#paxpara

[alexander-donovan]

the missing ✗✗ the second crusade | pax & alex

The meeting had been called quickly; with an urgency and a sizzling heat of blood and adrenaline. Elite had formed a standing circle of tension and concern. Arms folded over chests in determination, in a fight to refuse to accept loss. 

And Alex wouldn’t precisely be the first to believe in the intentions or motives of the Reformists who had come and infiltrated the Colony with their indisputable mandates and charges. But whether it be for the purpose of pretences or for some other private agendas, they were engaged in making an effort to retrieve what had been taken from them. 

But perhaps that’s where their true differences lied: on the one hand, there was a collection of Colony 22 veterans who worried about the lives of the citizens and friends who’d been taken. They were motivated by a steadfast resolve to maintain hope that those lives could be spared. That they could return to this place they’d grown to consider a home—or at least the closest and only facsimile of one which they had left.

But on the other hand, were the forces of the NWRF, towering in an opposing line, who seemed intent on getting back that which had been taken from them; as if the lives of those telepaths had been property. As if their existing outside Colony control transformed them into a risk. A threat. 

Of course none of this had been said, or even implied. These impressions were little more than instinct, than hazy suspicions. Still, as the New Wave Reps stood in the company of the Elites and discussed the second wave rescue mission, waving signs that spoke of their good intentions, it was difficult not to wonder. To doubt.

It wasn’t in Alex’s nature to worry, however, and now was certainly not the time to waste energy hand-wringing. The first crusaders had not managed to send word, and had not yet returned, and there were people worried that should they let too much time pass, the looters would make it off the island with the kidnapped, and would instantly become that much more difficult to find. 

Or they would be dead. It was quite possible they already were. 

But with the question hanging unanswered in the air, of why these wastelanders would bother taking people off property if they were only planning on killing them, Colony officials remained pretty convinced there was still time—but that it was waning quickly.  

They’d asked Alex to lead another group at dawn. He could take as many as four with him—there were only four horses remaining anyway, and though officials hoped the second crusade could locate the first and act as backup, they didn’t think it wise to risk any more people or resources in the process than strictly necessary. It was a matter of balancing risk with rationale.

He’d accepted with a firm nod and glance around the room told him he’d likely have volunteers—some of whom had the glisten of tears behind their irises, people connected to those who’d been taken. They were the desperate gazes of the vulnerable, the emotional. And they would be unwise choices. 

“Alright. Assemble your team, Alex. You’ll leave before sunrise tomorrow?” It was the last thing Quinn had said to him before dismissing the meeting. Asked like a question, but Alex understood it as an order. It was the kind of language he recognized from his time on the force, taking direction from his superiors who expected yeses from him, and yeses only. In this case, it didn’t bother him. They were doing the right thing, going after these kidnapped, and he’d prefer to get an early start, anyway. 

So as the meeting had dissolved, Donovan had picked Paxton out from the small crowd filtering from the room, a hand falling to rest on his bony shoulder. “I need you to be my right hand on this. I’m not going to take people with too much at stake. You weren’t close with them, were you? The ones taken? Besides—you’re diligent. Direct. You in? ”

@ambiguous-tech

[bear-little-loss]

the decoy raid || pax & orson

It all happened so fast. 

One minute he was being “asked” to do an extra round of groundsweeping alongside Pax—probably because they still didn’t trust him not to ‘run off’ again, because they still didn’t fucking believe him that he’d never ‘run off’ in the first place—and he was agreeing because it was one of those offers he wasn’t permitted to turn down. They were keeping up the pretence of free-will, only there wasn’t one. 

He probably shouldn’t have been surprised by this. And he didn’t have the patience, or maybe the nerve, to ask why him. To point out that it seemed awfully convenient and shouldn’t he be finishing his training first? That’s what he and a handful of other survivors were all out here on the fields to do, anyway. 

But he should have known better than to think that he’d gotten away without any punishment after Pax had pulled him up from the hole he’d fallen into and taken him back to the Colony. They’d put him in the infirmary to check for a concussion, and called it a day. And he’d accepted it probably because he believed that’s what he was owed. He hadn’t run. He’d been on a chore rotation and he’d been left. Forgotten about. Abandoned. It was the Colony’s own God damn fault that they’d had to send Pax on a one man search party. 

So he was being escorted out the side gate, Paxton on his heels as his babysitter, apparently—though he wouldn’t complain about the company. He’d rather venture outside these walls with an ally, than by himself. Ally? Friend? Was Pax a friend? He certainly wasn’t foe—and Orson had felt somehow indebted to him since the ‘search and rescue’ incident—but he didn’t consider anyone a friend, and that was less because he didn’t trust anyone and more because he didn’t trust himself. Couldn’t see himself knowing how to get close to anybody, not from any angle. Friends were people you talked to. Friends were people who trusted you and whom you trusted. Friends were people who knew you. No one knew Orson. Not really. 

The alarm had sounded just as he was stepping out the gate. For a moment, he’d actually thought it was some kind of cruel joke, or moronic mistake—like Important Person A had forgotten to inform Important Person B that civilians would be leaving the grounds, and now he’d be in some kind of triple-loaded trouble. 

Seriously, Orson was a quiet person, even in his frustration, but the way things were going recently, he was almost ready to boil over. Actually earn punishment for once. 

And then he saw them. He couldn’t tell how many, at first, but in his shock and rising panic, they seemed like a lot more than the six that they turned out to be. 

The first thing he remembered noting about them was their filth—it was like a bone deep filth, one that you could tell was so just by looking. They were hard, grimy and worn at all their edges, cuts fading and scabbed across skin the faded colour of earth and sweat. They were gaunt, all of them, starvation in the hollows of their cheeks and desperation in their bloodshot eyes. They wielded weapons over their heads, taut muscles strained and spring loaded, cries of war flooding the wind. 

And they were so close. Orson hadn’t even seen where they’d come from, or how no one had noticed them until now—but maybe they had, because suddenly there was a wall of security Elites forming at his back. A presence he felt more than saw, because he was too busy staring like a deer in headlights, rooted to the spot and realizing he had no weapons, no means to protect himself, and no idea what to do. 

Despite months of training and hypothetical ‘games’, apparently none of it translated when it was the real thing. 

[bear-little-loss]

the mighty rio grande | orson, pax

When he woke, the first thing he was aware of was the pain in his head. The light streaming through his fluttering lashes seemed only to make it worse, garish with their rays of gold and silver. 

The next thing he grew aware of was the smell. Thick and dense like earth, roots—but as his brow furrowed with the effort to wake himself up, he turned his head slowly and with a wince, and saw roots. Tree roots. 

Pale fingers, gloved only to the first knuckle, reached out to touch, and sure enough, chestnut dirt and dust crumbled away from the walls of... wherever he was. 

With some effort, and a bit too much swimming of his head, he propped himself up on his elbow and looked around. A rise of panic and bile swelled to his throat as he did.

A hole. He was definitely in a hole. One dug like a trap out in the woods, and for a moment he couldn’t remember why or how he’d ended up here. Another glance up showed him the pinking sky, the only thing he could see any different than the earth around him on all sides. The sun was setting, the light bright and low, but fading swiftly right above his head. Night would fall soon. Night would fall, and he had no idea where he was. 

With a groan, he rolled over, relieved when he felt sore, but detected no striking stabs of pain. He seemed to be able to move alright, aside from being stiff. Good, nothing broken then. But as he slowly brought his feet underneath himself, using the wall of the pit as support, he began to think, to piece it together...

Hours. He must have been here hours. Judging by the stiffness in his limbs, and the position of the sun saying its goodbyes in the sky—

—he checked his PDD. It told him little, on first glance, other than he’d missed dinner and tuck in, and lights-out was in twenty minutes. Frowning, he clicked through to the next display. 

Groundsweeping. Of course. He’d been on his chore rotation. So outside the walls of the Colony. But with a group—surely the Elite supervising the outing would have noticed his disappearance? That he hadn’t returned before going back to the grounds. Had they looked for him? Had they shouted? Had Orson been so gone to the world that he’d not heard a thing? 

He rubbed at the back of his head—a lump, surely, and a hiss and wince to accompany his touch to it. He felt nauseous, so more than likely, a concussion. 

“Shit.”

Orson rarely swore. But now was a time to, if there were any. 

He spun around in a circle, looking for any purchase he might find on the walls to climb himself out of it. But save for one or two extremely scattered root stubs, there was nothing. These pits, after all, were designed to keep creatures in. Meals for the desperate hungry stomachs of survivors living safely inside the walls of the Colony. 

But how safe would he be here, once night fell? And how long would he survive without food, without water, or protection from the elements? He was suddenly quite thankful for the summer months. The night wouldn’t kill him with cold, clutching hands. But nonetheless, he shivered as he wondered how long it might take someone to find him. Would they send away to look for him? Would they bother to? With the New Wave Reformists... would they care about saving a Deluded? 

But then he remembered. His palm reached up again, this time for the nape of his neck, rubbing in absent memory. The tracking device had been injected at the back of neck his when the Reformists had moved in. They would find him. Even if he didn’t want to be found, they would find him. 

So he sat. His head was swimming, and there was fear and loneliness clutching at his throat, so he wrapped his arms around his knees, sat right against the wall of the pit, and tucked his head into his arms in thought. 

It was with a start, that he remembered that his PDD could message. He’d never used it in a such a way, in all his time here. Had no one he’d wanted to contact. No one had needed to contact him. But he fumbled, because who would he message? Who would he tell? The only friend he could think of who might notice his not being there and give it more than a blink of a thought was Marcel. But what would he say? Help? I’m stuck in a pit and I don’t know where? And what if Marcel was Hamlet, while reading? It would do nothing but confuse him, possibly put him in danger. 

Instead, he settled for a generic list of s.o.s alters he discovered built into the system. It would alert the Colony, whoever was there to listen. 

S.O.S. I am unable to return to the Colony with possible injury. I am alone. Send help. 

Watching as his PDD began to flash with a consistent, slow red glow, one he knew would never be quite as useful down here, as it might have been were he passed out in the bushes somewhere above ground, he set his head down again, and waited. Hoped. 

Little did he know that the Colony had already sent someone after him. “Sniffers”, to be exact. Because Orson was a Deluded, and they’d assumed he’d made a run for it.