Collide Gamer

Travolta had told them to meet him in a few hours. Apparently he wanted to take care of some other business first. John wanted to get things out of the way, but he also doubted they would get attacked again. Trap Barriers, apparently, cost a lot of money and as long as they stayed away from public places they frequented, they should be fine.

One option that John got (mostly) ruled out was his stalker.

Jeehan: Did you set up another abduction attempt on me?

SecretBlonde: Lol, no. Thanks for the free intel though. Also, I would have never tried the first time around if I had known what kind of cash you would attract even without getting you into some Mana Factory.

Jeehan: You mean that selling information about me is more profitable than selling ME?

SecretBlonde: No, I mean that it is less risky. Especially once I realized you were a Latebloomer. Look, I’m already on your bad side, but I don’t need you to get angry enough at me to be a vendetta target after you break out of the Mana Factory they stuff you in. Romulus is interested in you too. I’m just here to make a quick buck, not to get into any bigshot’s sights.

SecretBlonde: I’ll extract your profile for all it is worth and then disappear nice and quiet into the night and never bother you again. I’ll be richer and I’ll have done nothing to you that warrants tracking me around the globe. Doesn’t that sound nice?

It didn’t sound nice at all, but the logic was solid enough that John was certain that he/she/it wasn’t to blame for this one. Still a morally black individual, ready to sell him or intel on him to anyone with enough cash, but their words lined up with their goals. As far as John knew.

With that lead gone cold, they went to the arcade.

To his surprise, John spotted Victoria at the table. There were a couple of knife cuts on her. Gaia closed wounds when leaving a barrier, but reopened them when entering one again. It wasn’t a full restoration.

Travolta, on the other hand, looked fine. As fine as a giant man at the edge of an explosion could look. His expression was tense from barely held back anger. “There you fucking are,” he growled, repeatedly tapping the wood of the conference table with one of his thick fingers. “Sit down!”

“Calm down, Baldy.” Rave and John sat down. “You getting all angry won’t fix this.”

“We’ll see about that,” Travolta growled. He raised a hand to his head and screamed. Everyone at the table halfway rose out of their seat. “Fuck, one of them bashed me over the head… terrible fucking headache,” he told them. “I’ll deal with it in a bit… fuck…” With bloodshot eyes, he looked back up. “Each of us was attacked today,” he returned to the topic at hand. “I was returning from the hospital. They got me right up this street.” Travolta gestured vaguely in the direction of the Protected Space’s entrance. “You two were at school.” John and Rave nodded. “Where were you, Victoria?”

“The cemetery,” she responded immediately.

“Why?” Travolta demanded to know.

“I don’t have to tell you. That’s the rules I agreed to.”

Travolta flew out of his seat and brought his hand down on the table with such force that the opposite end of it rose almost two metres into the air. It came crashing back down with a loud noise. The solid wood remained intact, but the point had been made. Travolta stood at the end of the conference table, bowing fowards, teeth bared. There was something predatory in his behaviour.

“This isn’t a normal fucking situation, brat!” Travolta shouted. “You said you needed protection! That you wanted an in with the Bloodfallen! I have done as fucking much as I could for you! Answer – the – fucking – question!”

All eyes rested on Victoria, who stared back at Travolta, green eyes hard and unmoving. “I don’t have to answer shit,” she finally said and stood up.

“You leave now, I better never fucking see your ass again,” Travolta threatened.

“Fine,” Victoria agreed aggressively and headed out the door.

Rave sighed when she had left. “Did ya have to alienate one of us?” she asked.

“She isn’t one of ‘us’,” Travolta hissed, holding his head again. “Unlike your boyfriend over there, she never made the effort to get along with us. You get a lick of influence in the Abyss and the leeches start coming. Fuck humans. Fuck her. I doubt that she’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Travolta!”

“WHAT, RAVE?! You got a better idea? You think that bitch shows up on our doorstep, suddenly there’s trouble and that’s just a coincidence?!” They stared at each other for a little bit, then Rave turned her head to him.

John hated what he had to say, “Sorry, Jane…” already her expression changed from anger to that stunned look of betrayal, “…I have to agree with Travolta on this one.”

“What?” Rave’s quiet voice dove a dagger through his heart. “You think she’s responsible for all of this?”

“I don’t know if she is. I don’t know if she has anything to do with Jimmie blowing up or these attacks, but she’s not doing anything to clear her name. She’s definitely suspicious.”

“You two are stupid!” Rave crossed her arms.

“Who do you think is behind this then?” Travolta challenged her. “Come on, since you’re so full of smart ideas.”

“Moira.”

Travolta burst out into laughter and fell back into the chair. “The Order is a bunch of zealous fucking holy water gurglers that deserve to get beaten up with a Bible.” An oddly specific set of curses, John found. “What they’re not, besides religious nuts, is deceitful. They hate how we do things, not what we do, and if they wanted us removed William would just come strutting in wearing his absurdly shining armour and crush us.” Travolta shuddered. “Fuck, this headache is killing me.” He forced his hand back to the table.

Rave threw her hands into the air. “I don’t know – who else could it be? Are you seriously gonna distrust Victoria over this?”

“Yes.” Travolta crossed his arms. “Yes, I will distrust the person that never shows up. Yes, I will distrust the person that never tells anyone anything. Yes, I will distrust the person that is acting suspicious as all hell.”

“She got hurt too?”

“Doing what?! She never told us!” Travolta returned. “Way I see it, there are three possibilities. Either she’s involved directly and is betraying us – if she didn’t join just to arrange this – or she’s the target of these attacks and not letting us know, or some third party is just stirring up shit and she’s being a bitch about it. We might as well look into her.”

Rave opened her mouth again, but John put a hand on her shoulder. He hated the way she looked at him when he shook his head. “He’s right, Jane.”

The open mouth turned into a thin line. “You seriously annoy me right now,” she said and left the table. Swift steps carried her towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Travolta demanded to know.

“What?!” she whirled around to shoot him a poisonous glare. “Ya gonna throw me out of the guild too?” For a moment, she remained like that. When she went back to leaving, she mumbled, “I’ll be outside.”

The door closed behind her with a bang. “She is getting way too fucking emotional over this whole thing.” Travolta grumbled and lit up a cigarette. His eyes were a little less bloodshot after a couple of puffs.

“I can’t really blame her.” John kept a look on the door. He would be lying if the thought that Victoria was guilty was pleasant to him. To trust her was something he wanted to do, for many reasons that weren’t logical. All of the Mental Stats he had raised let him look at this with relative calm. Victoria behaved suspiciously. They had been attacked by a sniper. Those two factors alone were enough to make this a necessary investigation.

“Well, whatever…” Travolta mumbled. “I’ll prepare myself for the next attack. Guess this meeting is adjourned...” The large man stood up and slowly walked towards the stairs. “…sorry about it, kid, but the miniature painting will have to wait… you should check on your girl.”

“I know.” John sighed. Travolta left him alone in the room and John sorted his thoughts. It was difficult to consider what to do next. They had never had a fight before. Not a real one anyway. He wished he would just agree with her but… he didn’t and he couldn’t give in either. This was too important.

Rave waited outside, arms crossed. The pink lustre in her eyes was consolidated into a thin ring around the pupil. Her heel tapped the concrete of the walkway in a steady, urgent pattern.

“Travolta closed the meeting.” That was the best way John had to start with.

“Okay,” Rave acknowledged shortly. Her fingers tapped in the same beat as her heel.

“Jane, listen, I-”

“What? You are going to stalk Victoria?” She intervened immediately. “I don’t want to hear it. She fought with us didn’t she? She even slept with us on a few occasions, sure she’s awkward and abrasive but she keeps hanging out with us…” She kicked a loose chunk of concrete into the nearby grass. “Unbelievable.”

“None of those are good reasons to trust her – and you just think it's Moira because you dislike her.” John raised his voice a little bit. Her sticking to Victoria’s innocence was getting to him. It was one thing to stick to a point of view, another to just dismiss all other possibilities that didn’t fit the narrative.

“At the very least Moira is actually an enemy!”

“Well I don’t know what Victoria is!” John shouted back at her. “For all I know she could be a spy, she never told us anything!”

“Oh great! You go and look into Victoria then, while I confront Moira!” Rave was ready to go but John grabbed her by the wrist.

 “Wait, Jane, listen to me for a second!” he demanded. Rave pulled her arm free but waited, her bitter expression only half turned towards him. One deep breath. “I am going with you.”

Rave looked at him with confusion, “What, but you said…”

“Yes, I know. I don’t think that Moira has anything to do with this. Neither she nor the Golden Rose look the type.” John rubbed his forehead. “That’s what I think, okay? But I am willing to at least help you on this. You mean the world to me, Jane, I won’t just let you storm off into danger alone. HOWEVER!” He raised a finger. “If it turns out you are wrong, we are looking into Victoria, understood?”

Rave stood and stared, then suddenly raised both hands to her head and started messing with her hair. No matter how much she pulled or ruffled through, it remained as perfectly chaotic as ever. “Urgh, this sucks. Why can’t we still have last week?!” she lamented and threw her head back to shout in annoyance. “Okay, whatevs, yes, Ja, okay, fuck it.” She finally agreed. “If I’m right, you kiss my feet and buy me something fancy!”

John smiled as their first fight found a somewhat happy ending. “I can live with that. Let’s go to my place. We’ll find Moira around school tomorrow.”