Hey guys.

I'm at work as normal but I will probably be in chat most evenings. I know you're all a world away and I can't offer any practical help (we don't have any toilet rolls in the shops here either anyway) but at an appropriate social distance allow me to get a little soppy (sorry not sorry). I figure some of us will be writing more and some less over the coming months, and although we are a writing community I've "known" some of you practically my entire adult life. I hope you all have wonderful support networks in your non-screen lives, however if you're worried and need to vent, or if you want distracting and to talk about anything other than the shit storm that is 2020, then I'm here. I'm making a concerted effort to actually keep my phone with me so that I am contactable for friends and family in isolation (those in at-risk categories here have been told to self-isolate for 3 months) so, timezone differences aside, I am around most of the time outside of chat. PM/facebook/email/whatever. If you don't have non-FA details and want them just ask.

The Holy Father was eating a midday meal when he was suddenly interrupted by the hurried footsteps of Archbishop Jean-Guy Cheney. The Archbishop served as foreign minister in the Secretariat of State, and one of a limited few with frequent access to the Pope. The former Frenchman was portly around the waist, balding, and had a mole on his upper lip that should probably be removed by a dermatologist.

“Holy Father,” he entered exasperated. Philip vaguely attributed his breathlessness to aging addiction to cigarettes. It wasn’t until the Archbishop placed a screen alongside his plate that his attention was fully diverted.

The headline played out in bold red letters: 
EARTHQUAKE DEVASTATES SOUTHERN PACIFIC: DEATH TOLL UNKNOWN

He looked up, eyes wide. Anger at the intrusion dissipated instantly. The Archbishop was sweating, a hand gripping the cross on his chest. He said nothing.

Within moments, Philip abandoned the Archbishop to the solitude of the table. His apartments were completely devoid of electronics, which meant he relocated to the Secretariat of State’s offices, which occupied the same level of the Vatican palace.

The screens were already attuned to the news. He barely entered the room when it seemed the spirit parted the way forward through avid watchers. The Cardinal Secretary of State alone approached his shadow. Philip absorbed it all without speaking. The Cardinal filled the silence, meanwhile.
“They say it is the worst mega-quake since 2020,” he said reverently.

Patricus’ lips formed a thin line.

When my photoshop is available to me again, I'll make this look nicer. In the meantime, the expansion of the CCD continued in short succession. 






   

Indonesia issued a tsunami warning within minutes of a sudden 10.1 magnitude earthquake. This comes on a frightening pattern similar to the 10+ scale earthquakes experienced in the 2020’s. Prior to the 20’s, scientists predicted these supra-scale quakes to occur at least every 10,000 years. It is quite disturbing that another has broken so soon after the previous devastating events.

The warnings were issued in Indonesia, the Phillippines, Timor, and Australia’s northernmost territory. Tsunami watches were automatically extended as far as Jakarta, Sumatra, and Singapore. The Pacific Rim nations are expected to experience devastating tsunami for several days. The death toll is estimated to be more than a million due to instant damage, and untold scores in addition over the coming weeks due to illness, starvation, and other secondary effects unless immediate intervention is taken.

Ascendancy Brandon was in Tokyo when the news broke. He has yet to make a public announcement beyond a generic decree of sorrow and best wishes for Custody’s Pacific neighbors. The most likely source of aid would be from the United States and Australia proper, but the USA is disrupted by the recent announcement of Texan succession. Chinese leaders have offered vague, noncommittal statements similar to the Custody.

Sequence of events as they take place in the fragmentation of the USA.

1. USA diplomatic delegation arrives in Moscow. The junior member on the delegation was US Representative Evelyn Avalon, a pro-CCD Democrat ally. 

2. Upon return to the USA, Representative Avalon changes her stance from pro-CCD Democrat to pro-Annexation Democrat.

3. Representative Avalon co-sponsors a Bill to resubmit annexation before the House. While the subcommittee debates the inclusion, an announcement is made that interrupts their vote.

4. Texas Governor announces the intention of legal cessation of Texas from the USA.

5. The nations of South America petition to join the CCD. They will become Dominance VIII.

Armande felt the support from Valeriya and Rowan. But it was time to peel back the veil. He remembered the first time his Beloved had seen for him. The experience had left him feeling drained, empty, after having sensed the divine that had been there. Since then, it was always similar. That is, until Rowan had joined them. Suddenly it had changed again. He could see, could actually feel as they intoned. The fire singeing his skin, broiling his flesh, trapped in that cage, that experience still lingered.

The fact that Rowan's brother had found them was the final nail. Evasion would only work for so long. Sometimes a moving blindspot became visible for being invisible. All it would take was an enterprising AI being given parameters to seek out absence rather than presense. A moving blur would stand out, then.

No. They had to go. He bid them to sit with him and he leaned forward to look at the skin. The map was crude, but the features were clear enough even without a legend. Heavily dotted with forests, two conjoining rivers, a ridgeway, and a crater or hole of some sort. He looked at both of them. "What Rasputin kept safe, he did for the future. The Khylsty themselves." He gently touched Valeriya's cheek. "The Eye herself, my queen." Then his hand touched the soft cured skin. "And this map. Since ascending, I did some searching. He was from the east, coming from seemingly nowhere to plant himself at the very center of Russian power. But obviously, he did not come from nowhere. And the Khylsty did not spring up over night."

He looked to his partner, studied her for a moment. Her eyes were deep and held things long hidden. "Is there anything you can share, my love?"

@"Valeriya"
@"Rowan Finnegan"

Their trek through the wilderness had yielded many pictures some of which Sierra would have to pull from the card before delivering it to the National Geographic.  She might be called a hack photographer for such images - but they weren't faked or modified, and any true photographer would see that, but newbs wouldn't.

The stayed in a small village on the edge of the wilderness they'd come from. Sierra needed the electricity to power the laptop and send her final photos on.  She sat staring at the flowers and the tree man they'd seen, no one would believe it - she wasn't sure she was.  Sierra wasn't exactly sure if she really believed she'd met Tristan either. Except he was real even for all his talk about fairies and trolls. She wasn't sure about any of it, but she could talk to wolves and men could do magic and there was a walking tree - what were fairies and trolls in comparison.

But what was next?  Follow Tristan wherever he wanted to go?  That felt right, pack felt right.  But there was pack back in Moscow - except the city was full of concrete and pollution and the wolves avoided the city - except the pups they pulled into that world.  Never happily played with the pup of Tristan's.  Never didn't understand why she couldn't speak like him, but it was a friendship he was happy to have.  She was glad to have met Tristan.  

The strange flower sat next to her laptop still warm, still in bloom even after having been plucked days ago.  It was a strange thing, but she felt attached to it as much so as she did to Tristan himself.  Their night in the dream had yet to happen in the real world. Though maybe that was a good thing.  He felt like coming home and Sierra wanted to stay there - with him - home - pack.  It was hard to explain.  

She said out loud to nobody in particular "Photos are sent. Now what?"

She stripped off her gloves, unslung her backpack filled with medical supplies, tossed the gloves inside and placed the backpack on the floor of the chapel. She took a flashlight and hooked it to her belt.

Nina started up the scaffold ladder. The entire structure trembled slightly as she went. The lashed ladders zigzagged up the scaffolding frame. 

The air had become very cold by the time she reached the top platform. The last part of the climb had taken her some time. She didn’t want to fall. Slowly she climbed right up past stained glass windows, and the wooden beams that pendulum slightly from the vibrations of her ascent.

Nina had no head for heights at all, but she was damned if she’d let her beloved Bas down. The floor of the chapel was so far away now, the backpack on the floor was the size of a small doll.

“Crap,” she whispered, as she finally dared to stand up on the top. Rising to her feet. So high up. The chapel boards did not quite meet, and she could see the drop between them. That was so much worse. That, and the vibration.

Look up, she told herself. The painted dome was just above her face. What had looked splendid and golden from the ground was peeling and rotten up close. She could see the gilt peeling like scabs from the blind faces of the disintegrating saints. Mother Mary’s face had discolored so much she looked as dark and dead as the patients at the Guardian. So old, so very old.

“Bas?” 

Left hand out for balance, Nina walked along the boards, plucking her flashlight from her belt and switching it on. The tight bright light shone in the cool gloom.

She saw the hole. The smell of incense was more intense here. It was another ceiling through the hole, aiming her light. 

"Holy crap"

Religious images, figures, faces, glass, ornate lettering in traced silver, lines and constellations, a hint of some vast organization covered this area.

It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

A metal table spread cold across his forehead. Jensen lifted his head just enough to rub the burn from his eyes. Smears of dried blood were spattered beneath where his face lay. He knew his own appearance: bloodied but not of his own, dirty from the explosion, ashen from the fires of the school. Meanwhile, harsh lights angled shadows across the face of his interrogator.

     ”I promise I am telling the truth, as ridiculous as it sounds. That doctor lured her. I was worried about her, so I asked permission to go along. What we found was out of a horror movie.”
Jensen’s recount of the tale was shared with all the emphatic storytelling of a master orator. The detective’s expression left little for interpretation, and Jensen knew how bad this looked. He was accusing powerful people of fraud and murder while suggesting the police themselves were involved in the coverup. Drug lords and custody officials were tangled in the barbed wire of the guilty, but Jensen feared Ascendancy enough to exclude him from the details. That he was the husband of the governor made the investigation treacherous, and he had to consider how much longer it would be before his wife’s goons fetched him for official summons home. How much did she know?
Anything? Or everything?
     He shivered and returned his head down on the table. Shortly after, the bars of a holding cell surrounded him. Strangely, the hefty sound of the lock wasn’t as defeating as it once was.

     The next day, he was awoken by the grinding mechanism of the locks unlatching. A man and woman in matching black suits entered. The blur of sleep washed quickly away by sudden intrusion, and his heart thud in his chest for no apparent reason.
“Mister James, come with us please,” the woman said. They had to be some kind of agent. What he initiated last night must have escalated quickly. He pushed his hair behind his ears as he rose to his feet. What a filthy sight he must have cut.

     ”Where am I going?” He wasn’t cuffed or in any way threatened by either presence, but he cautiously peered into the hallway bustling with activity last night. Today, or maybe it was still the middle of the night, it was a ghost town. Somehow, the emptiness was more ominous. Prayers tickled the back of his mind, but Jensen didn’t partake in their tempting comfort. Instead, he mentally tested the boundaries of the Gift.

     No answer was returned as he was escorted from the station. Dim light outside told him it was dawn. It had been almost an entire day since Cayli and Axel died yet mourning didn’t wrack tears from his body. It was an odd sort of numb stamina. Maybe this is what shock felt like. The agents deposited him into the back of a car. The Carpenters would now know the fate of their children by now but were unlikely to understand why. As soon as the doors sealed them in, a video screen woke. Jessika’s immaculate face appeared. She looked angry. He’d been summoned. 

     “Jensen, you idiotic buffoon. You ruin this for me and you’ll wish you’d never been born,” she said. She was all done up, hair big and makeup heavy. She looked ready to go on camera. For reasons unknown, his chest tightened. It only took hours for him to break his promise to be the penitent husband.

     He could see an image of himself in the corner of the screen. Drenched in darkness, dirty, and slimed by the filth of jail, death, and betrayal, he was a ghastly sight. “You knew all this was going on. What those doctors were doing at that school. Is that why you agreed to shelter the Carpenters in the first place? It wasn’t love for me that embraced them with charity. It was a pre-arranged deal to deliver an innocent teenager. You made a deal with the devil. What I don’t understand, Jessika, is why? You’re a good person. You’re a mother and a friend,” passion cut the words from his chest. He loved her as he always had, and could not believe the person he knew his whole life was so cold-hearted. Finally the tears began to form. Tears he couldn’t shed to mourn innocent loss of life. These were tears shed over the loss of happy memories. The loss of his whole life. “Why?”

     His accusations did not penetrate the armor she wore.
“Jensen, you poor fool,” was all she said. Looking into his eyes, even Jessika struggled to hold her own defenses.

     She looked over her shoulder then, called forward to something going on in the background. A man appeared in the background. He was dark-haired, older and distinguished, but also cut a severe expression. He seemed familiar, but Jensen couldn’t place where. He said something he couldn’t discern, and Jessika moved to leave. “Get yourself cleaned up. I expect you to behave,” she said. Jensen frowned with concern for where this was going.

     ”But what about the Carpenters? What about—” but they were disconnected before anything else was said. The female agent in the front seat turned and pointed at a package in the seat alongside him. They didn’t seem concerned about the conversation overheard, and Jensen had the distinct feeling that everything he reported to the police was about to be wiped from existence. Maybe it wasn’t the drug lords or the pharmaceutical companies in charge of the whole operation.

Oh God. Maybe it’s my wife. He thought he was going to faint. 

     By the time they arrived at a television studio, he was hurried through paparazzi, obscured by secure delivery, and deposited into a bathroom with a bar of soap, hair gel, and a clean suit.

Continued from Sisters of the Moon