entranceway | action/video } from Ace of Spades, the Wonderland blog of Georgia Mason, entry #6

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action/video } from Ace of Spades, the Wonderland blog of Georgia Mason, entry #6

Action

Georgia steps out of the wood, barefoot, ready to make what excuses she needs to and… stops. Dr. Thomas is nowhere in sight, and this definitely isn't the CDC biodome she was in before. Anyone observing would find it hard to recognize her. She looks so different from the girl she was before. Skinny to the point of malnourished, dressed in white, CDC-issued pajamas, her hair, short again at least, thank fuck, is streaked patchy with bleach instead of dyed back to her natural color. And then there are her eyes, clear brown instead of flat and black, unprotected by sunglasses even in the afternoon sunlight, and she's not flinching from the brightness. Still, there's a certain determination to her scowl that's familiar enough, even if the rest is wrong.

A mix of emotions lance through her as she looks around. An initial burst of fear of what they'll do to her if they catch her not where she's supposed to be. Annoyance at the fear. She's Georgia Mason, dammit, being where she's not supposed to be is something she's good at. Relief at the thought that maybe, no matter how impossible it seems, she's somehow managed to escape. Confusion, since people don't just turn around and find themselves escaped from secure facilities.

And over all of those a creeping, almost disturbing sense of familiarity. She knows this place. She didn't seconds before, but all the memories are rushing back to her in a burst of almost confusing intensity. Wonderland. Her heart starts hammering, the impossibility of the situation melting away in the face of a far more important realization. Shaun's here.

She pulls the tiny ceramic gun from her waistband. It fits into her hand like it was made for her, which it likely was, as she stalks purposefully towards the mansion. She misses her fucked up eyes more than she ever thought possible, and more than that, misses her sunglasses. It's so much harder to mask her emotions, to keep herself from looking wide-eyed with the fear still racing through her veins, with her face naked and her eyes so fucking expressive. She marches forward, gun pointed down, but ready to raise it at a moment's notice. She has to get to the mansion. She has to get to Shaun. She has to warn him.

Video

[Georgia doesn't address the network until later, when she's had a chance to clean up. Her hair's dyed back to its usual dark brown. She has a black blazer over a white shirt, a few sizes smaller than she's used to, but they look like her clothes. She has shoes and she's seriously debating sleeping in them. And she has sunglasses, wrapping the world back in its usual comforting monotone and hiding her far too normal eyes. She looks like herself again. She nods as the recording starts.]

My name is Georgia Mason, and I can tell you for a fact that I have never been here before in my life.

[She shakes her head, holding up a hand.]

I have never been here before, and yet I remember everything. I remember space. I remember wizard school. I remember paintball and New Year's parties and writing op-eds that pissed people off and actually starting a print publication.

[It's almost comforting that she feels the same amount of disdain for print. Anything that's the same about her is something to cling to. She takes a deep breath before continuing.]

I remember a lot of things that didn't happen to me. Up to and including, my brother holding a gun to the base of my skull and shooting me before I could turn into a zombie. I know that didn't happen to me because that's not the sort of thing you live through. Those are all things that happened to Georgia Mason and I--

[She smiles shallowly, almost sadly, and forces herself to keep looking at the camera. Not like anyone can see where her eyes are pointing through the sunglasses, but it's important to her that she stays strong.]

I'm the closest thing you're gonna get. I'm a genetically identical clone with 97% of her memories, and how the fuck that can include Wonderland when I didn't remember it at the time of my death is one of many things about this place that will never make sense to me. It's up to you to decide if I still count as her. I don't know how to be anyone else.

[She adjusts her sunglasses, leaning in towards the camera and adds, in an entirely pleasant and matter-of-fact tone:]

Now. Can anyone tell me where the fuck my brother wound up? His stuff's still here, but he's not answering his phone. If Wonderland was seriously enough of an asshole to take him away before I got back, I'm going to start setting things on fire until I get him back.

[She reaches to turn off the camera, then hesitates. Nothing matters as much as finding Shaun, but that doesn't mean nothing else matters. She's Georgia Mason, for better or for worse, and she has a paper to run.]

Until I find him, address all queries about The Shattered Mirror to me. Thank you.

[She cuts the feed. Now she gets to wait. She's held herself together this long. She can manage another week. Fuck she hopes it's not more than a week.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I know! [She's fucking helpless, and it's terrible. No one's experimenting her at least, but in a way she's even more trapped than before. Sure, one wrong move and she'd be decommissioned, and she had to put up with constant tests she didn't understand and had no say in, but she had some hope. The EIS was trying to get her out. She was in the same universe as Shaun. All she had to do was escape one of the most secure places in the world while every single move was monitored and she probably had some kind of trackers embedded in her skin. Easy.

Fuck, she'll need to find a doctor here soon, won't she?

Anger is better than helplessness. Anger might not make her cry.]

I haven't been able to do anything for months. I'm fucking sick of it.

[She snaps.

It's hard to tell if this is due to a conversational misstep on his part or if it was always bound to happen, just based on how high-strung she's been since her reintroduction (introduction?) into Wonderland, since knowing that she's just some kind of...copy of the original? How the hell's he supposed to rationalize that? It's not like his sense of self is particularly stable on a good day; he's probably missing a good deal more than just 3% of his own memories at any given moment.]

Okay. Okay. [The words are probably much less of a soothing, bracing effort than they should be - as much for him as they are for her.] So just - acclimatize. Adjust to the place all over again. At most, he'll probably be gone a week.

[Hopefully.]

[She's normally so much more put together than this. She's very good at staying in control. She figures out what to do and then she does it. She doesn't burst into tears at the drop of a hat or feel like sinking to the ground and sobbing. That's not who she is.

Then again, she died, was cloned, and finally got out of the damn CDC only to find herself still trapped in Wonderland without the only person that made Wonderland worth it. Maybe she should cut herself some slack.

She takes a breath, steadying herself, and wipes angrily at her face again.]

I need shoes. And sunglasses. And hair dye. And real clothes.

[That's good. That's better. Easier. An objective, factual list of objects. Things to do with herself, with her hands, with her thoughts. A way to reestablish some form of baseline. He can do that.]

Good place to start, [he says bracingly, or what he hopes is a suitably bracing tone without being overbearing or patronizing or an insufferable combination of both.] Closets have all of those.

[Which is his subtle hint that maybe they should start moving back toward the mansion. The mechanical automation of the movement might make it easier to distract himself from the idea that she's wiping furiously at her eyes.

Overly scattered. Overly vulnerable.]

He's been running that, uh...the Shattered Mirror. Without you. I guess you'll have to play catch-up.

[She appreciates that he doesn't mention the crying and seems to be doing his best to awkwardly ignore it. She doesn't do vulnerable. Barely even with Shaun. Certainly not with Tim.

She nods, turning towards the mansion and shoving purpose back into her stride. Hopefully her eyes aren't too puffy from crying. Ruins the effect.]

I'm not surprised. He's more competent than anyone gives him credit for. I'll have to keep it going now. [She gives a watery smile.] I've missed having news to read.

Yeah, well, you didn't miss much here.

[Falling into an easy pattern, a routine back-and-forth. Nothing to worry about, right? No need to draw attention to how she's straining to mangle her composure back into place, how close to the edge at which she's currently operating.]

Not much worth reporting about when time doesn't move, turns out. Who'd've thought, right?

I hate this place. Finally free and I still can't get any real internet.

[She has the same priorities as ever. That much hasn't changed. Though, she realizes with some surprise, one thing has. If she does get Shaun back, she's... not sure she'll be able to bring herself to actually want to leave. She'd like to think she still would, in the magical alternate universe where they even get a choice, since she still, apparently, has work to do. But it would be a hell of a lot harder to go back to the CDC than just to a simple death.

A point of divergence from the original Georgia? Or just what happens when you kill a girl, bring her back, and run invasive tests on her while giving her no privacy, internet, or her brother for a few months? She doesn't know. And as always is more than a little relieved the choice actually isn't hers to make.]

[If he were the kind of guy who smiled, he'd probably be biting one back at that. It's a flare of the person he remembers, the insufferable, infuriating, resourceful stonewall of a journalist who both contrasted and contested Jay's every choice as an intrepid, amateur reporter.

As it is, he simply huffs out a faint snort-like sound that almost approximates a laugh, and certainly communicates some level of faint, casual amusement. The closest the gets to it, anyway.]

Yeah, well...someone's gotta pick verbal fights with people to pass the time.

I've missed that too. Not really the same when the only people you can fight with could and would kill you with zero consequences if they decide you're too much trouble.

[Not that it was enough to entirely stop her. They would have known she was up to something if she were fully compliant. But it meant she had to play along to a certain degree and not push as hard as she would have liked to.]

Yeah, you know? I can see why that'd be a problem. [His tone is light, disarming, as easy as one might use to discuss the weather, if he were the sort to do that kind of thing. Ever.]

Shaun was pretty much pulling double duty for you this past week. He's good, but he doesn't really have the same flair for the absolutely scathing the way you do.

[It's...kind of hard to tell if that was meant to be a compliment or not. He'll let her decide.]

[It's definitely a compliment, or she'll take it as one anyway. She smiles slimly.]

Shaun has a tendency to punch his problems. People who don't think things through might think that makes him the more dangerous one. But give me some time to do research and a laptop and I can do ten times the damage he can. Bruises heal. Words are forever.

[Sticks and stones can break your bones but words can tear down everything you've built and leave you with nothing. She glances over at Tim, raising an eyebrow.]

You were reading the Mirror?

[He shrugs, once again finding the precision of her questions, of her glance, uncomfortable by habitual rote. It's not necessarily the questions themselves that put him off balance; it's simply the mental association with the scintillating, filed-edge leucotome of her judgment that he's yet to shake.]

Shaun was worried about you. Made an announcement when you disappeared.

[That all lines up with her expectations for Shaun. Which is good. If anything in the 3% of difference was enough to seriously damage her view of Shaun, she'd worry.]

I had about half an hour til my death when I left, and that's assuming Wonderland could somehow compensate for the infection already in my veins. He knew that. Even if my stuff remained, it would be hard to believe I could come back.

[Technically, she hadn't. But she still remembers Wonderland. What the fuck does that mean?]

If your stuff is still there, it - I mean, you didn't disappear from contacts or anything. He was worried, but I just kinda assumed...

[Shouldn't assume, though, should he? That's just horrendously irresponsible of him on several counts. Not that that's particularly a surprise, where Tim's concerned. Just yet another shitty choice in his repertoire.]

That's just kinda how it goes. Around here.

He would have still hoped.

[Georgia's the realist. Shaun's the one that kept talking to her after she died. He would have clung to that hope. And, well, obviously he wasn't going to be disappointed.

At least, she hoped he wouldn't be. She still wasn't actually the same person.]

How about Georgette Meissonier? Buffy? Where's she?

He mentioned that she disappeared too. I dunno if she's...showed up, or what.

[He wasn't really close with her. Not that he's close with Shaun or George, but he's certainly had more conversations on a more frequent basis than with "Buffy."

Either way, the possibility that maybe her disappearance was more permanent than George's or Shaun's isn't off the table.]

Right. [George hadn't seen her name in Tim's contacts, but she also hadn't exactly been looking. She misses Buffy more than she'd miss most people. But that's still not even a third of how much she misses Shaun.]

Well, won't take too long to figure out. And if I could come back, so can she.

[How's that "optimism" thing working out for you, George? 'Cause Tim's not exactly equipped to be the guy who sees the silver lining on anything, let alone this. Which more or less has him forcing her to take that position anyway.

So that's...great. For everybody.]

Exactly, yeah. Not...not too bad. I mean - could be worse.

[She lets out a harsh, ragged bubble of laughter. How, exactly, could it be worse? She could be dead...wait, nope, already checked that box. She could still be back at the CDC, which would be worse except that her end goal is getting to Shaun and at least there she had a plan, things she could do even if she didn't know she surrounded them.

She's alone. She still doesn't have any shoes. She's cried in front of multiple people.

There's nothing funny about the situation. It doesn't stop the broken laughter.]

You're right. [She manages.] It could be raining.

[Oh, jesus. And now she's laughing. It's not a good sound, either; it's a violent, unhinged thing, verging on the hysterical. Something bright and vicious, prompting the hunch of his shoulders, the guilty duck of his head.]

That's not - that isn't really what I meant.

[Really fucked this up again, didn't you, Tim? It's what you're good at. What you're the goddamn best at.]

...sorry.

[He's not doing as badly as he might think. Partly because, well, everything's so fucked up as it is. Short of telling her Shaun's dead and never coming back, there's not much he can say to make things worse. Even then, she'd be skeptical as to how he'd even know.

As far as making things better... well, there's only so much words can do, and she's well aware. The normality of the conversation, the fact that they're outdoors and no one's going to come fetch her for one of the endless tests the CDC likes to put her through, no Dr. Thomas, no guards... that much is helping.

She shakes her head.]

Don't be. It's been a hell of a year, and I spent most of it dead. I'm... I know it's a lot. But... you don't have to tiptoe around me. [God knows she'll welcome the chance to actually fight with someone.] If I were going to break, it would've already happened.

[Or maybe it has already happened. But no, she can't think that way. She's not broken. Not in any way that can't be fixed. She just needs time and freedom and Shaun. She might never get back to normal, but she'll at least get back to something.]

Just... be normal. Please.

[Not doing as bad as he could be. A real ringing endorsement, particularly from himself. He grimaces, either unable or unwilling to meet her gaze - her fucking intolerable, disarmingly clear gaze, devoid of the sunglasses or the distorted irises or any of the physical walls she could throw up whenever she liked. However much he's missing that now, it's nothing, he knows, compared to how much George must be missing the very same.]

Normal? Me?

[Maybe that counts for something, that dry pull of a word, the disarming lift of his shoulders, an unassuming wryness that borders on the sarcastic.]

That's just taking it a step too far.

[She's used to people not being able to meet her eyes. Normally it's because they're so freaky, not because they're freakishly normal. At least it's familiar.

Fuck, she misses her sunglasses. But they're almost at the mansion.

Her lip quirks, betraying a hint of amusement. A hint more obvious with the way her eyes hide nothing.]

I'm the clone of a dead journalist. I assure you, my standards for normal are very low.

And I'm a freak with brain problems.

[That's putting it lightly. Very lightly. Bottom line is that he doesn't have standards for what constitutes normal in his life, and never really did. The first person he met here was a talking skeleton on the mansion's rooftop. He never had anything approaching a normalized routine, the closest thing he's come to it being whatever the hell he has now.

Either way, he's no good with any sort of sentimentality, or anything like that. He passes a hand to the back of his neck, still unable to look at her, but when he reaches the mansion door he seizes the handle and opens it with a jerk.]

I dunno, really, [he says, slowly, parsing the words as they come,] how much of me is..."me." How much I remember. Does it make me less...

[Is he still me?

He recovers. Maybe not masterfully, maybe not admirably, but he recovers. And one corner of his mouth twists, his shoulders hitching slightly.]

It's not easy. But you're not, uh... [Christ almighty. This is the worst.]

You're not - the only one.

Yeah?

[She gives him a puzzled glance until the things he's not saying click in as the memories that were repressed continue to reassert themselves. Ah yes, his alter ego with the mask. A very different situation, but she can see the parallels.

That is, she supposes, the nice thing about Wonderland. Being the clone of a dead journalist is never going to be not weird, but in Wonderland? It's also not the weirdest thing anyone has going on. She at least has control over her own mind. And she's retained 97% of her memories, which really, how many people manage to retain that many memories even without being cloned?

Not Tim, obviously.]

Yeah. That's-- [She grimaces. All things considered, she doesn't think she can be blamed for being wrapped up in her own stuff right now.] I know a lot of people have it worse. Like, fuck, who gets to come back from a bullet in the brain?

[Lucky her. All it cost her was knowing that the people who brought her back did it to use her against the only person she really cared about. Also a wonderful new fuckload of identity issues she doubts she'll ever fully get over. Joy.

She steps into the mansion and straightens her shoulders. She's not an extremely intimidating figure, standing there barefoot in white pajamas, but she's doing her best, dammit.]

Closet.