Unwilling Recruit

by Starscribe

Chapter 2

Jackie blinked, realizing that Harley had stopped talking. The whole world suddenly seemed to come back into focus, as from a dream. She yawned, stretched, looked around. Not even one of the chairs all around her was occupied anymore. Worse, it had only been twenty minutes. Her limbs were stiff, as though she’d just sat through all of One Piece without getting up.

“That’s wrong,” Katie said, glaring up at Harley as though she had just admitted to strangling her dog. “You shouldn’t have done that! You shouldn’t have interfered!”

Jackie took a deep breath, trying to remember what Harley had said. But she couldn’t remember anything—just a general feeling of boredom and desperation.

Something about that didn’t make sense—could she really have sat through an entire lecture and not remember even one thing? Maybe Katie’s right that I should’ve been a boy. I’m as scatterbrained as a boy sometimes.

Harley paced back and forth in front of the table. “You’re right. We shouldn’t have interfered. I don’t think the princesses did the right thing—they should’ve left this whole planet the hell alone. But they didn’t and every government decided to flip its shit, and here we are.”

She glanced to the door, where Bruce had somehow moved without Jackie noticing. He shook his head. “They’re not coming back.”

Harley swore under her breath. “Dammit. We should’ve got more than two. There are so many of them here! You saw how hard they worked on their costumes.”

Jackie rose to her feet. She still wanted to leave—couldn’t shake the thought of that meat smell drifting towards her. But Harley’s presence was enough to keep her here. “Oh, cosplay? Are we gonna talk about design next? Because I’ve got some questions about how you got those holes so smooth without burning the nylon.”

Katie turned slightly to the side, staring at her in complete shock. It took her several seconds to even form words. “What are you talking about, Jackie? You heard all that, and you’re asking about her costume?”

Harley lifted the plastic box on one shoulder, taking it with her as she approached. “I’m impressed too,” she said. “You didn’t seem the type to take this so calmly. Are you one of those cute airheads who doesn’t actually think anything through?”

Jackie blushed. “I, uh…”

“We don’t get to stay for the rest of the con,” Katie said, getting up and backing slowly away from Harley. “God, we can’t go home, can we? If we did…”

“Yep.” Harley heaved the big plastic crate up onto the chairs between them, but only a few feet from Jackie. “Exactly why you’re thinking. And maybe I should say sorry for that… but on the other hand, I could’ve not come here. You could go home, think everything is fine, then manifest in a few weeks and get your shit totally wrecked with nobody to help you. At least this way you’ll know, and won’t accidentally infect anyone. Family doesn’t have to go with you.”

Jackie just stared, trying to figure everything out without showing just how little she had payed attention. It seemed from her sister they’d just been roped into something bad, but beyond that her words just didn’t make sense. Katie hadn’t signed anything while she was daydreaming, had she?

“But why my sister?” Katie asked, pointing at Jackie. “She’s only seen one or two episodes! She hates the show! Don’t you, Jackie?”

“Hate the…” Jackie repeated. But she could guess what show her sister was talking about. There was only one show that would be talked about at a pony event. “Yeah, I do. Boring as all shit. World is bland and makes no sense. Storytelling was shallow. Nothing made west of Tokyo is worth watching.”

Harley rolled her eyes, grinning. “No need to pretend anymore, sweetheart. We all know it can’t be true, or you couldn’t have stayed here.” She looked to her sister. “It’s possible to change after just one or two episodes. Without knowing it yourself. Much more likely, she was lying to you. Maybe she fought how much she enjoyed it, and wanted to save face by denying.”

Harley reached into the box with one hand, pulling out a pair of sticks not unlike the one Bruce was holding by the door. “Catch.” She threw, and Jackie caught one. Her sister caught the other.

“Now, point them at the wall, imagine it getting brighter. The wall, not the wand. It’s causative.”

To Jackie’s astonishment, Katie obeyed. She moved her arm desperately, swinging it as Harley had demonstrated. Nothing happened.

Jackie turned the wood over in her hands, feeling suddenly queasy. She staggered to one side, catching herself on the chair with her free hand. It was as though catching the stick had also dumped an ounce of ipecac down her throat. Completely impossible, of course. Her costume had gloves, she hadn’t even touched the wood directly.

“Ugh.” The pain didn’t last long, though. A few seconds of heavy breathing, and Jackie found the sicknesses faded. “I sure as hell better not be getting hot flashes before I’m thirty.”

Harley’s eyebrows went up. “That’s a new one. You should try it just in case, Jackie. See if you’ve got unicorn magic. You probably don’t if your sister doesn’t… but if you had any kind of reaction it probably means something.”

“Seriously?”

Harley nodded, completely without irony. “I told you we were on a schedule, right? When the helicopter gets here, we’re either on it or we’re dead.”

Jackie imitated the gesture, before tossing the stick back to her. Whatever was going on, it was sounding less fun as the seconds passed. Helicopter? “It’s not doing anything. What did you expect? This isn’t Harry Potter, and I’m not joining Gryffindor.”

Harley caught the stick, and took Katie’s when she offered it as well. She put them away, then brought out something else: a large, inflated bag, with something thick and white in it. Fog? How was it holding itself together like that?

Jackie opened her mouth to protest, but felt the same strange sickness press into her gut again. This time it was joined by a brief aching around her shoulders, and a few seconds of excruciating headache. But only a few seconds, before the worst of the pain faded and she could hear the conversation again.

“I hope this works,” Harley was saying, as she cut into the bag with a hand, letting it fall to the floor. The thing inside didn’t drift apart and fill the room, but remained together. It was a patch of cloud the size of a basketball, its edges wispy and color slightly gray.

Harley stuck her hand into it as though it had been made of cotton, giving it a push. Jackie didn’t see what happened next, because she started to retch.

She caught herself on her hands, then heaved a stomach full of ramen and diet coke out onto the ground. It came up brown, burning her throat and mouth. Jackie pulled away, clutching at her stomach, and moaning faintly. Her shoulders really were hurting, but there was no way to hold both.

“God… ugh… please…”

“She should not be having this reaction,” Bruce said, from far away. “Such a reaction from such low-levels of exposure should have forced her from the room. Maybe her illness isn’t connected.

“I told you, I don’t think she likes the show,” Katie said. Jackie didn’t care what Bruce thought, but Katie’s voice gave her a point of reference. She turned, looking up at where her sister was standing. Katie held the cloud in front of her in both hands as though it were a prop, and not something clearly impossible, clearly supernatural.

Jackie retreated, dragging herself away along the floor, until she could go no further and her back touched the wall. “Get that thing away… it made me sick! It’s poison, whatever it is!”

“No, it’s water,” Harley said. “Squeeze it, Katie. You’ll see.”

Jackie watched her sister obey the command. The cloud shed its water—but not like it had been a towel wrung out beside a pool. Rather, it contracted, getting darker and darker until it was less than half its size. Water poured out evenly from its surface like a rain-pattern showerhead.

No, it’s just like rain, she thought. Katie just made it rain. That made no sense, but then nothing about this made any sense. “You drugged us!” she shouted. “Katie, we need to get out of here! These people are… I dunno, but we need to call the police!” But if they really had been drugged, why only Jackie? Why call in all those people only to… get rid of them all when Jackie wasn’t paying attention?

If it were a date-rape drug, why could she think so clearly now? The pain was fading, though a dull ache remained on her back. The nausea passed, and she got to her feet, wiping slime from her lips with the back of one arm. What happened to her costume was now of secondary concern.

Katie watched her, but her expression didn’t become scared or even nervous as Jackie would’ve expected. She looked only worried. “Jackie, you saw the demonstrations! This is real, and they aren’t the ones we need to be worried about. Well…” She glanced sidelong at Harley. “We don’t have any evidence they’re the good ones, but it makes sense. They want to get us somewhere safe before we get… what, exactly?”

“Dragged off to prison,” Harley supplied, sealing up the box and kicking it across the carpet towards Bruce. “Let your sister try the cloud before you squeeze it all out, Katie. Families are usually the same, but not always. She could have earth powers.”

Katie obeyed, pushing the cloud towards Jackie. It was still trailing rain, though it had gotten a little more diffuse. Running out of water, perhaps. Jackie dodged out of the way, and it bumped up against the wall. It vanished with a splash of water and an explosion of mist.

“We only had one of those,” Harley said, annoyed. “Dammit Jackie, do you want to live or not? What if we need to jump?”

“Then I’m dead,” Bruce said, before she could respond. “It doesn’t help you much, Harley. And we’re out of time. Control says they’re here.”

“Tell them to wait,” Harley shot back, annoyed. “We’re not even sure if—”

“No,” Bruce said, adjusting the slim earpiece he was wearing over one ear. “We have company, Harley. About a dozen agents just came running into the building.”

Jackie rolled her eyes, wondering just how far they might be committed to this lie that they thought wearing a cheap headset and saying something scary would convince her to cooperate. Then she heard the screaming—dozens of voices, then hundreds, feet pounding as the vast crowd downstairs moved. Many of them were going for the stairs.

“Great, fantastic!” Harley pulled a stick from her pocket, twisting it over and resting it on one finger like a gun. “Hey guys, cover your ears a second. We’re going.”

“We’re not doing any fuc—” Jackie began, but she didn’t get a chance to finish. Her words were silenced by an explosion, as the wall behind the podium had a new doorway blasted into it. There was an explosion, but no obvious source. No flash of fire either, just a whole section of wood and drywall ripping free to come crashing to the ground. The lights flickered and went off on one side of the room, and a copper pipe now severed began gushing water.

Jackie felt the nausea wash over her again in a wave at almost the exact second the wall was ripped off, and this time she could feel it clearly. It wasn’t something internal—but something solid and real in the world around her, a physical force. She gritted her teeth, but there was nothing left in her stomach to vomit out.

“They’ll know where we are,” Harley said, gesturing urgently. Through the wall, there was an empty hallway with a cement floor instead of carpet, one Jackie didn’t recognize. “We’ll take the service elevator, come on.”

Jackie didn’t move as Bruce and Katie made to follow—but her sister didn’t leave her behind. Before Jackie had recovered enough to think straight again, she felt herself tugged forward through the opening.

“Ask control if she can move her ass here any faster!” Harley shouted, breaking into a run as soon as Jackie was following.

Bruce lowered his head, covering the headset with one hand as he spoke into it. But Jackie couldn’t catch his words.

“What the hell did you do to the wall?” Jackie found herself asking, though that was hardly the first thing on her mind. It was hard to hear so many frightened voices and not feel a little of that fear bubble up in response. “What’s going on?”

“Weren’t you listening at all?” Katie asked from beside her, tugging her to go faster. “They’re coming to get us. Well… them, but us too, once they find out we’re magic.”

Jackie stopped dead. Her sister lost her grip and went tumbling forward to a stop, but she didn’t fall over.

Harley made it a few more steps before skidding to a halt. Bruce stopped beside her, speaking into the headset and holding his stick at the ready like a gun. “What the hell are you doing? Jackie, we can’t stay down here! They know—”

“I don’t know who the fuck you are,” Jackie said, folding her arms. “But I’m not moving. Katie, you aren’t either. Whatever shit these people did, we’re not a part of it. We’re not going to be accomplices.” She slid down the wall onto her butt. “Go on, run. Get out of here. We won’t stop you.”

Comments

[AATC Fanboy]

Beware, lengthy comment
I'd like to call her an imbecile, had the situation not been so fantastical and absurd, and not a scrap of irrefutable evidence to back anything up is apparent. There's always some kind of trick, save the most obvious: Cross dimensions to Eques, and come back home to Earth again. That's nearly the only thing no one can call a trick, save insanity and delusions, an LSD trip. Or a nightmare you can never wake up from, coma.

Fiction within fiction always has its paradoxes, does it not? You can make it as real as can get, and make up whatever consistent rules, yet it never escapes the page or screen. Always it'll be speculative.

Isn't it a coincidence that this chapter started virtually reaffirming what I said prior. And I think Jacqueline is actually kind of like TD Powell: Contrary to what Harlequin thought, it isn't about mere enjoyment alone, just inherent exposure. And I do think she did indeed detest it, having fallen asleep or in a daze as the disinterested are like to do. He was merely disinterested, but she goes further to active detest. I can relate. Even now, this thing is being kept on life support well after it left its prime. The near infinite demographics that continue to worship this thing to the point of invading and crossing over everything that exists has never been done to this extent with anything. The nearest thing is The Chipmunks and The Simpsons, the latter of which, like SpongeBob Squarepants, have suffered seasonal rot, as this series will if it does not end.

In other words, I share her annoyance. I have often hinted at using them silly pronouns, but never fully committed to them. Others will fully do so, and feed the meme, which is exactly what this show is, now, in addition to being formulaic.

Ironically, the secondary series, which was hinted at in the original tale, has actually held up more than the primary one, and introduced one of the greatest characters of all time, animated or no.

In fact, she's the closest thing this subverse has to a main character for what I have seen, Jacob and the two zombified leads from the original one-shot being mere observers more so than plot pieces. SPOILER ALERTThe one shot seems to infer turning targets under eighteen years of age into hollow shells, shallow caricatures of their former selves seems to be the intent, as that's what happened almost immediately, yet everyone older seems oddly immune to that, only altered in physical shape from what little we saw of them.

What this crew has to face is less nightmare inducing to the readers than what's going to happen to later victims under eighteen. Ironically, the opposite is true for them. You won't be there to know what happened to you, or you would be in a constant haze. But adults and early victims will know the full horror of what happened, as the parents of the two leads from Consequences are just barely hiding their outright horror at what happened to their kids, who only see them as caretakers rather than parents now, even with intact memories. Specifically harming children is a special kind of evil.

[Merula]

Two chapters in, and I need MOAR!

Continue, pl0x!

[RetMotiv]

I kind of want to slap Jackie, but I can understand her actions.
Damn, things got bad fast.

[LightningDashes]

Starscribe writings? Insta intrested

[Helium]

You'd think the changeling would notice that jackie wasnt paying attention and the real reason why she stayed.
Part of me wonders what it would have been like if i read this story first. Oh well. Onward!

[Solana]

I appreciate how this story does a much better job of building up Jackie's dysphoria than Danni's did.