maskormenace | Entry #004

Entry tags:

Entry #004 | Video

[ Here is Gansey, looking a little strange. He’s wearing a navy-blue sweater emblazoned with a raven – an Aglionby school sweater, over what appears to be ordinary clothes. His shoulders and hair are damp, like he’s been rained on, and he looks strangely pale. Despite that, he’s displaying a welcoming smile, and his hazel eyes are bright and vital with some emotion he’s holding back. ]

Apparently, I vanished yesterday.

I say apparently because it feels more like several weeks ago, but according to this – [ he holds up one of De Chima’s daily newspapers – a tabloid, headlined with speculation about the upcoming import elections ] – it’s only been a day.

A lot can happen in a day. Sometimes things that give you perspective.

Can I ask – the school year is almost over. Some of you will be graduating. I will. Which is odd, because I was here for eight months, and then I went home and it was Fall again, and Senior year was just beginning. I’m not completely sure what age I am now. I turned eighteen a couple of months ago.

[ Which, he actually never mentioned. It had seemed like there were more important things to be getting along with, and the thought of getting older in the wrong world had annoyed Gansey anyway. He’d kept quiet. Now, if he could do that over again, he thinks he’d celebrate it more – even though he’s only mentioning it now because it’s relevant to this. ]

Then I go home, and I’m seventeen again, so now I don’t even know what counts. Graduation will, though, I know that much.

So: to everyone else who’s graduating. Or even if you’re not, even if it’s just that you see change coming for you. What are your plans? Will you work, will you travel? What would you like to do, ideally? I think I’m ready for it to be summer again.

Private to: Billy Kaplan, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Noah Czerny, Matthew Lynch

[ This part goes to everyone’s private inboxes. Gansey’s smile is less presidential here, but his eyes are even sharper. He seems energized, like he’s on the edge of something. His voice is trying not to sound like it. ]

Hey, everyone. I very much hope I didn’t worry you. I think I was mid-conversation with you, Billy. I’ll have to blame my rudeness on the Porter.

Listen, I’m on my way home. Could someone bring the car and pick me up? I’m getting pizza from that Italian place near the porter in De Chima. I’m absolutely famished.

I’d…like to know if anyone else vanished, too. Ronan, Adam?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Cosima wants to ask what happened to him back home, make sure he's okay, but first, a congratulations are in order.]

Graduation, huh? Congrats.

[ Gansey's smile turns a little more personal at the sight of Cosima. ]

Thanks. You know, I've barely thought about it until now. There was something unreal about school here, like it wouldn't matter once I went home anyway.

Which it still won't, but I think it might be better to enjoy the moment. How are you, Cosima?

[Cosima returns his smile, launching into excited hand gestures.]

You should totally enjoy it. It's not every day you graduate high school. Besides, summer between senior year and undergrad is awesome, I still remember mine. My friends and I went on this massive road trip.

I'm good, I'm good. I didn't get hit by the weird Porter glitches that seem to be going around.

There's weird Porter glitches?

[ That's new information. Gansey has only just gotten back, though. ]

I didn't notice anything. Anyway, I think you're very right. I'd like to make something of it. I suppose I have time to think about it now.

Especially in this world, Jesus. I don't even have the rest of the school year ahead of me anymore.

When people go home and come back right after?

[She's been calling them glitches, but is interested in any other explanations for the phenomenon.]

Do the road trip thing. Trust me, you won't regret it. You going to miss high school or were you totally ready for it to be over?

Mmm. We’ve seen enough of that in my house lately, anyway. Has it happened to anyone you know?

[ Family, maybe. In fact, that reminds him of something, and he sits up a little straighter. ]

I think I'll miss Aglionby. I love it there. I've been distracted of late, but I really do. Still, I think I'm ready to move on. Are your sisters all right? I met them, you know.

Sarah and Felix, her foster brother.

[Cosima doesn't say how worried she is that it'll happen to her next, but the more sober tone she takes, that seems almost unnatural on her speaks for herself. News from home, will likely not be good news for her.

But that soberness is gone as fast as it came and she grins easily at the mention of her sisters.]

All of them? Do I need to retroactively apologize? All of us together... We can be a lot to take in.

All depends on how many there are.

[ Which is a question, you know. And they're all basically identical. He's seen more over the Network. ]

And I'll have you know I was very polite! To my memory, anyway. You really have a large family, Cosima.

Five. Identical quintuplets separated at birth, if you can believe that.

[Cosima knows it's an improbable cover story, but finds that acknowledging its ridiculousness does a lot to make people buy it.]

Hey, I'm not worried about you. I'm much more concerned about how polite they were.

[ A pause. Well, at least that explains the one who'd sounded Russian. ]

They were friendly enough. Well, one of them was trying to fly inadvisably, one of them had been turned into a child like I was, and...

The other met me when I was a child. That's probably going to be awkward. Separated at birth, though, seriously? How did that happen?

Sarissa's the flyer. Sarah was the teenager. Other must've been Helena or Alison. Did she have bangs?

We're still a little fuzzy on those details. My best guess? Our bio parents weren't prepared to raise five kids. They put us all up for adoption and I dunno, maybe it made sense to them to separate us across many countries...

[Cosima really hopes that he buys this story. Gansey is one of the first to actually ask for details.]

No. [ Gansey shakes his head, and then gestures around it. ]

Blonde hair, curls.

That's...shocking actually, Cosima. What sort of adoption agency would do that? Five different countries, Jesus, what sort of adoption agency even works in that way? It must have been a hell of a day when you found out about each other.

[ It doesn't sound terribly plausible to him, honestly. He'll take it at face value in lieu of a more sensible alternative. ]

Helena. She made her way back home a couple weeks ago.

Tell me about it. Pretty sure they found us all homes through, uh, not entirely legal means. My parents don't really talk about it. My sisters and I only found each other a year or so ago, thanks to a very good private investigator.

You mean she’s gone already?

[ Gansey is sorry to hear it. He’d liked her. Or, at least, the insufferable ten year old version of him had liked her. ]

That’s crazy, though. And terrible for you and your sisters, but I’m glad that you’ve found each other. How fascinating that the porter would have lifted you all. Even if one didn’t stay.

She's gone, and not even for the first time. She and Sarah were both here long before the rest of us showed up.

That goes for you and your friends too. There's a lot of you guys here.

There are. It's a very strange thing, I wonder about it all the time. Of all the people in Henrietta, it brings me and my friends. And Kavinsky.

[ Who is very clearly not a friend, okay Cosima? ]

No one from the rest of our town, so far as I know, but people from different worlds entirely. Often, people who know each other. How are we chosen, and why? I know there's a pattern to all of this. there has t be.

[Cosima brightens at the mention of a pattern of the arrivals, she's been looking for one too. In her mind, there's no way it's random who's brought here and who isn't. She ducks out of frame for a moment, resurfacing with a notebook in hand.]

Tell me about it. It's a crazy complicated pattern, but there has to be one. I can't believe that this is just random.

[ Gansey smiles at the sight of her notebook. He always enjoys finding a like-minded person. ]

No, it can't be. There's far too much coincidence involved with that theory, and I don't believe in coincidence at all.

Something has made the Porter latch onto us and our friends, and not others. It makes no sense otherwise.

I've tried and tried to find a common thread between everyone here. Something that ties each of us together. But I'm starting to think it's much more complicated than that.

We're talking about a lot of people from a great many different worlds. Perhaps the idea of one common thread between them is going too far.

Maybe it's more like...

[ He stops, abruptly, as though another train of thought has interrupted him. ]

Do you know that saying? That there are, what, five degrees of separation between everyone on Earth?

Yeah, I think you're on to something. We're talking different worlds here, I'm guessing it's more than five degrees, but looking for connections, not just a single similarity... That's a good idea.

[ She sees where he's going with it. Gansey points at her, nodding approval. ]

Exactly, yes. Finding what those connections are won't be easy, of course. Much like finding a needle in a haystack, there must be a trick to it. I still think we have to start with the Porter itself.

[Cosima's nodding too, flipping to an open page in her notebook and gesturing to him with one hand.]

The Porter? What if it's like, programmed to bring in people based on certain criteria and you could hack it? A program would explain how it could handle something as complicated as finding all those connections...

Admittedly, I couldn't hack it. My computer skills barely rate as high as social networking.

But you could, maybe. If you're good at that kind of thing. We'd have to get close to the Porter first, and that's always been the problem. The military aren't keen for us to interact with the means of our capture.

I'm decent at bioinformatics when I have to be, but I'm not a hacker. Know a couple, but they're not here.

Do you know where it is?

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

Re: video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject