When I was the Rat... [CLOSED]

[futilecycle]

Who | Sigma and the Initiate Fraysong.
What | Sigma becomes a mole.
When | Forward dated to a few weeks after the Arena, during the day.
Where | A surveillance blind spot in a Capitol residential area.
Warnings/Notes | Reference to bombs and being shot. Set up for a mod-approved player plot that will have sign ups after the Arena. World is on vacation now so we're starting early for timing purposes.


Sigma's fingers sweat grooves into the parchment of his paperback book, frozen on a page he hasn't read. Following the approval of his release petition, he had decided to make the switch from the digitized readers he was familiar with to ink and paper. White backlight would ruin his organic eye, and without the reanimation the Arena provided, the hallmarks of age would be permanent.

Provided he lived long enough to worry about his health.

For hours his eyes stumble over the same words without comprehension. Eventually he thinks to turn the page, to suggest reading for the sake of passers by, but his cybernetic fingers pinch the paper too tightly and the words split from their sentences in a diagonal line.

Sigma closes the book and leans back against the bench. The skin beneath his eyes has already bruised black from lack of sleep - even after only a week on the job, there was less rest in Capitol Defense than there had been in the Arena. He worked late hours and used his mornings to read outside, not for the sake of research but to maintain the illusion that reading was his hobby. His morning routine was strict and consistent: he would walk in a circuit around the Capitol residential area, always stopping to read in a different, progressively quieter space. His new occupation had taught him to identify the size, range and direction of a Capitol bug, and over several days he'd created a mental map of where the cameras intersected. There was one area of a particular park where they did not.

A smarter man would wait longer than a week to stab his new employer in the back, but if a Rebellion were to mobilize, they were rapidly losing their opportunity. This morning Sigma did not bother to sleep, and set out early. At the start of his walk (it was imperative the meeting followed shortly after the message) he called the Initiate over the Tribute network, chatting leisurely as he made his way to the park across the road.

"If you would like to catch up in person, I have taken to reading in the afternoons outside of my new quarters. There is a bench not far from the complex with a beautiful view of the water..."

By nightfall there would be another camera overlooking the river.

Comments

[carnagecarnival]

With the arena's end comes getting used to his body again. Every time is a gasp of breath with coming back to life, with feeling where at he was injured for sign of lingering scar, and never finding none. This time he walks out a limp what ain't truly there and pinches his skin with his claws just to remind himself he's wearing it, that he ain't still a corpse re-animated.

But all that aside, the weariness of having done yet another arena, the anxiousness of needing to make a move, all is relatively well. And with Sigma's new position, is the knowledge that one more person of his is being safe. For that, he can only be grateful.

He goes as he's directed, though he'd not delude himself with thinking this idle chatter. No, he knows well of the blindspots in the city, and where, of course, they lie. He makes his way there fast, full to the brim with nervous energy. By human terms it is early, but by trollish terms it is ever so late.

"FATHER SIGMA!" He greets at the sight, smile upon him stretched. "All a sorts motherfucking well I hope?" Probably not. Sigma looks worn from here. The nearness of the river, shimmering with all the weatlh of seadwellers in the morn light, adds to this somehow. It doesn't mean for Sigma what water does to him, but there are some things what can only be signs certain.