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Unfinished Business
Jun. 2nd, 2024 03:51 pmIt takes longer than it should for Abbie to start exploring the countryside. In their defense: Darrow's layout wasn't suggestive of the kind of long-running history that might include ruins or other useful archeological insights outside the city proper, and their research into the city's history hasn't included any mention of a supplanted indigenous population. Granted, they've been taking said history with an enormous grain of salt, given how vague and contradictory accounts seem to be. But they're also not an archeologist, and they lack the tools, permits, and expertise to conduct a proper dig, presuming they even found a site worth exploring.
A failure to look for a site worth exploring, however, feels like an undeniable oversight. More to the point, if the city's accounts of itself can't be relied upon, then a baseline list of observations about both Darrow proper and its surroundings will give them a reference they can trust. At some point, they might get creative with surveying equipment; for now, they just tromp through the woods with their field recorder, notebook, map, and compass, attempting a systematic exploration to the best that their wayfinding and the vagaries of the landscape allow. They're primarily looking for ruins or other evidence of historical habitation.
They are not looking for the Mount Absalom Observatory, so it's a hell of a shock when they find it.
It stands on top of a rise that they sluggishly place as Chapel Hill — the hill is here, too? — and they've taken three swift steps up the staircase before they catch themself and pause. They look down at the stairs beneath their feet, at the skeletal remains of old leaves plastered to the concrete.
Mount Absalom's leaves, or Darrow's?
How long has the Observatory been here?
Is this one of the city's weird little gifts that they've heard people mention?
"Okay," they say aloud, sharp and quelling, as if some belligerent asshole had just invaded their personal space. The echoes are swallowed by the surrounding woodland, unanswered, and it occurs to them to feel a bit foolish. "Okay," they say again, under their breath this time, drawing out the first syllable as they lift their gaze back up to the top of the hill.
They'd wanted something worth investigating further. Well, then.
Abbie continues up the staircase, one palm hovering an inch above the railing in case they lose their balance. No need to immediately examine the relative risk of losing their balance, or any superstitious hesitation to touch the railing, as if the whole thing might dissolve the moment they attempt contact. A baseless, nonsensical fear. The steps beneath their feet are perfectly solid and even.
"Urban planners, sure and certain, shape the world we live and work in," they whisper to themself as they ascend. Their eyes catalogue observations that they can't bring themself to commit to tape: that the structure looks sound, roof intact, windows unbroken; that there is no suggestion that a collapse is imminent; that there is, in fact, no immediate evidence that anyone has ever gone on a grief-fueled rampage with a sledgehammer in the not-too-distant past.
"Daniel Burnam made big plans, Chicago's ashes in good hands."
It doesn't look pristine, as if the city had transported it here in its newly-constructed glory. It looks better than Abbie left it, though.
They've reached the door, and hesitate for a beat before trying the doorknob. "Le Corbusier built giant towers, surrounded by a bunch of flowers." It turns beneath their hand with familiar old-mechanism resistance, but it does turn, and they give the door a quick, incredulous shove. The door swings open with a groan of complaint, and Abbie stares wide-eyed at the interior, their feet frozen to the stoop as the door slows, stops, and then sluggishly rebounds back towards them. It makes it to within a few inches of shutting in Abbie's face before they dart a hand back out and catch it, pushing it open again, this time following its arc and stepping into the Observatory itself.
The foundation doesn't tremble beneath their feet.
"Elizabeth Plater Zybeck hates the sprawl," they murmur. Then, with a desperate little veer off-script: "Hope the ceiling doesn't fall."
It doesn't. Abbie swallows, then clears their throat. If the door was left open, anyone could be in here. Anyone at all. There are no reasonable assumptions to be made. "Hello...?"
A failure to look for a site worth exploring, however, feels like an undeniable oversight. More to the point, if the city's accounts of itself can't be relied upon, then a baseline list of observations about both Darrow proper and its surroundings will give them a reference they can trust. At some point, they might get creative with surveying equipment; for now, they just tromp through the woods with their field recorder, notebook, map, and compass, attempting a systematic exploration to the best that their wayfinding and the vagaries of the landscape allow. They're primarily looking for ruins or other evidence of historical habitation.
They are not looking for the Mount Absalom Observatory, so it's a hell of a shock when they find it.
It stands on top of a rise that they sluggishly place as Chapel Hill — the hill is here, too? — and they've taken three swift steps up the staircase before they catch themself and pause. They look down at the stairs beneath their feet, at the skeletal remains of old leaves plastered to the concrete.
Mount Absalom's leaves, or Darrow's?
How long has the Observatory been here?
Is this one of the city's weird little gifts that they've heard people mention?
"Okay," they say aloud, sharp and quelling, as if some belligerent asshole had just invaded their personal space. The echoes are swallowed by the surrounding woodland, unanswered, and it occurs to them to feel a bit foolish. "Okay," they say again, under their breath this time, drawing out the first syllable as they lift their gaze back up to the top of the hill.
They'd wanted something worth investigating further. Well, then.
Abbie continues up the staircase, one palm hovering an inch above the railing in case they lose their balance. No need to immediately examine the relative risk of losing their balance, or any superstitious hesitation to touch the railing, as if the whole thing might dissolve the moment they attempt contact. A baseless, nonsensical fear. The steps beneath their feet are perfectly solid and even.
"Urban planners, sure and certain, shape the world we live and work in," they whisper to themself as they ascend. Their eyes catalogue observations that they can't bring themself to commit to tape: that the structure looks sound, roof intact, windows unbroken; that there is no suggestion that a collapse is imminent; that there is, in fact, no immediate evidence that anyone has ever gone on a grief-fueled rampage with a sledgehammer in the not-too-distant past.
"Daniel Burnam made big plans, Chicago's ashes in good hands."
It doesn't look pristine, as if the city had transported it here in its newly-constructed glory. It looks better than Abbie left it, though.
They've reached the door, and hesitate for a beat before trying the doorknob. "Le Corbusier built giant towers, surrounded by a bunch of flowers." It turns beneath their hand with familiar old-mechanism resistance, but it does turn, and they give the door a quick, incredulous shove. The door swings open with a groan of complaint, and Abbie stares wide-eyed at the interior, their feet frozen to the stoop as the door slows, stops, and then sluggishly rebounds back towards them. It makes it to within a few inches of shutting in Abbie's face before they dart a hand back out and catch it, pushing it open again, this time following its arc and stepping into the Observatory itself.
The foundation doesn't tremble beneath their feet.
"Elizabeth Plater Zybeck hates the sprawl," they murmur. Then, with a desperate little veer off-script: "Hope the ceiling doesn't fall."
It doesn't. Abbie swallows, then clears their throat. If the door was left open, anyone could be in here. Anyone at all. There are no reasonable assumptions to be made. "Hello...?"
(no subject)
Mar. 14th, 2024 05:23 pmThere are questions Abbie should have asked before this experiment occurred. Some had felt too personal, or simply not worth voicing in light of their own working understanding of the town. If Mount Absalom's ghosts aren't ghosts — if they don't rise from the grave under their own power, driven by their own motivations — then what they really need to consider are the potential motivations of the entity that brought Norah here in the first place. Questions like 'why is this so important to you?' or 'are you sure this is necessary?' — too personal, but also misaligned. Norah isn't the one they want to interrogate, and her answers (if she had answers readily available) might not have been useful.
'Why Omega Centauri?' might have been worth voicing, though. A data point that might have explained why one disappointing star cluster is worth such a monumental fucking meltdown.
The floor trembles. The air vibrates with echoes. Marisol stands frozen, her phone dipping under the onslaught, probably getting a decent shot of Norah's knees.
And Norah is unresponsive, bent over the eyepiece like a limb that something else is flexing.
"Norah — Norah, listen to me," Abbie says, to her, to whatever might be listening. "There are other star clusters, right? There's an entire night sky full of other star clusters! There's a universe of other star clusters! You can find another one—"
"It's empty!" Norah gasps, halfway to a sob. Abbie hates the sound of it. Desolate. Petulant, like a fucking child. She deserves better than this.
A statistical unlikelihood of echoes cry out: WHO ARE WE?
Norah straightens. She doesn't look at either of them. "I don't know," she answers. And then she's gone.
"Norah!" Abbie's voice echoes, uncaught, through the silence that Norah left behind. Shit. Shit.
And then the floor begins to shake in earnest. Abbie moves, finally, darting towards the telescope as one of the far walls begins to buckle.
"Abbie, we need to get out of here," Marisol starts. Windows shatter, one by one. "I don't like what's—"
"Help me get the lens!" Abbie says, hurrying to unscrew the drawtube lock. If they can just access it, if Marisol can get the eyepiece loose...
"What?" Marisol asks, unhelpfully.
"Of the telescope!" They have to shout to be heard over the storm outside, over the sound of the Observatory's ongoing implosion. "We need to take it!"
"This is super fucking dangerous," Marisol shouts back, in lieu of fucking helping. "We need to leave now!"
She doesn't understand. There needs to be something left. This can't just be a failed experiment. "They worked so hard!"
"Abbie!"
"She and Rudy worked so hard to build this! She’ll want it when she comes back!"
If she comes back.
Their hands are shaking, inefficient. The lens is still out of reach. A piece of the ceiling falls with a deafening crash, and Abbie flinches in spite of themself, curling over the eyepiece.
And then, for the second time, the cacophony abruptly subsides.
Abbie cracks their eyes open, then straightens by slow, stunned degrees. The Observatory is gone — not in the way it was working towards, just gone. The telescope, Marisol, both comprehensively erased and overwritten by an unfamiliar city block: sidewalk, cars, shop fronts. Pedestrians that don't look twice at them until they eject an alarmed, "What the fuck?!" That earns them a few looks, startled and disapproving.
They're dead. They're dying, and instead of cliché visions of white light or departed loved ones, the last desperate firing of their neural synapses is granting them a vivid hallucinatory approximation of being rude in public. Why not?
It's startlingly realistic, they'll give themself that much. They categorize the sensations with distant, intellectual fascination: the faint breeze, the hum of traffic and voices, the smell of exhaust and damp spring earth and a hint of salt, the marked chill of the cool air against their cheeks. (Are those tears? Mortifying.) The unanticipated weight of the object they're mindlessly clutching in their right hand. Abbie looks down, uncurls their fingers, and looks at the other thing they've been granted.
Nestled in their palm is Norah's lens.
'Why Omega Centauri?' might have been worth voicing, though. A data point that might have explained why one disappointing star cluster is worth such a monumental fucking meltdown.
The floor trembles. The air vibrates with echoes. Marisol stands frozen, her phone dipping under the onslaught, probably getting a decent shot of Norah's knees.
And Norah is unresponsive, bent over the eyepiece like a limb that something else is flexing.
"Norah — Norah, listen to me," Abbie says, to her, to whatever might be listening. "There are other star clusters, right? There's an entire night sky full of other star clusters! There's a universe of other star clusters! You can find another one—"
"It's empty!" Norah gasps, halfway to a sob. Abbie hates the sound of it. Desolate. Petulant, like a fucking child. She deserves better than this.
A statistical unlikelihood of echoes cry out: WHO ARE WE?
Norah straightens. She doesn't look at either of them. "I don't know," she answers. And then she's gone.
"Norah!" Abbie's voice echoes, uncaught, through the silence that Norah left behind. Shit. Shit.
And then the floor begins to shake in earnest. Abbie moves, finally, darting towards the telescope as one of the far walls begins to buckle.
"Abbie, we need to get out of here," Marisol starts. Windows shatter, one by one. "I don't like what's—"
"Help me get the lens!" Abbie says, hurrying to unscrew the drawtube lock. If they can just access it, if Marisol can get the eyepiece loose...
"What?" Marisol asks, unhelpfully.
"Of the telescope!" They have to shout to be heard over the storm outside, over the sound of the Observatory's ongoing implosion. "We need to take it!"
"This is super fucking dangerous," Marisol shouts back, in lieu of fucking helping. "We need to leave now!"
She doesn't understand. There needs to be something left. This can't just be a failed experiment. "They worked so hard!"
"Abbie!"
"She and Rudy worked so hard to build this! She’ll want it when she comes back!"
If she comes back.
Their hands are shaking, inefficient. The lens is still out of reach. A piece of the ceiling falls with a deafening crash, and Abbie flinches in spite of themself, curling over the eyepiece.
And then, for the second time, the cacophony abruptly subsides.
Abbie cracks their eyes open, then straightens by slow, stunned degrees. The Observatory is gone — not in the way it was working towards, just gone. The telescope, Marisol, both comprehensively erased and overwritten by an unfamiliar city block: sidewalk, cars, shop fronts. Pedestrians that don't look twice at them until they eject an alarmed, "What the fuck?!" That earns them a few looks, startled and disapproving.
They're dead. They're dying, and instead of cliché visions of white light or departed loved ones, the last desperate firing of their neural synapses is granting them a vivid hallucinatory approximation of being rude in public. Why not?
It's startlingly realistic, they'll give themself that much. They categorize the sensations with distant, intellectual fascination: the faint breeze, the hum of traffic and voices, the smell of exhaust and damp spring earth and a hint of salt, the marked chill of the cool air against their cheeks. (Are those tears? Mortifying.) The unanticipated weight of the object they're mindlessly clutching in their right hand. Abbie looks down, uncurls their fingers, and looks at the other thing they've been granted.
Nestled in their palm is Norah's lens.
