001 ☂ Video

[numberthree]

[ The network video when it comes on is of a brand new face that hasn’t been seen here before. A beautiful woman with creamy light brown skin and long, crimped blonde hair, styled artfully back from her face on one side and framing the other. Her make-up is subtle but smoothed to pull together at the toned light red of her lipstick. Her delicate-knit shirt hangs off one shoulder in a soft mint shade, and her bare skin is accented by a simple golden locket.



Everything about her is picturesque save one detail — a garish bandage, with clear, medical grade tape, wrinkling at the edge as she swallows, covers the center of her throat in a glaring white stripe.



She’s focusing on something in her hands when the video comes up, and she looks up at the camera with a faintly awkward reluctance cemented by determination. She gives a small smile that brushes some of the dust off the awkwardness and settles her shoulders, lifting from her lap a torn-out yellow notepad sheet and holding it before her and camera, but below her face, revealing a tattoo of an umbrella on her wrist. It reads, in thick black sharpie letters: ]



Hello. My name is Allison Hargreeves.



[ She counts in her head to five before she puts it down, lifting the next one. Trying to maintain her calm and poise at the necessity of this. To not feel the futility that necessity brings about. That her new inability to speak adds to it. The next page reads: ]



I am new here and looking for my siblings.



 [ Very specifically, them. Not just ‘anyone who knew her,’ given that in her world — and that there are other worlds is not a thing Allison wants to think hard on yet, and definitely right now, right here, with untold number of unknown people watching her — but on hers, she had been recognizable since birth. First as the only girl in the illustrious Umbrella Academy destined to ’save the world, of course’ and then as a world-famous actress for the second half of her life.



Allison knew better than to ask for things too blankly open stated. Stardom taught you many things about humanity you never wanted to know. She dropped the second paper and raised a third prepared one. ]

Their names are Luther, Diego, Klaus, Five, and Vanya. 



[ Another small pause and, instead of picking up a fourth, she simply turns over the third to show the last sentence. ]


Any help in finding them, if they are here, is appreciated. 


Comments

text;

[stuckintime]

Vanya and I are here. Klaus as well.

[He's not going to drop the 'hey our dead brother is alive here' surprise over text.]

Where did they put you?

[numberthree]

[ Allison takes a second to shift her phone, and focus on the keypad. It is going to be easier, but, also, it takes a bit of precision hitting the right keys, and backspacing to recorrect spellings that absolutely get wrong by trying to do it all too fast in her sudden relief and desperate need to write back. ]

Maurtia Falls. Where are all of you?

[ A second later. ]

Luther and Diego aren't with you?

[stuckintime]

Klaus and I got put in Jeopardy, Vanya is in Nonah.

We should talk.

[numberthree]

[ Potentially the worst words in the world, and Allison's heart runs cold and sharp at an insanely hostile speed after Patrick, and Claire, and there's no reigning it back. Not after what only just happened. His words, that aren't words, there's no tone, no tell feel like a slap to he full awareness. Luther. Or Diego. Or both of them. ]

What's wrong? What happened to them? And Vanya-- is Vanya okay?

video

[viciousmaukery]

First of all, it might be a little easier on you just to directly send texts to people. [It’d be easier on Molly, certainly—he’s not great at reading, but at least he can cheat with text and have a robotic voice read to him. But he doesn’t let that on.]

Second, I’m Mollymauk Tealeaf, I’ve met Klaus. He’s been very interesting, to say the least.

[numberthree]

[ Allison is very new to this small communicator thing and spends a few minutes turning it, and starting to type like an absolute newbie, with one finger slowly, trying to make sure everything is spelled right, and messing up, and having to fix things. To figure out where punctuation is. ]

It's nice to meet you.

You've seen Klaus? Do you know where I can find him?

[viciousmaukery]

[Molly switches over to voice out of courtesy. Writing out a text is not his forte.]

We got drunk in a bar in Heropa. [He sounds oddly pleased about that.] He mentioned he was living in Jeopardy, but he might’ve moved out by now. Can’t hurt to check.

[numberthree]

[ Words. Words. Words, more than two-three words in a quickly scrawled message. To her siblings in the middle of their fights. To Luther what to say to Claire, only to drop her notepad. Not that she can't drop this device. But there's unexpected freedom in it, too.

She's not too surprised to hear Klaus showed up and started getting drunk. Or high. Not that either of things she's saying to a stranger, or would ever need to with any of her other siblings there. ] Thank you. I think I will.



You've been very helpful.

Text

[iminthebook]

Welcome.

I've not seen any of them, but looks like a few answered you already. I hope you can find the others, and if not, I will try to aid you, if they are here.

Finding people is something I am good at.

[numberthree]

Thank you for the offer. I will definitely keep it in mind. We may need it where it to two of our other brothers. You are? Or how is it best to find you, if we do?

[iminthebook]

I am. I'm called Harry Dresden. And I'm in the book. Or you can message me in Jeopardy, at [address].

[numberthree]

Thanks, Harry.

I'll check with my siblings and contact you later if we need your services.

text; handle: ghost stories

[the_horror]

[Have a strange message from an unnamed person]

I see how it is.

[numberthree]

[ What this gets is mostly is a wrinkled brow and a long stare. Anonymous and random, and for the beat of a second almost deletes it, but she can't close it. Instead typing. ]

Excuse you?

[the_horror]

[Sorry, Ben is a bit of a pain in the ass with text sometimes.]

You call for all your siblings but me? Rude, really. I see how it is. Woe is me, and all that.

[numberthree]

[ It's a baffled annoyance. Confusion like a layer reading it. Thinking for a second maybe it's Klaus, frowning, and almost calling him out on it. Except she named Klaus, and that. She named everyone. Everyone.




Except.


And the anger that comes with it is so sudden and so complete. ]

I don't know who you are, but that's not funny.

[obediences]

[ In all the disorientation -- in waking up blinking, dog tags, a glowing tattoo, stepping disoriented into an apartment that's apparently his, it had taken a while before Luther had figured out the communicator. And then: relief, sheer overwhelming relief that one of the first things he sees on the network is from her. Allison. And already rounding everyone up. ]

I'M HJERE

[ Nevermind that his fingers have trouble with the tiny keyboard, mashing the screen to get his message across. ]

[numberthree]

[ After Klaus managed to detach himself from her, and she found a second, Allison texted back. ]

Where is here?


What city?

[obediences]

[ A moment's delay, to consult his paperwork again to be sure. It hadn't been any city name he was familiar with. By the time Luther responds, it's his voice now: familiar, and gentler with her than the tone he's taken with Five. He can't help it. ]

De Chima, Virginia. I've never heard of it before. It sounds like there's a way for me to get over to Maurtia Falls quickly, though. That's where you are? Right now?

[numberthree]

[ Just hearing his voices adds to her stability, her ability to breathe through this new layer of insanity, in a way Allison can't put into words. Just being able to put together more than two to three words and hold it up is a godsend. Two infinitesimally small rights in the world, even when so very much is still wrong, and Allison is nowhere near absolutely pleased with most of her siblings.

Which doesn't change that she damn relieved each time she turns around and another one is there. ]

Building two. Most everyone is here or coming.

text;

[desmodusdraculae]

I'm sure if they're here, you've gotten their attention.

video

[psychophilia]

Five. You're kidding.

[ Tulip's got too many names. This number thing's a whole new level.] ]

[numberthree]

[ For a second only, Allison thinks she must mean the number of brothers and sisters she has. But it takes only the next, to reach what always comes. Though in her now distant world the whole world knows that story. Of the Reginald Hargreeves and his seven children numbered rather than named.

She doesn't really feel like explaining it to people who don't know.


As she has already been walked through how to text while videoing, she shifts the camera to do so. ]

Yes. Though I've found him now.

[psychophilia]

[ she sticks with video. the woman started it that way, no need to change. nothing wrong with her ears. ]

Yeah. The kid. Knew ghost-boy had problems- which, uh, guess he's one of yours, too. But numbers?

[numberthree]

[ Wait. What. ]

Ben was having problems?