The woman holds her son’s small hand tightly. He had insisted on coming, knowing that daddy would be there. Despite her son’s confidence, anxiety builds and roils in her stomach as more and more citizens cram onto the platform. She’s stricken with dizziness – disoriented by the crush of bodies and the sound of the train entering the station. Her son squeezes her hand.
The mechanical clamor of the train rolling into the station sets off a surge in the sea of people. Everyone pushes their way towards the arriving transport. The train comes to a stop, but the doors do not immediately open. It feels like an anxious eternity on the jam-packed platform. When the train doors finally open, the mob of people boarding fight against the current of passengers disembarking. Frantic, the woman scans the crowd, desperate to catch any glimpse of her husband. Dawning sorrow tears slowly through her as the crowd gradually disperses and the train rolls away.
All at once, the woman notices the absence of the small, fragile hand in her own.
She frantically looks down – her son is not by her side. Confusion quickly gives way to blind panic as the woman runs along the platform. She sees nothing, no sign of her son. The spike of panic now spirals into a gaping hole promising nothing but madness.
That’s when she hears it. Her son’s voice cries out. “DAD!” The woman looks towards the source of the sound, and sees her son tackle the legs of his father. Desperate, she runs to them, but her legs falter with each step, and finally buckle beneath her. She collapses.
She feels two sets of hands embrace her, one much smaller than the other. They smother her with their love and warmth. Tears flow down her face, and theirs. The crippling mixture of worry and grief is now avalanched by relief and joy. Even as the next crowd of people gather on the platform, this family continues to relish the moment of happiness.
Finishing the memory, James’ internal sensors have everything they need to track the emotion smuggler’s scent. He sees it clearly, wafting through the back alleys into a commercial district up ahead. First, James rubs a moistness from his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath. Just a trace of the woman’s memory, and the emotions are overpowering. He can only guess what could have possibly made the woman so miserably desperate as to willingly sell this life-altering recollection and remove it from her own storage forever.
Matilda’s voice carries over to him, but James doesn’t look over to her.
“You okay?”, she asks.
James feels his hand clenching and unclenching, beyond his control.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” he lies. “Follow me.”
To avoid any further inquiry, James immediately starts intently following the emotion smuggler’s trail. He does it by instinct, on detached autopilot, but uses the time to regain his composure. The stinging recollection of a family reunited against all apparent odds is too much for him to process right now, too much for him to bear.
Silently, he follows the pulsing trail through switchback alleys and meandering side streets.
It leads him right into the red brick wall of a commercial building.
Matilda speaks up.
“Uh… I don’t get it. Is this it?”
With James’ engineering eye, he can see the hidden door to the safe-house. He turns to Matilda.
“Yeah. Look… I’ve got to go in there myself. This isn’t the kind of thing you bring a plus-one to.”
Matilda shrugs her shoulders and nods
“Yeah, sure. I get it. I’ll just hang out around here.”
James tries his best to sound casual. “You’re not hungry, right?”
Matilda shoots him confused look. “What are you talking about? We literally just ate.”
James’ hand is flexing of its own accord. He hastily puts it behind his back.
“No, I mean. Have you had any… cravings?” He holds her gaze. “Since Babylon.”
Matilda takes a step back and frowns, and Taciturn knows he has said the wrong thing. The ice in Matilda’s voice is unmistakable.
“No… I’m fine. Look, just go do your stupid thing in there.”
The Scry looks down the alley way and points to a bench.
“If you’re so concerned… I’ll just grab some tea and sit. Unless you think just sitting will get me into trouble.”
James raises his hands defensively.
“Look I didn’t mean—”
Matilda’s expression contorts into a scowl.
“I said, I’m fine.”
Drained from the memory wake, James just doesn’t have enough in the tank for this conversation.
“Okay. It shouldn’t take long. Just give me 30 minutes. I’ll meet you right by that bench just as soon as I can.”
Matilda has already started walking away.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever. See you then.”
James watches her walk the down alley, hoping his words haven’t cut too deep, but a part of him knows that they have. The thought of leaving the Scry alone alarms him.
Turning his attention back to the brick wall, he manipulates the coding to open the hidden door and cautiously enters the safe house.
He’s transported through the green, glowing gateway to a small, dirty room that resides both within and outside the confines of Neverland. As a hideout, comfort and cleanliness are not chief among its attributes. He scans the rooms for any current occupants, finding none. While the trace of the e-smuggler remains, the space itself is empty save his own presence. Satisfied, James steps before a large console terminal.
He takes off his jacket, unbuttons his shirt, and tosses them both onto a battered, stained couch. Sitting down at the console, James blows on it, sending up a cloud of dust. As it hangs and drifts in the air around him, James deliberates on what best to create. Console terminals, like this one, give the user a workbench to create powerful new tools within the Cyberside. To end this cult of Virginia’s, he needs something that can take her down in one attempt.
In one shot.
If someone were closely studying him, he would appear to be sitting, eyes closed, hands going through the muscle-memory motions of typing on a keyboard that does not exist. In the UI behind his eyes, he accesses the System’s armory and his personal weapons files. First, he goes to his bookmarked designs and accesses the blueprints for his trusty pistol. With a few quick selections, his pistol and holster appear next to him inside the safe house. In his list of recent saves, he finds Matilda’s arsenal of knives – the deadly weapons she had to surrender before they boarded the plane in Babylon. James smiles, recalling the event: After their meeting with Donovan, when she’d been informed that she couldn’t carry them into Neverland, Taciturn had saved their classes to his own armory. He selects them all, and immediately transfers them to his backpack’s storage.
With the basics out of the way, James turns his attention to creating something new – to find the right weapon for their current job. He cycles through options.
Too heavy. Not enough penetration power. Too twitchy. He assesses and rejects weapon stats with lighting speed – accuracy, weight, slug velocity, ammunition types, watt-range, stopping power, magazine capacity, and a myriad of—
He stops on one model. And grins.
It’s a 50” long behemoth. It looks like a good start, but there are some components that need some tweaks.
His plan is simple. Virginia will stand at the podium for her daily ritual, a pretentious gathering of her subjects. Virginia will address them before the night begins, and she’ll bathe in the vanity and devour their adornment. In return, Virginia will spare her followers their unwanted memories, worries, and pains of the past. Before the spectacle unfolds, James will set up position in a vantage point nearby. He’ll need to find a building that overlooks Amazement Square. When the timing is right, he’ll put a bullet through her head, and secure the key in the ensuing chaos.