RE419S | audio | Day 7

[aluminumandash]

[ Rust's voice comes over the walkie, urgent and forceful. ] Anyone in the area between the concrete structures where Martin and me were held—that's the foothills with, ah, a river to the south and the jungle ten hours to the west of the northeast coast, check in right the fuck now.

[ He thinks to type the rest out—some semblance of a record, something for people to refer back to for the while it's around—but five minutes punching little keys and he can't take it anymore. So his voice returns, matter-of-fact. ]

Officer de Guzman's dead. [ If anyone was hoping for a eulogy, it's not fucking happening. ] Took an arrow to the shoulder then was executed, from the sound of it, likely with his own firearm. He was in the region I just described, about a kilometer away from a wood cabin with no defenses or occupants he could discern. Guessing he walked into some kind of a trap. [ He concludes, irritation seeping into his voice. ]

Much as I hate to state the obvious, circumstances compel me to say: do not seek out the cabin. Hell, I'll say it twice: do not seek out the fucking cabin. You find yourself in an area suspiciously quiet and bereft of animal activity, turn around and go back the way you came.

The individual who killed him had a message for us. It follows.

[ After a short delay: ] The next animal I find here will die a much slower death. Tell your friends for me.


OOC: Replies subject to even more robust threadjacking than usual from Lalo!

Comments

[aluminumandash]

[ The thanks meets with silence—Rust at a loss. He's said similar before, but more from the need to have it said than in the expectation of understanding. Much less gratitude. He tells himself that's not the point, thinks back to de Guzman's last moments. Martin talks about holding it, so he does: the gunshot, the jolt of helpless not-quite-surprise.

Then he continues on. ] Ain't done much to distinguish ourselves, have we? Not in his case. Stumbling around the jungle with our guns out. [ A cutting little observation, but one he doesn't linger on. His sympathies can extend only so far, and restraint isn't mercy, can't excuse a bullet to the brain. ] What he said to de Guzman [ —pet— ] though, there was a familiarity. Intimacy, guess you might call it.

[lonelynotforsaken]

You think Ben knew them? Or-or you mean, like, the person acted like they'd done this before?

[...]

I mean, they did seem to know we'd come back. Or maybe they knew you were listening in on the radio?

this response comes on day 8 when he's doing the rest of his threadjacking and emoji spam!

[salamanca]

Definitely acted like he'd done it before. And for the record? No, I don't know 'im.

Too bad I'm not dead anymore and now I can hear all of this shit, right?

[ It isn't you, Martin. It's him! At least he sounds more amused than upset or angry - you can practically hear the slightly chagrined smile - although there's a twinge or a spike of... something... under the lightness of his tone.

But the something fades. ]

Ahhh, well! Don't worry about it. Glad to know you think I'm important enough to rub shoulders with mysterious mountain men.

[lonelynotforsaken]

[This is a bit awkward when Ben's come back to life suddenly, but Martin can roll with it.]

I don't think you'd have to be important for that. But you-you told me you knew some, um... interesting people. Like that lawyer? So- I don't know. I know we haven't really had people from the same place show up. But... maybe it could've been someone from your world? O-or like someone you'd dealt with as a police officer?

[salamanca]

[ A gruff but genuine laugh. ]

Yeah... About that. Unless you know any lawyers who growl instead of talk, I don't think it's anybody I know. Let's call it intuition.

[ A beat. ]

You don't know any lawyers who growl, do ya?

[lonelynotforsaken]

I've... never met any lawyers. I-I mean, except the one who did Mum's will. But that was just the once.

[The man had been polite, but brief, in telling Martin he'd received nothing from her estate, but the people at the care home were willing to let him look over the things from her room and take whatever he wanted.]

I've talked to more police officers, actually. Huh. [Anyway!] I thought growling just meant a gruff voice, not, like... literally growling.

[salamanca]

[ Have you now, Martin? That's interesting... Lalo wouldn't have expected Martin to have had any experiences speaking to the police, let alone at least two. (If he only talked to one lawyer, and he's talked to more cops then lawyers, he talked to at least two cops...)

Lalo isn't going to say anything about it, since Martin's "Anyway!" suggests he wants to close off that avenue of conversation. But Lalo files the information away for later. ]

No, no, no. I wish. He was really growling. Think like a bear would sound. I can still hear it now, right in my ear...

[lonelynotforsaken]

Well, that's... creepy. I-I mean, you still hearing it. Not the... sounding like a bear. That's weird you could understand it. And Cohle, too.

It's weird that we can all understand each other, in general. Mostly because it-it seems like everyone speaking English to me.

[salamanca]

It's the walkies, ese. They translate it for us. I'm speaking Spanish right now, but you're hearing it as English.

I could hear it. Growling. But I could hear the walkie translation, too. At the same time. Creepy shit, I'm telling you.

[lonelynotforsaken]

I mean, that's still weird. I'm not- I'm hearing everyone speaking English, even if we're not on the radios. I think Jet's American, but I don't think Kokichi is. And you were speaking English when we met up from what I could tell. If... you were speaking Spanish then.

The thing is, it's creepy, but it's helpful, which is confusing.

[salamanca]

Kokichi... Mmm. That's a Japanese name. He's probably Japanese. [ Shades of: "It's a well. It looks like a well." ]

I was speaking English with you guys! I can do both!

Sooooo... it's helpful. Why would whoever gave us these want to be helpful?

I'm thinking maybe they didn't. Not to us. I'm thinking maybe these were originally used by someone else, for a different purpose, and they were repurposed for us later.

[lonelynotforsaken]

[Martin refrains from pointing out that he worked with someone named Basira Hussein who is, as far as he knows, extremely English and knows no other languages. There are other indications of Kokichi's nationality. His clothes, for one thing.]

Mm... maybe? [He can't help sounding dubious.] Or something wants us to be connected, possibly so it can listen in.

[salamanca]

[ Clothing, Lalo would argue, means absolutely nothing, because you can take it on and off. Anyone can put on clothes from any country. Names aren't a 100% guarantee but they're more telling than clothes, he would argue, unless someone is lying about their name.

He would know about the clothes and lying about your name, after all.

The theory Martin does propose is interesting, though. About someone wanting to listen in. Lalo mulls over it. It's not a bad idea; there's a distinct possibility of it, in fact. ]

"Listen in?" What, you think... like a TV show, like the kid said? [ His heart thuds in his chest. A TV show would be very, very, very bad for him. But just because it would be bad for him doesn't mean he can discount it out of hand. ]

[lonelynotforsaken]

No. More like... like something that's looking for something particular. Listening for something. It doesn't know what it is, maybe, but if it brings enough people here and gives them radios, maybe it'll hear it?

[salamanca]

[ Lalo's blood runs cold. Ice cold. ]

Looking for something in particular, you think? Or... someone?

[lonelynotforsaken]

I'm not sure.

[If it's the Dread Powers, they're probably looking for the Archivist. Is that why he hasn't shown up here? Self-preservation?]

I don't want to say it's someone in particular, just because that gets into the whole, uh... issue that Shaw raised. Which is-which is why is any one of us more important than the others? I think we'd just drive ourselves silly with worry trying to figure out a who. What... Maybe something about... other universes where it might be good to pull people from. Or-or go if this world ended and it's trying to get out.

[salamanca]

"Other universes"...

And here I was, imagining a multi-government sting on one of us. [ Chuckles. ] I didn't think I would ever say this, but somehow, your idea makes more sense. Some of these things you all talk about on here make me feel very small indeed.

[lonelynotforsaken]

Ultimately, we're all pretty insignificant. That's not a bad thing, though. There's a poem by Tim Minchin I really like called "Storm." It's the sort of thing to make you think.

I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant...
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long
As my great great great great uncleses and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine...

We're nothing in the grand scheme of things. But that-that doesn't matter, does it? I think we all have value, even if we're small and disappear. Just existence, making your infinitesimally miniscule mark on the universe?

That's important.

To the people you touch while you're alive. To the people whose lives are touched when you're gone. We're all stardust, Ben. Think about that. Every atom in your body used to be part of a star. I think that's pretty neat.

Day 8! Same as Martin's.

[salamanca]

[ This is a confusing whirlwind of emotions that Lalo is not remotely equipped to process. Embarrassment at Cohle swooping so close to telling everyone what the creature had called him floods him, and then quickly disguises itself behind a shield of anger. But that melts away as quickly as it came, replaced by something Lalo doesn't have a name for.

Intimacy, I guess you might call it. Rust is talking about the cabin creature's encounter with him, not the two of them, but it relates to their situation too. Lalo thinks, anyway. He can imagine the liminal space between life and death, the one that he feels like he still hangs in now, still exists in now. It's hard to believe he's actually real. He's actually come back. He understands intellectually what it means to say someone is in a state of shock, but he's never thought that would be something that could apply to him.

There's something else, too. He doesn't need anyone's pity, he wants to say. They don't need to "hold" anything for him. Not Cohle, not Martin. He is fine.

But he wasn't fine yesterday, when Cohle was listening to him die on the walkie. He can imagine Cohle is reliving it now, for him, and feels a sudden burst of warm connection he again doesn't know how to process.

He swallows but his throat still feels dry. When he speaks, his voice rasps. Like the verbal equivalent of a car struggling to start. ]

Hey. Detective. Might be too late, but you know you don't gotta do all that shit, right? I'm fine. [ He isn't, and it probably shows even though he tries to hide it. ] Or, I will be fine, anyway. [ That is true. He will be fine. Eventually. ] You can relax.

[ A pause. Lalo's energy shifts a little, but it's not in a bad way. ]

"Stumbling around in the jungle?" Hey, fuck you, man. [ But there's a light laugh, a levity in his voice. It's more playful than angry, jesting more than offended. It's you, and you saved him, so he'll let you live, this time. Besides, he can see the benefits of you thinking of him that way. Easier for him, better for him, if you're not inclined to scrutinize someone you think is stumbling around. ]