read his location as on these grounds until its battery ran down. The only real question was whether to stay or go. Every fiber of his being wanted him to go while the much quieter reasoning told him to stay. He needed to let his hands heal. No matter how fractured he was inside his skull, he knew that.

And he wanted his clothes back.

But he still stood just outdoors, bare feet chilled to the point of pain as he tried to come to the decision.

"No identification."

"I don't need identification."

"Oh really. And you expect us to just accept that you're allowed in this country without identification beyond your demands to get to Knight Industries?"

"Ask your agent with the broken jaw," Ethan snarled, shoving up from the chair they'd put him in, only to get thrust back down again by two agents with heavy hands. It didn't take much to move him - the man's colour was bad, his body suffering from the long boat trip. Ethan could remember few meals aboard the ship, stolen from what he could find in the waste, and having thrown up often from the motion of the sea. "I'll break another," he hissed all the same, "unless you let me go."

"You're already in trouble enough from that, and he does plan to press charges."

"Against a man who doesn't exist?" He smirked - a smug and unpleasant expression. "Please. Try."

The agent's lip curled. he had a point. To press charges against someone who had no ID in any system that they accessed -- how could they offer a fair trial to someone who wouldn't even give them his name?

There was a small benefit to his condition. Even with his hands still bleeding into their makeshift bandages, he could send his thoughts into the wireless network that permeated the air - most worlds had that, he'd found, at least in cities.

At one time, he'd stretched to the sattelites, felt the world stretch out below him as he gleaned the information he needed. It ached that he was so limited now.

But as he wished to find, there it was. The thread of Knight Industries throughout it all, the knowledge that they still existed here. And that meant he might have his chance. His precious, deserved chance...

"So," he murmured, "now I know where I need to go."

His hands slid into the loose pockets of his jacket and he began to walk (the bane of his existance, walking) toward the city he now knew held the headquarters. How long would it take for him to make it there? Less time if he hitchhiked--

Or less time, indeed, if he just... took what he needed.

With a faint smirk, he let himself infiltrate the OnStar network and unlocked a nearby Chevrolet. This would do.

The car sped out of town, slightly over the speed limit. He had somewhere to be.

He fell onto the ground with a pained thud, feeling his palms scrape against asphalt, the shocks of the manifest still sending jolts through his body. His hands were bleeding against the pavement, his heart was struggling to find the right rhythm.

The sound that left his throat was pained, but pain or not, he pushed himself onto his back.

Air. There was blessed, near-clean air. The amount of smog was lesser than the previous world - but still not clear, still not clear like it should be, the fools. He came from a world full of preciously clean air, and the fools in all of these worlds still insisted on fossil fuels...

He hissed as he took in a breath and looked at his bleeding palms.

This would hamper the beginning of his search.

( Body, Mind, and Soul. )