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Entry tags:
- !plot: lirath,
- allenby beardsley,
- angie spica,
- anwei ayles,
- applejack,
- ash ketchum,
- cassie,
- chell,
- daniel jackson,
- dean winchester,
- dhianeila,
- eleventh doctor,
- eva,
- feldt grace,
- hank pym,
- hit girl,
- hoshi hikari,
- jamie hemeros,
- jono starsmore,
- kaya,
- lash,
- lord zetta,
- martha jones,
- midna,
- nightwing,
- nokosi,
- phillip,
- rapunzel,
- red xiii (nanaki),
- ren akiyama,
- river song,
- ruffnut thorston,
- sandy marko,
- satellizer el bridget,
- schmuz 44356,
- setsuna f. seiei,
- shoutarou hidari,
- son of satan,
- spider-man,
- stature,
- sumeragi lee noriega,
- tenaya,
- the master,
- wheatley
Lirath - Ship Survival
As the battle raged outside, those remaining aboard Stacy had their hands full preparing for the incoming flood of refugees.
Positioned near the Bleed-Gate orbiting Lirath, Stacy stood ready to receive the refugees. Ship after ship ascended as quickly as they could, some of them making a break for the Bleed-Gate itself while the smaller ships were forced to dock at Stacy, unloading their cargo of refugees before setting off again for the planet's surface again to take on more passengers.
Several small units of GIA soldiers were also sent up to help the Transmigration crew take in the massive amount of refugees, many of whom were tired, wounded, and scared. It wouldn't take long for the ship to begin filling with people.
With the battle raging outside, and the Ohm clambering outside, trying to get in, it would be a tall order to keep all of the refugees safe and calm, but the crew didn't have much choice.
[ooc: Open!]
Positioned near the Bleed-Gate orbiting Lirath, Stacy stood ready to receive the refugees. Ship after ship ascended as quickly as they could, some of them making a break for the Bleed-Gate itself while the smaller ships were forced to dock at Stacy, unloading their cargo of refugees before setting off again for the planet's surface again to take on more passengers.
Several small units of GIA soldiers were also sent up to help the Transmigration crew take in the massive amount of refugees, many of whom were tired, wounded, and scared. It wouldn't take long for the ship to begin filling with people.
With the battle raging outside, and the Ohm clambering outside, trying to get in, it would be a tall order to keep all of the refugees safe and calm, but the crew didn't have much choice.
[ooc: Open!]
Re: Part 2: Terrorist Attack!
She's going to kill him much more personally. These cultists, these creatures who surrender their will to others, let themselves be enslaved by dogma so they can hurt innocents. They're no better than voluntary hosts.
And there are at least two bodies she has herself to blame for. Rather than let that thought sober her, she lets it fuel her. All the more reason to get this attack right.
But she pauses for a moment at Daniel's words. As much as now isn't the time for sorrow and regret, it's also not the time for rage. Daniel's idea is a solid one, and how strange is it that academic, almost timid Daniel is the one with the solid battle plan here?
Funny, she never thought she'd have to see Daniel wielding a gun.
"No. Isolate him." The man probably isn't geared up with a suicide bomb, or he'd have set it off already, but he's still a menace if he stays around the civilians - both because he's probably armed and because he might draw fire from their own side. Eva wouldn't be surprised if the item he's carrying is some type of explosive or electrical scrambler.
"Stay on this side, force him to the side of the room. People will start spilling into the hallways and splitting up there. We know this ship better than he does; we can corner him if we know which hallway he's running down. We need to get him away from as many people as we can, now."
Besides, she wants this man alone for selfish reasons, too.
Re: Part 2: Terrorist Attack!
What Eva and Daniel probably wouldn't have expected, though, was that he appeared to have some knowledge of the ship's layout. There was absolutely no hesitation as he picked his path through the hallways, as though he already knew where he was going.
In fact, it was very likely he did. His current route would take him straight to Neuropathy.
Re: Part 2: Terrorist Attack!
There wasn't any time to argue Eva's plan. They'd just have to do their best and try to stop him, because he wasn't going to slow down on their account. Whatever he was carrying, it couldn't be any good. Daniel separated from Eva and pushed through the crowd. He was onto them, or at least one of them. He was hauling.
Daniel sped up, the pistol clenched in his hand. There was something weird about the way the man ran through the crowd. There wasn't any hesitation, no sign that these twisting corridors were new to him. Almost like he knew this place.
...Oh God.
The moment he got a clear shot, Daniel fired.
[Daniel's not exactly Marksman rated or anything, so up to you guys if he hits or where, if he does]
Karl, if this is godmoding the NPC too much tell me and I'll remove it.
Pulling in fire with each breath, she skids around a corner and nearly collides with a civilian. The crowd is thin enough here that she twists away from most of the people and sees the cultist pull into a clearing - only to go tumbling forward as Daniel's bullet takes out one of his knees.
Good shot, Daniel, she thinks, not breaking her stride as she runs up to the fallen man and descends on him like a hawk on prey, pushing one forearm down on his throat to keep him from swallowing any poison pill he might have (and from getting enough air to struggle against her), using knees and her other hand to keep his hands away from any possible weapons and check his wrists for triggers.
She'll suffocate him with her own body weight if someone doesn't stop her.
Re: Karl, if this is godmoding the NPC too much tell me and I'll remove it.
"Gghk," he spat as he tried to struggle against Eva, trying in vain to kick her off him.
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He stood there, stunned, before he caught himself. Daniel kept the gun trained on the man, finger resting on the trigger guard's exterior and moved to inspect the device on the ground. Keeping an eye on the struggle, Daniel bent and hoped to God this didn't blow up in his face the next second.
He'd never seen anything like it. Normally Daniel was all for uncovering the secrets behind such a device, any alien device or at least, how whoever this man's people or organization informed the device's design... but learning on the fly in the middle of an attack, with the high possibility this was an explosive wasn't exactly conducive to a research environment. The device didn't appear to be ticking. Yet.
Which wasn't exactly an optimistic way of looking at it, but until they had an idea of what it could do, Daniel thought it better to err on the side of caution. Making sure it was out of reach, Daniel stood up. That left something else.
"Eva. Eva!" Daniel grabbed her by the shoulder, and gave her a small, rough shake, and hoped it was enough to get her to stop trying to strangle him. He didn't see any visible remote or anything like it in the man's hands, nothing that could set off the device. "Wait! We need him alive!"
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She holds his life right beneath her, this piece of filth who would terrorize people seeking safety, who would wage subterfuge on people trying to evacuate victims. Not that she doesn't understand; there are no sacred cows in war, not victims or refugees or holy places. But that doesn't mean that the attacked can't feel and act on indignant rage.
But Daniel's right, and she holds off. "We need to drag him off to the side. Get him away from the crowd. Make sure no one touches that device." Most of the initial panic has settled down in hallway, and the civilians are backed away, watching in terror and curiosity at this strange form of law enforcement.
She gathers the cultist's wrists in one hand, lifts her other and picks her revolver up off the ground, where she discarded it by the cultist's head, and puts two .38 bullets in him - one in his right wrist, and one in his left knee. Civilians scream in shock at the first shot and cringe at the second.
"One," she mutters, putting her gun back in the holster and continuing to pin his chest with her foot, his neck with her knee, and his arms with her hands. Good luck trying to escape now.
She looks back to Daniel, wild and almost giddy, determination replaced by an almost feverish expression. It's a stark contrast to his trepidation. Daniel looks like he'd rather be anywhere but here; Eva looks as if electricity and venom is coursing through her veins. "Do you have any experience with interrogation?"
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"The End will come for all of you!" he spat out angrily. "Our sacred work will not fail with me!"
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"Shit!" Daniel cried. It was too late to do anything about it. There was blood splattered nastily on the floor, little white specs of what was probably bone fragments, and the cultist was spitting out an agonized storm.
Daniel knew that his best friend was a former Black Ops. Jack never talked about it much. Actually he never brought it up, and when Daniel tried to feel around the subject a few times, it was like running into a wall. All Jack would say was that he'd done things he wasn't proud of for his country, but it was over and done with, he'd followed his orders, and would you drink your damn beer, Jackson, because it's not a toy? So asking Jack about it never got Daniel anywhere. It wasn't like he could ask anyone else on base. No one else had the experience, or if they did, they were even less likely to indulge his curiousity than Jack. All Daniel came out of it was Jack had done things that must have been pretty terrible if even he wouldn't talk about them. So that left Daniel with a lot of theories, guesses, and just flat out musings during the day about Jack's past.
Actually seeing someone he'd just been drinking coffee with, had pancakes with her and her son, very deliberately maim someone was so far off what he'd ever imagined that Daniel was at a loss for words. The brutality was something more along the lines of a Goa'uld. This must be part of what it was like to be Black Ops, Daniel decided with a sick feeling. It wasn't as if Daniel hadn't shot anyone before, but he hadn't ever aimed to try and cause pain or incapacitate someone in this manner. It was cool, brutal, and Eva was looking at him as if she was asking him the weather. If she happened to be getting something out of it at the same time, becausethere was a feverish look in her eyes. Daniel hurriedly looked away from her, not wanting to see it. He looked down at the cultist.
He'd quickly gone from pain (maybe it was that fast that he was "over" it. Daniel hadn't exactly been shot in areas deliberately meant to maim and prolong pain before. How was he supposed to know?). Now the man was giving the basic version of how they were going to burn in hell, etcetera etcetcera. He was loud too. They had an audience with some of the refugees, some of which were children.
Daniel was going to ask Eva what she thought she was doing. What came out was, "N-not really. But I'll talk to him. We need to get him medical attention first."
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For a moment, she seems to deflate, realizing for the first time the inconvenience of the damage she just caused. "Help me drag him. We don't want him to bleed out on the floor. Any supply closet should have something we can bandage him up with."
That should be an innocuous enough excuse for Daniel to follow her lead. She knows what she wants to do next is going to drive a wedge between them, maybe permanently, but from the cultist's response to his injuries, she doubts he'll be compelled to speak by tea and cookies.
Her lungs feel leaden, making Daniel an accomplice, but why should he be exempt? Her own child wasn't exempt from war. There is no safety from it, and besides, Daniel isn't going to be the one getting his hands dirty.
She waves a hand in the man's face before grabbing him by the collar and his uninjured arm and starting to drag him, leaving a deep red trail pulled across the floor. "Yes, yes, we get it. The end is nigh, the end is nigh. If you think I haven't made my reparations for Hell, you've woefully underestimated the pessimism of this crew."
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Much as he tried to struggle against her, he wasn't the most physically strongest person out there. Likely why he was saddled with a job like this rather than being one of the grunts carrying the big guns.
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It was still on the table if things started getting rough. But their best bet was to actually talk to him.
Daniel bent and helped Eva, keeping on hand on the gun. As soon as he was out of the hallway, Daniel hesitated. On second thought... he dragged the device in with them and set it down as far as he could from the terrorist, then closed the door. As much as he didn't like the idea of being effectively locked in with what could be a weapon, is was better in here than out in the open.
"Eva, can you take care of his wounds?" Daniel asked. Hopefully getting her to do something less violent would get her to calm down.
Kneeling out of striking range, the archaeologist draped his hand across a knee. The gun was visible, and while Daniel didn't like guns involved at all in talks, well.... he did shoot him already. It was something of a moot point by now.
"I'm Daniel Jackson," Daniel almost said Eva's name, but held back, uncertain of whether she wanted him to know. Daniel was willing to risk it. At least it might make him look more like a life than a casualty target number. "I'm sorry I had to shoot you. She'll take care of you. What's your name?"
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She knows in some far-off part of her mind that this may be one of their few chances to get information, but she finds it hard to care. Better Daniel to find the right questions and examine the information, with her playing the violent role in this perverse charade of Good Cop Bad Cop. She shakes her head a bit at Daniel's opening gambit of trying to get the cultist to familiarize himself with them, but he is the archaeologist, after all. He's used to dissecting information, deriving concepts of a culture from scant details and examples.
Still, she won't be giving her name to the enemy willingly. "Clara del Valle," she says, taking the name from a character who couldn't speak for years from one of her favorite books. She doubts the cultist bothered to remember her name when Daniel was trying to stop her killing the man.
"Doubt you'll be able to reason with him. He's a zealot," Eva says, not particularly to Daniel or the cultist, but simply because sometimes she forgets other people can hear her when she talks out loud. She finds bandages and applies them, sparing no tenderness. She's a far cry from the loving mother who patched up Marco's skinned knees and scraped palms. Instead she's rough, and she wraps the bandages around the cultist's wrists like handcuffs.
She gives the injured wrist a quick squeeze as she works, hopefully subtle enough that Daniel doesn't notice, but enough to remind the cultist who the helpless party in the situation here is.
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"We know who you are, fools," he said with an indignant tone. "Our master will see to it that you all burn."
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He looked up at Eva, not wanting to admit she might be right already, and just nodded at her when she began to apply the bandages. Daniel's eyebrows lifted slightly. Wasn't she supposed to disinfect or something first? He wasn't exactly a doctor here (okay, he was, but not that kind of doctor), but maybe she should have cleaned the wound up.
Daniel turned back to the cultist. Did they really know who they were or was it a bluff?
"Fine, I guess we burn. Do we at least get to know who your master is before you kill us?" Daniel asked, unable to completely keep the sarcasm from his voice. "Just so we know who cleansed us from the universe."
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"Alright, so you know who we are. Do you know who I am?" She pushes her hair back, letting him see her whole face. She's decided that anonymity isn't as useful as using her history to intimidate. "Do you know how I spent seven years a slave? Do you know how the last of those years were spent in a jail cell or tied to a stake while my captors tortured me? Do you know how long I spent fantasizing and praying for the day when it would be me with all the power, holding them helpless while I inflicted pain on them?
"We could do this one of two ways. You can talk, and I'll be gentle. Or you can keep spitting at us." She holds the gun up and taps the barrel against the cultist's nose. "I understand that according to your bullshit religion, your life is already forfeit. But believe me, there is a limit to the amount of pain your body can take before I'll have you kissing my feet for mercy. And if there is a nerve ending that can put you in agony, you'd better bet I know exactly where it is. I'm very, very experienced."
The speech is exhausting, but she doesn't show it, instead leaning back on her heels almost casually, like a cat in repose. She's fighting twin emotions. Part of her, buried deep in her stomach, is hoping he'll talk. That she won't get to indulge the part of her that demands she gut him like a fish.
She barely even notices that Daniel is still there.
"It's up to you. Maybe I'm bluffing. Maybe the thought of torturing you makes me sick inside. Or maybe I just shot you twice and have been waiting for moments like this for a long, long time." She shrugs. "You're not my slave-masters. But you'll do."
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Getting up so close to the Cultist without the confusion of combat would show Eva he probably wasn't lying. His face was riddled with far more scars than even Eva herself had, most of them self inflicted and far deeper than the wounds she had suffered.
"But that is irrelevant. Do you really think we would send a device of any importance in the care of a single, unarmored, unarmed man? We may be zealous, but we are not fools."
"I am here to deliver a message to you from my master."
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He couldn't figure it out. What was getting into her? Because this wasn't the woman he'd met back on XaXing. Sure, she'd had some words for him; told him off, actually but only because Daniel was the one who'd opened his big mouth first and let his hatred for the Goa'uld run his tongue. But using her past as a weapon, threatening to torture him? It occurred to him that this could be a bluff. A very convincing, very scary bluff. If it was, Eva sure fooled him.
The scary part was that Daniel believed she could do it. Make good on her threat. The terrorist didn't seem nearly so concerned. He did something that Daniel had been hoping he wouldn't, which was laugh at her. Daniel couldn't think of a worse thing to do at this time. The woman had deliberately maimed him after all. She still had a bullet left. He could feel this slipping out of control. The man either didn't realize the danger in or didn't care, and it looked like Eva knew and was this close to embracing it.
Daniel cleared his throat uncomfortably in the silence, hoping to break the tension even if just by a little. Hopefully he could get them to both stop, to think.
"If you have to experience pain every day for your master, what does your master even offer you to make it worth the trouble? And why even involve pain?" Daniel asked. It could be a form of devotion, but Daniel wasn't quite seeing it. It wasn't as if ritual scarification was an unknown. Several cultures back on Earth practiced it. The Suri and the Maori among a number of other cultures, and then you had cases like the Jaffa, proof that scarification was not something confined to Earth. They could be within any context, such as a right of passage or in the Ichi's case, to indicate someone had joined the ranks of the Nze na Ozo. Or it could be used to denote ownership, like marking slaves and cattle.
Or punishment. If this was the case, this particular terrorist still hadn't quite learned his lesson.
Daniel hesitated when the man asked them a question. Knowing how today was turning out so far, it was going to be the world's worst joke. He could just picture Jack's reaction now; ' What? Knock knock, Who's there, then this device blowing up in our faces. Great!'
"I don't know. You might be?" Daniel said. "What's the message?"
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"Yes, well, your master better have sent us some information on how many of your people are aboard this ship and what the primary mission was, because I can't really be bothered with another attempt at evangelism."
She casts a look at Daniel. She appreciates his attempt to defuse the situation and pull some information out of it, she truly does, but at the same time, she can't help but find his questions impractical and academic. Let Daniel study their culture later; at the moment they have god knows how many explosives on the ships among innocent people, among delicate machinery and Stacy's esoteric innards, and there is no time to deduce motivation or appreciate cultural relativity here. Given time to process, his keen mind would likely be of great use to them against the cultists - but in this moment, now, they need only information they can rely on.
"Start talking. Now. Without any of the hellfire and brimstone."
She has no doubt this man has suffered greatly, but she also has no doubt that given fifteen minutes, with or without Daniel's horror, she can break him. She's seen greater men and women than sniveling bootlickers scream for mercy. She's been one of those greater women. The cultist may have been using his faith as a shield against pain, but there are ways around any shield, she's certain.
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"This attack is merely a greeting. My master merely wants to give you a taste of what's to come. He knows we won't be able to take this ship or kill many of you. That's not the point."
He laughs again, as much as he could with Eva holding his lip.
"He knows you, knows all of you. He has plans for all of you, and he will be coming for you."
"Many more will die. More worlds will be consumed in fire. You cannot hope to stop him."
"You and all others will be consumed in his grand plans."
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This was a start. The prisoner was talking. Sort of. Not so much talking with them as talking at them,and not so much talking at them as either ranting or preaching, or possibly a combination of the two, depending on how you wanted to define the terms. But it was something.
So they had another enemy besides the Ohm. One who didn't mind sending his own to their deaths, which meant he either had numbers on his side or, Daniel was sincerely hoping there was no "and" there, he was so supremely confident in his grand plan that it didn't matter if he sacrificed his men. He seemed to know something about them too. Unless he was very good at reading them and extrapolating or making wild guesses. That was a possibility too.
"Um. Well. Hello back to him?"
This was bad. It wasn't like Daniel had scoured the databases seeing how many species were out for their blood. Did Leon or anyone know about this enemy? Or was he a newcomer.If he knew about them all, that was a problem. A big one.
"I mean, what's the point of all this in the first place? If he's so certain he can destroy us, it seems pointless to waste the time and energy on this attack. Obviously if we're going to die, he's got nothing to prove, and if he's in such a superior position anyway, he shouldn't need to stoop to seek our attention anyway. So why not just destroy us at will?" Daniel asked, although he knew it was a bad idea the moment it came out of his mouth. He quickly continued, hoping to keep the man going before Eva did anything more drastic."Why is he doing this? What plans?"
[warning for violence]
She closes her eyes while Daniel talks, hoping to God he can find the right question to ask that would make it worthwhile to keep talking to the cultist. But instead he asks about plans, which she figures full well will evolve into another diatribe on on consumption in flames and the coming apocalypse and some further iteration about just how stupid they are to defend themselves. Her eyes snap back open.
"And here I thought I'd just told you to serve us useful information, hold the 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God'," she says, lips pursed. She pulls her hand away from the man's mouth and flexes it in front of her face for a moment, running the other hand over his hair as if petting him. "Que bajón.*"
Then she jerks her hand back out like a snake catching a rat and jams two fingers up the man's nostrils, thrusting with her wrist and pushing past membranous tissue and crumpling cartilage. She holds his head steady by a handful of hair, forcing his face and sinuses to meet the full strength of her arms. Blood gushes from his nose, streaming down her wrist and into his mouth.
Her thumb hooks back under his lip. She puts her shoulder into it and pushes. Her first knuckles hit the nasal bone, and curling her fingers rips up more tissues and lets her literally hook her hand into his nasal cavity and the skull's nose socket. There are nerve endings there, pain receptors, sensitive ones usually protected by the face she's now destroying from the inside out.
She doesn't bother to look at Daniel. She doesn't want to register what a normal person would think she's doing now. It's not even that she doesn't care, or that she isn't aware, but that there is a part of her that wants to cry and hide and drink right now until everything goes away. And looking to someone who might say 'Eva, that might be the better idea' could bring that guilty, fearful part bubbling to the surface, and she can't afford that now.
Besides, she chose this method because if Daniel tries to physically separate her and the cultist, he'll only succeed in ruining the man's body more.
"I said no fire or brimstone." She tilts the man's head forward so he won't be able to choke on the blood and tissue draining down his throat. "Now give us useful information before I try to literally pick it from your shriveled little brain."
*Slang: 'What a letdown.'
Re: [warning for violence]
Sort of. It was kind of hard to laugh with a broken nose and blood gushing down your face.
See, it was rather hard to hurt a man whose pain receptors were all burnt out on purpose. Makes it rather hard to interrogate the guy on your own terms. The fact that he was able to walk and talk despite his nervous system being so fucked up was solely testament to the level of cybernetic enhancements available in the multiverse's black markets.
"Really?" he sneered. "Head wounds on someone you're trying to interrogate? Not very bright, are you."
He turned and spat out a tooth before talking again.
"Killing you isn't the point, it's just an eventuality. My master has many plans and uses for all of you. He will admit as much himself. Master?"
Apparently the cultist had left his comms open the entire time, as another voice crackled from a device hidden on his person.
"Very good, number....673." said an unsettling, almost oily voice over the comm. "I'll be sure to put a gold star on your record. And give you a stirring eulogy."
There was the sound of a button being pressed over the comms, and suddenly the cultist's head jerked back, his eyes going wide, before his entire body went slack. He was dead, apparently, thanks to some sort of kill-switch the person on the other end of the comms activated.
"Something something he was such a wonderful person blah blah blah," the voice continued irreverently. "Now, as for you two, I'm sure this is all very frustrating."
"Sudden attack! New enemy! Vague, annoying taunts! But really, I just want you to know, I do take using all of you very seriously. I've got big, big plans for you and your friends, so I can't go killing all of you off yet. Maybe one or two, just for kicks, but that's it."
"I really am looking forward to this. I hope you are too."
Re: [warning for violence]
"Eva! That's ENOUGH! Daniel surged to his feet, and was on Eva almost as fast as she'd jumped the cultist earlier. It was the only time he'd ever used his height against her, or against anyone on his side, really, but Daniel didn't hold himself back. The archaeologist roughly grabbed Eva by the shoulder, fingers digging the fabric in a knot. Hauling her up easily, he pulled her away from the dead body. Daniel crowded her back into the wall behind her.
The only saving grace was that Eva hadn't actually killed the man. Barely.
"What the hell are you doing?!" he growled. The archaeologist glanced back at the corpse. The man's face was a mess. His stomach roiled again. Geez, as if the bullet wounds weren't bad enough. If that other person hadn't somehow killed the man remotely, there was a good chance he would have bled to death anyway. He wasn't that kind of doctor, but it looked like a lot of blood.
Daniel shook her with one hand. "What's gotten into you?! We don't do this, not to an enemy, not to anyone, not ever! We aren't like that!"
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She doesn't fight when Daniel pulls her away from the body. She just lets go. Her hand, her blood-covered weapon, goes as slack as the body and slides out his nose like toothpaste from a tube. She lets Daniel move her and only reacts when he crowds her up against the wall and shakes her.
"Don't touch me, don't touch me!" She shoves him, leaving a bloody handprint on his shirt. He's trapped her against the wall, trapped in this room with her own devilish handiwork. She shrinks into the corner like an animal that doesn't know whether to attack or hide.
The enemy is dead. Good. He deserved it. He was a brainwashed waste of carbon who attacked innocents, adults and children, to do nothing but inspire fear and hate. He was the mindless puppet of an evil force who likes inflicting pain. Like her.
But she knows better. She knows it was never about the cultist. It wasn't about her when she was tortured either - she was just a vehicle, a storage unit for someone else's rage and punishment. It's never about the one in physical pain.
She's dripping another person's blood. In a futile gesture, she tries to wipe it off on the sleeve of her jacket. She makes a whimper-like noise as she does so, then raises her eyes to meet Daniel's.
"You aren't. You aren't like that."
Maybe Daniel has some refuge in ignorance or naivete. Maybe he would be so strong regardless, if he'd lived like her. Like his wife. Maybe he would just buckle under the strain and give up. She always told herself she wouldn't give up, but it strikes her clearly now that for so long, she's been mistaking hatred and rage for progress. Don't get sad, get mad. Get so mad you're nothing but a tightly-wound ball of wrath and injured pride.
She stares at the body, face stern and still brimming with anger. Her voice is flat when she asks "did we get a recording of that chatter?"
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