Christobel Starsky / Commander Starscream (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
reapsthewind) wrote2015-05-05 06:41 pm
reapsthewind) wrote2015-05-05 06:41 pm
transition
San Francisco, May 2014
Things were... well, she supposed. She was making more money. Her student loans were being paid off. Her boss clearly hated her, and she hated him, but that was par for the course. Usual. And this time, she wasn't fired for it.
But something was...
… wrong.
Locke City was a blur. The past year was a blur. Bits and pieces, fragments and shards, things didn't line up or make sense.
June 2014
Dreams...
She kept having dreams.
“You don't have the dreams?” she asked Matthew over the phone. “Of steel and glass, sharp spires...”
Of war without end.
Of a home, broken.
I won't let that happen again...
August 2014
The news... earthquakes in Las Vegas. Crab monsters. People who were reincarnates of...
No. No. Focus on your work. The outside world isn't your concern, right? What happened in Locke.
“I'm not a hero,” she said. “I'm not here to save anyone.”
Her co-workers looked at her strangely over Sunday brunch.
“Chris, you had too many mimosas?” asked Steve.
She stared at him, stared through him, looked at all these people, in their looks-like-thrift-shop but really from a department store clothes, with their slick smartphones and ideas about how apps could save the world and she felt
Sick.
October, 2014
“You can't miss work again, Chris. I mean, we're pretty lax, but you haven't even been turning in code on time...”
“Yeah,” she murmured. She twirled a sharpie in her hand. She didn't care what the landlord would say. She was so close. Her walls were covered in numbers. She couldn't remember the language or the code or any of it but she knew this was possible. Energy, suspended in a near-matter state.
“Sorry,” she said, at last. “I just, I have this really big idea. Something that could change the company.”
Something that could change the world.
He sighed. “Listen, you're one of the most brilliant programmers I've ever met, but you have got to get better about your work ethic.”
“Yeah... okay. I'll have it in... tomorrow. Yeah...”
She hung up.
Then she screamed. She threw the sharpie against the wall, howled, she punched the wall, because none of it made sense, what was she missing!? What was she missing...
Locke City. The pink lights. Why hadn't she been in Vegas when that all happened? Some co-workers had. Why...
January, 2015
Her body felt wrong.
She felt sick. She felt like she was in a cloud. She felt...
The woman who shared her desk said, “Chris, you're bleeding!”
She hadn't even noticed. She'd been playing with a letter opener and dug at her skin, absently, not even thinking, until it bled.
“You need help,” said her boss. “I can ask HR to find you some counseling. Whatever this is, Chris, depression... whatever, we can help you. I promise.”
February, 2015
“I think you need to take a vacation,” said her therapist.
She'd been put on medical leave. She hadn't slept in weeks. Scars criss-crossed her arms. She wasn't cutting, she told her therapist. Well, not now.
“Where?”
“Maybe back to the East Coast,” she said. “To see your pare--”
“No.”
“What about your uncle?”
Chris tilted her head. A language older than time, older than stars. A memory: flying above the city. Grabbing her uncle's arm as her plane spun out of control. In the open air...
“My great-uncle, you mean?” she said, looking out of a window. “I haven't spoken with him in ages.”
He doesn't remember either, does he?
But Locke City. Where it all began...
“You know, that's a great idea,” she said.
March, 2015
More than a vacation.
She broke her lease.
“I don't give a fuck,” she said. “I have...”
Somewhere to go.
It wouldn't matter soon anyway. Nothing would matter.
April, 2015
Everything returns to me
Crossing the city limits by plane and her head tilts back her eyes roll back in her head the other passengers wonder if she's having a seizure but she remembers nine
million
years
she remembers she remembers I am the rightful leader of the Decepticons. Me! and science and mathematics beyond anything she had known and it's so simple. I'm so stupid. Energon. Of course and when she leaves the tarmac her eyes glow red.
April 29, 2015
She hears a child's cry. She stares up into the sky and sees the moon unfold.
Sees the moon transform.
She remembers a terrible planet, a mouth opening the maw of eternity the Chaosbringer a fractal unmaking staring into its face and its herald and she
feels the last of her humanity fall away
Things were... well, she supposed. She was making more money. Her student loans were being paid off. Her boss clearly hated her, and she hated him, but that was par for the course. Usual. And this time, she wasn't fired for it.
But something was...
… wrong.
Locke City was a blur. The past year was a blur. Bits and pieces, fragments and shards, things didn't line up or make sense.
June 2014
Dreams...
She kept having dreams.
“You don't have the dreams?” she asked Matthew over the phone. “Of steel and glass, sharp spires...”
Of war without end.
Of a home, broken.
I won't let that happen again...
August 2014
The news... earthquakes in Las Vegas. Crab monsters. People who were reincarnates of...
No. No. Focus on your work. The outside world isn't your concern, right? What happened in Locke.
“I'm not a hero,” she said. “I'm not here to save anyone.”
Her co-workers looked at her strangely over Sunday brunch.
“Chris, you had too many mimosas?” asked Steve.
She stared at him, stared through him, looked at all these people, in their looks-like-thrift-shop but really from a department store clothes, with their slick smartphones and ideas about how apps could save the world and she felt
Sick.
October, 2014
“You can't miss work again, Chris. I mean, we're pretty lax, but you haven't even been turning in code on time...”
“Yeah,” she murmured. She twirled a sharpie in her hand. She didn't care what the landlord would say. She was so close. Her walls were covered in numbers. She couldn't remember the language or the code or any of it but she knew this was possible. Energy, suspended in a near-matter state.
“Sorry,” she said, at last. “I just, I have this really big idea. Something that could change the company.”
Something that could change the world.
He sighed. “Listen, you're one of the most brilliant programmers I've ever met, but you have got to get better about your work ethic.”
“Yeah... okay. I'll have it in... tomorrow. Yeah...”
She hung up.
Then she screamed. She threw the sharpie against the wall, howled, she punched the wall, because none of it made sense, what was she missing!? What was she missing...
Locke City. The pink lights. Why hadn't she been in Vegas when that all happened? Some co-workers had. Why...
January, 2015
Her body felt wrong.
She felt sick. She felt like she was in a cloud. She felt...
The woman who shared her desk said, “Chris, you're bleeding!”
She hadn't even noticed. She'd been playing with a letter opener and dug at her skin, absently, not even thinking, until it bled.
“You need help,” said her boss. “I can ask HR to find you some counseling. Whatever this is, Chris, depression... whatever, we can help you. I promise.”
February, 2015
“I think you need to take a vacation,” said her therapist.
She'd been put on medical leave. She hadn't slept in weeks. Scars criss-crossed her arms. She wasn't cutting, she told her therapist. Well, not now.
“Where?”
“Maybe back to the East Coast,” she said. “To see your pare--”
“No.”
“What about your uncle?”
Chris tilted her head. A language older than time, older than stars. A memory: flying above the city. Grabbing her uncle's arm as her plane spun out of control. In the open air...
“My great-uncle, you mean?” she said, looking out of a window. “I haven't spoken with him in ages.”
He doesn't remember either, does he?
But Locke City. Where it all began...
“You know, that's a great idea,” she said.
March, 2015
More than a vacation.
She broke her lease.
“I don't give a fuck,” she said. “I have...”
Somewhere to go.
It wouldn't matter soon anyway. Nothing would matter.
April, 2015
Everything returns to me
Crossing the city limits by plane and her head tilts back her eyes roll back in her head the other passengers wonder if she's having a seizure but she remembers nine
million
years
she remembers she remembers I am the rightful leader of the Decepticons. Me! and science and mathematics beyond anything she had known and it's so simple. I'm so stupid. Energon. Of course and when she leaves the tarmac her eyes glow red.
April 29, 2015
She hears a child's cry. She stares up into the sky and sees the moon unfold.
Sees the moon transform.
She remembers a terrible planet, a mouth opening the maw of eternity the Chaosbringer a fractal unmaking staring into its face and its herald and she
feels the last of her humanity fall away