Revan in Xanadu (Part 7)
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Threat!
Behind me. I swiveled around to face the dimly-lit series of hallways that I had just emerged from and caught movement. Something coming down this long, narrow passageway towards me, very rapidly. I tensed and clasped the hilt of my 'saber in preparation, bu the creature leaped abreast of me and past at panicked speeds, ignoring me entirely.
I saw it more clearly then, a beast on four legs covered in grease and soot - Probably from the remains of the rotting things I faced - moving in a series of bounding leaps up the corridor ahead of me. Some kind of animal with long ears and wide blue eyes. It didn’t look threatening, but the Force shivered and rippled and swirled around it. It tastefelt very much like what an old friend had mockingly referred to as the kind of thing that made older Jedi say "Oooo, destiny!"
Whatever it was, it soon reached an intersection and turned a corner out of my sight. I licked my upper lip, tasting charred spoiled meat, and opened up cautiously to the Force. Nothing near but that frightened thing. If it's fleeing something, then whatever it is isn't close.
I started to walk again.
Closed doors were on either side of the hallway. I sensed no life behind them. Which either means that there are unpleasant not-living things or that everyone has evacuated this section. Curiosity drove me to pick a door at random and look inside.
These doors are strange, I complained to myself as I found the handle and clasped it. Static electricity naturally jumped to my hand with a loud "tix!" and I withdrew for a moment to shake it vigorously. Whoever designed them did so carelessly. Not anticipating that anyone with filled arms or unwieldy hands would ever attempt to open them. No, unlike the rest of the galaxy, this place can't make doors that open at a gesture. I tried again, hooking my glove around and turning, then shoving the door in with a foot. It was starting to look like all doors here were both manual and inwards - swinging.
Within this chamber was a huge flat-screened imager - Does no one here use holograms? - resting on the floor. Alongside it was a large black boxy object with cords connecting it to four smaller devices encrusted with colorful beady buttons. A number of gray metal chairs and rumpled sack cushions sat around these as if in homage. No bodies, animate or not, were in this room, but the furnishings seemed to have been damaged. The flatscreen looked like a hole had been... melted, I suppose, on one corner, and its surface surrounding that hole was covered in glass fracture and had also melted somewhat.
One of the peculiar little devices had been smashed into the rough beige carpeting by what appeared to be the tread of a heavy, heavy boot. Several of the sack cushions and metal chairs also seemed to have suffered more weight than they could handle.
Huh. I wonder what happened here? Sudden awareness of the begrimed state of my skin and clothing returned, so I resumed my walk at a faster rate. Back towards the tiny room where I had found myself earlier, though by a more straightforwards route.
I hate feeling tired.
Eventually I encountered other beings, who had either come back in from outside or, like me, had never left. A number of them were slumped unconscious against walls or spoke urgently in hushed tones. Some few were crying out sharply in the grips of various emotions, and although I was tempted I did not speak to any of them. Most seemed human or at least very humanoid, though not all. The panicked fever of a few hours past was apparently over, though I could hear a distant murmur. This area, my immediate vicinity, was quiet.
I consider myself to be very enlightened when it comes to other species, even varieties that I have never seen before. But in the parts of the galaxy that I come from, a tail on a sentient being is extremely odd. For that reason, I stared a bit more than I might otherwise have done.
Most people ignored me, but a harassed - looking mostly - human woman stopped me for a moment. The subdued brown scales of her tail contrasted with a dark blue outfit that said ‘uniform’ to me. There was lettering in white on it, but it was not in Aurekbesh or any of the other scripts that I knew, so I couldn’t read it.
"Go to your room if you have one and know which one it is, and if you don't, go to the front desk and one will be assigned to you, do you need any medical assistance?” Her voice held a tone that suggested she had repeated this phrase again and again until it no longer held any meaning for her.
"I do not need aid, and I know what I am doing, thank you." Damn. I sound so… formal. That happened, sometimes. With some people, I could not help but act with a kind of condescending authority. Part of my talents is responding differently to different people without knowing why.
For some reason the woman seemed to think that I was connected to her organization. Her exhaustion made her candid. "I don’t know what’s going on here. Don’t think anyone does. Law enforcement, animal control, the fire department, paramedics … Everyone within two hour’s drive has been ordered to this madhouse. The Pentagon’s supposed to have sent men, and there are SWATs everywhere, but I know hardly anything. They gave me a trank rifle as soon as they figured out who I was. I had to shoot a split-horned rhino thing with it, and now they have me here, directing traffic. I’m just part of convention security – the rest of the year I work in a mall.”
The tailed human looked away, caudal appendage waving gently. "I guess I’m the only one who wasn’t in a better costume. Head of security was in a gorilla mask this morning. Second in charge decided that his preteen daughter's favorite hero would be great here. Third- you don't wanna know what third did. In the ‘adults only’ hall, if you must know." She pursed her lips. "All insane. None of us could help going in costume – the worst that’s supposed to happen is fans getting drunk or stoned and wrecking stuff. Petty theft, things catching on fire, lost kids, that kind of thing. I’m not trained for this!"
Spilling her troubles seemed to make this minor security official feel better. This kind of thing happens to me more frequently than it should. People seem to enjoy telling me stories and things I can’t change – and to be truthful, I rather like listening.
Even so, I was tired, she was tired, and I was going to go to my rest. I could do one thing to help her …
Bringing the attitudes of a supremely confident older Master of mine, I looked down my nose at her and said, "I see. I understand that you are under a lot of stress, but be assured that we are working to control this disaster. For now, we need you to keep a steady hand and a clear head." One final use of the Force and the human, encouraged, straightened as if forgetting some of her fatigue, making a particular gesture with one hand flicking from her brow. A salute, perhaps?
I imitated the gesture as best I could before turning on my heel and striding proudly away. As soon as I had turned a corner I forgot that assumed pride to lean against the textured wall, eyes closed, weakened enough that if someone had needed me I might have collapsed on the spot.
From there, it was little trouble finding the correct door. It was down on the first floor – I could have been mistaken, but this looked like the kind of temporary accommodations that only the poor and the thrifty had to stoop to.
There I paused. Of course, the door was locked. And there wasn't a security interface or anything that I could hack on the door, just a horizontal slot above the curved metal handle, which did not move when I tried to turn it. Not only that, but I couldn't seem to remember just how I'd got in the first time. So how do I get in now?
A vague impulse lead me to reach into my Inventory and find a large, dark red bag with a shoulderstrap, a number of kilos in weight. It was the one that I had retrieved from this room earlier, the one with words I could not read scribbled on its surface. I held the heavy thing awkwardly in both hands and found a small pocket on the side.
It had a metal-like seam on one edge, with a metal-like tab afixed loosely to one corner. I stared at it in bewilderment, unsure what I was supposed to do. But before I could experiment, something else happened.
Moving on its own, one hand came up over the bag and pinched the tab between thumb and forefinger. My hand tugged the tab along the seam, and the seam opened with a "zzzzzzp!". Then the tab was released and my first two fingers inserted themselves into the pocket, coming out with a thick white plastine card held between them. It had a large black arrow printed on one side.
I said nothing. I did nothing. The Force and my own experience had no reference for this situation. But the hair on my arms and the back of my neck was standing on end.
My knee came up to support the weight of the bag, and my hand shuffled the card until it was clasped between thumb and bent forefinger, then thrust it into the slot above the handle before pulling it out with equal abruptness.
A tiny light glowed green, and that same hand reached around the handle, pulled it, and shoved the door inwards on its hinges.
My legs worked and I half-staggered into the little room, moving as if I was about sleepwalking. My hand pushed shut the door, replaced the white card back into the pocket, reclosed it with another "zzzzzzzzp!", and then the bag dropped unceremoniously onto the bed.
For some reason my body tried to do the same, but I stubbornly moved into the cramped refresher. The series of odd impulses continued, and I allowed my hands to manipulate the ridiculously simple controls until hot water streamed from a fixture in the ceramic stall. Then, working with the stranger in my body, I removed and folded my robes, dropping them uneasily into my Inventory, unbound my hair, and stepped into the water.
I’ve never been body-shy. In the Temple where I was raised, nudity was not particularly taboo. My personal preference happens to be clothed, and fully, but I have no problems with unusual states of dress. Even so, I did not look at myself any more than necessary as water coursed over me, sluicing away the sweat and grease of the day.
Reassuringly, it seemed that mine was the master control. I could override the other without difficulty, even when tired. I felt a faint resistance as I limped painfully through my stretching routines, but they did not take too long.
When I … or we … had shut everything from shower to lights off, wound a rugged white towel around my body, and watched it twist into a somewhat smoother loose gray sleeping - robe, I cleared the bed and half-fell onto it.
It seemed that my body, or that other in it, had one more thing to do. I felt myself sit up, open the bag, and rummage through it. The sleeping – robe fell open and re-formed into a coarse towel, and my throat made a tiny frustrated sound. I watched as my hands tossed it aside into a crumpled heap and reclothed me hastily in white undergarments, soft short pants, and a thin shirt. My hands then shoved back into the bulging confines of the bag and came up with a palm-sized heavy rectangle. It clamshelled open, revealing one surface with a little screen and another with buttons that sported symbols similar to the ones I had seen on doors.
My lips mouthed something as my fingers darted over the buttons and the screen lit. After a sequence had been keyed a strange, low electronic coo sounded. My hands cradled the rectangle against my ear. The coo repeated twice before clicking and a distorted voice from a speaker in the box said "Hello? Hailey?"
I waited patiently as my voice, drained but with a note of anxiety in it, had an emotionally charged conversation with the other one.
“Mom. Hey. It’s me.”
“Are you coming down with something? Your voice sounds different. Are you okay – you said you were going to that Kublai Con.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m at Xanadu.”
"We … we heard something terrible happened there! It was on the news, we tried calling but you had your cell off as usual - people... People aren't really becoming monsters, are they?"
“Yeah, Mom. It’s been a long day… I’m sorry I haven’t called. I’m just so tired.”
“Sweetie, we can be down there tomorrow, Mick can book us a flight – “
“No! No, don’t come down here. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m okay. It’s crazy out here. I don’t want you in it, I don’t want you and Dad and Jack getting hurt or mixed up in it. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”
“Hailey…”
“I’m a big girl, Mom. I’ve got a place to stay at the hotel – Dana rented a room when she was here earlier in the week, and she gave me the keycard when she went back to Midtral. I wasn’t going to stay the night, but I brought a change of clothes – ‘Than and I were going to use the room to change – he’s not here, it’s okay.“
“Are you by yourself? What if something happens? What are you going to eat? Have you eaten?”
“I’m a big girl now. It’s okay, I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I haven’t eaten anything since lunch – “
“Don’t go out and get anything now. Wait until morning.”
“I’m not an idiot, Mom. It’s okay, I can wait. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. You know I worry, sweetie. You know I worry.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m really tired… it’s quiet right now. I’m gonna go to sleep.”
“Okay, Hailey. I’ll tell your father. He’s been trying to set up a flight, most of them have been grounded… We love you.”
“Love you too. Tell Dad I love him. And Jack, even if he’s a snot.”
“I’ll tell them. You take care of yourself. And call as soon as you get the chance.”
“I will. Good night Mom.”
“Good night, Hailey.”
There was a click, and a tone somewhat deeper and more final than the initial coo. My hands removed the rectangle from the side of my face and held down a new button until the screen went dark. Then the other clamshelled the thing closed and shoved it back into the bag.
I laid myself back on the narrow bed, thinking rapidly. What in the nine hells of Corellia was that? What’s happening, anyway? This is not good. Why is this other here? What does this mean?
Ah. With the Force as her ally, a Jedi can make do for a time without food or rest. But not without both, not for long. It’s worrying, but not an emergency. I should just get to sleep. Things will look better later.
I allowed sleep to claim me, falling in a matter of seconds to its grasp.
| Preceded by: Revan in Xanadu (Part 6) |
Revan in Xanadu{{#if:| (First: {{{first}}})}} |
Succeeded by: Revan in Xanadu (Part 8) |