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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:02:46 GMT -5
(Evan's post)
Evan nodded and repeated it. "Have fun when you're not listening to the farmers." She smiled, a slightly sad look about it as she locked down her sheilds close.
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:03:14 GMT -5
Pharoby joined the queue for boarding the plane. She looked back at her sister, who was tightly guarding her emotions, and Pharoby sighed. She hated leaving her sister like this, but somethings couldn't be helped. After showing her passport and boarding pass, she answered the inevitable questions about her visit to Brazil. Luckily they only asked one today.
She waved goodbye and mentally sent a kiss-on-the-cheek to Evan, turned, and walked down the gangway to the plane and her seat.
Late that afternoon, the plane landed in Rio where she was greeted by "the Bear". Sighing, she read the slip of paper he handed her. Then followed him to the small waiting area for the flight to Maneaus where she would meet the Villas-Boas, the anthropologists whom Pharoby had met before. They would take her deep into the Amazonia for "first contact". She called her sister and left a message that she had landed in Rio safely.
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:03:29 GMT -5
Evan waited until the plane left, wishing her sister a good trip. The traffic on the drive back was starting to get hecktic and she was relieved when she got home. She grabbed her books and laptop and rushed to class, nearly dozing off during the last few minutes.
It was near dinner time when she got back. Checking her messages she found Pharoby's. Evan already missed her. She checked the fridge and made herself a sandwich and some tea, then got the notes she had made in class in order. Later she was running through the ancient government website that she had broken into. The list of bases was jumbled in with other information, and she had been checking through it for several months. She was reading through a rather dull report when it mentioned a Black Ops training base dealing in experimental weapons projects.
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:03:55 GMT -5
Pharoby called her sister after she settled into the hotel in Manaus late that night. Knowing Evan, she figured she'd be still up. The Bear had given her an idea of some of the itinerary on the flight from Rio and she wanted to let Evan know that too. She splashed cold water on her face while the operater patched the call through.
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:04:30 GMT -5
(Evan's post
Evan jumped as the phone rang, trying to rub the screen glare from her eyes. She had been taking notes on the location of the decomissioned Operations base, narrowing it's location down to a distance she could walk in a day, seriously considering taking a trip out to that location. As she reached for the phone she muffled a yawn. "Hello?"
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:04:55 GMT -5
Pharoby giggled, "Hey sis! I just got the rest of my itinerary. I'm going to be here in Manaus until we meet with the Villas-Boas foundation tomorrow, after the afternoon rain shower. Then I go by boat To Tefe' and Rio Negro for the next 4 days. After that, I'll be going down the Rio Xingu. They've arranged for me to meet a farmer that's supposedly 102 years old, that lives down below Diauarum on the Mato Grosso thingyula. That part is going to take the longest because he lives about 2 days walk from the river. I should be headed out of here and flying out of Macapa' in about 18 days. I'll have a layover in Miami, so that puts me in about 8:30 am that day. Don't you have an exam that morning? I'll catch a cab if you do. You don't know how excited I am to get language samples from this farmer. He's the last one with that particular dialect around!"
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:05:42 GMT -5
Evan grinned as she listened to Pharoby talk. "That's amazing! I think I have an exam that day." She glared at the calendar as it confirmed it. "Yeah, I do. Hey, you know how I've been looking for the base that had the fire... I think I found it. It's only a few hours drive away. I'm thinking of going this weekend."
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:06:07 GMT -5
"Sis, are you going by yourself? I wouldn't. Or if you insist, at least let somebody know where you are going. I'd hate to have to cut this trip short to come rescue you, which I'd do anyway!" Pharoby frowned.
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:06:46 GMT -5
Evan sighed, the pressure she was feeling to go... it was almost on the instinctual level. She should be able to hold off for awhile; she hoped. She smiled into the darkness of her room as she spoke, "Okay, I'll wait. You won't have to cut your trip short sis. I miss you already."
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:07:11 GMT -5
"I wasn't meaning for you not to go. Just let somebody else know besides me!" Pharoby yawned. "I have to be up in 4 hours, so I'm going to get some sleep. Otherwise I"ll be yawning at the foundation's tea later. Night, Evan!"
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:07:47 GMT -5
(evan's post)
Evan chuckled, "'Night Pharoby." She clicked the end button, and set the phone by her laptop. Her eyes drifted to the screen and the maps of the area the base was in, she shut the laptop down.
There was only one person nearby that knew about her being a New Mutant. Chris. She sighed again and got ready for bed, mulling the idea over in her mind.
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:08:38 GMT -5
(evan's post) Evan’s eyelids snapped open to reveal a featureless white ceiling, a smoky haze obscured her view of her scattered assortment of clothes, art and school supplies highlighted by her sepia infrared vision. She released the shaky breath she had been holding and shuddered in her sweat-soaked, tangled sheets as the mist vanished.
Even now she couldn’t remember the dream she’d had. It had been like this for weeks now, and she could never remember what she had dreamed, though she woke upset and unnerved. Luckily she never projected. The clock read 5:35 AM. Two and a half hours. Evan extracted herself from the sheets, took the sheets off the bed, and went into the bathroom.
She let the hot water beat the tenseness out of her body as she stood beneath the showerhead. Twenty minutes later she was back in her bedroom, wrapped in a towel and searching for clothing. Five minutes later she was dressed in loose cotton pants, a tank top, and hunting for her sneakers. Having found them behind her door she put them on, grabbed house keys, and shoved her wallet in a cargo pocket before she was out the door.
Evan cloaked herself in the fog that happened to shroud the campus that morning. It masked the buildings and few people, obscuring their outlines and sounds. The only clear sound was the impact of her feet; the damp mist even seemed to muffle her powers, though she knew it was an illusion of her own making. She was grateful even for an illusion, maybe she could sort some things out.
Something was making her uneasy. That was obvious. She had been shocked by Rain’s news. But that wasn’t it, the root of it anyway. She searched her memory, all the way back. Her steps faltered as she realized what it was. All the way back… all the way back was a hellish metal tunnel. A hellish hot metal tunnel; air ducts. Evan stopped. Back to that, it always came back to that. Something she couldn’t even remember clearly. But that was the problem wasn’t it? That she couldn’t remember.
And then there was something cold and hard pressed against the back of her head. Stupid, you weren’t paying attention. “You messed with the wrong gang b*$#. No one messes with the Blood Dogs. ” Crap, I don’t want to do this right now. A hand shoved her towards an alley thick with fog and shadows, gun barrel still at the base of her neck. She could try and go a more non-violent way, just use her psionics. Three figures in the shadows were waiting, smiling. The gun was removed from the back of her head and she was shoved forward. Four human-shaped shadows circled her. Forget non-violent. Golden eyes glowed through the dark mist.
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:09:19 GMT -5
Pharoby was a little late in making her next phone call home to Evan. Puzzled when she reached the answering service, she left a message, "Hey, Evan. It's me. You would've enjoyed the tea. They had a trained monkey who planted hisself on my lap,much to the embarrasment of my hosts at the Foundation. Well, I'm off to the Mesa. We're flying tonight to save time in the private jet. I'll call you tomorrow. I hope you told somebody where you were going! Miss ya. I'll buy some of the tea we had today so you can try it."
Pharoby really hoped Evan wasn't in any trouble...
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:09:55 GMT -5
(evan)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fear was a powerful emotion. A feral trapped with fire, cornered in a small space knew just how strong that emotion could be. That feral also knew it could be used as a weapon. Something these rather unfortunate thugs were about to experience.
The blaze of her infrared vision faded, leaving the circling shadows frozen in place. A moment later Evan projected that remembered fear, alternately diving at a shadow to her left, one of the two with guns. Bad move. She heard the explosion from the gun that sent a searing line across her right shoulder. Then footsteps and yelling in shaky voices, “What the hell was that man?”
They were running, good. Her prey drive kicked in. They were running toward the back of a dead-end alley. Even better. Evan lunged, toppling the nearest target swiftly. She didn’t even need to knock him out. The brick backing of a building and the momentum did that for her with a solid crack. This one had had a knife. She grabbed it and ran for the next one, smelling hot metal. Gun This was the one who had shot at her. Her eyes illuminated the blurred outlines again as she contradicted his brain’s command to move his feet and he stumbled; the hunters had become the hunted.
Evan winced as she peeled off her soaked tank top in the bathroom, the fabric brushing a little against the grazing the bullet had made. It had started to rain on her way back and she had been soaked to the skin long before she reached the doorstep. She checked her shoulder in the mirror; it wasn’t enough to warrant stitches. Awkwardly she poured some antiseptic on it, and then tried applying a topical antibiotic. After a few minutes of mixed results because of the angle she had to work at she put gauze on it and wrapped it in vet wrap from her kit.
After she had changed into dry clothes she checked her messages, smiling when she heard Pharoby’s. Well, her sister sounded like she was having some fun. Time to track down Chris’s number, or Chris, and tell her where she
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Post by gelf on Jul 7, 2005 16:10:22 GMT -5
Pharoby spent the next few days eagerly learning the dialect. She tried calling a few times, but her phone wouldn't go through. She couldn't get an internet connection either. She hoped Evan wasn't getting worried about her, but that was the risks of traveling this deep into the jungles. She completed both her missions, the obvious academic one and the secret one, in record time and she eagerly looked forward to her return to the states.
As soon as the noisy turbo-prop jet landed and she found a quiet corner, she called Evan and finally connected to her sister's phone. Unfortunately she got the usual message, "Evan, it's me. I'm so sorry. Those darn connections on the plateau were inadequate at best." She let out a string of colorful words in Portuguese at the porter who was trying to pick up her luggage. "Sorry about that, I've changed my flight, and am flying to Miami on the red eye tonight, and hopefully I can catch an early commuter flight out of there back home. I'll call when we get to Miami. They've just called my flight."
Pharoby turned her phone off and grabbed the bags the porter has just tried to pick up. She pulled her passport out and held it together with her ticket. She endured the customs officers questions and then finally gratefully sunk into the seat. It was about an 8 hour flight with the time change to Miami. She enjoyed the inflight meal, and convinced the stewardess to serve her alcohol which allowed her to sleep. She had not slept much the past few days, she was so tense. She slept until they announced the landing in Miami.
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