Emir hesitates, he has no idea how to use something like this to get up.
He doesn't want to step onto the glass floor, but it's all that's left between him and a future of freedom. Something electric and sparking flickers dangerously below his foot the moment he finally moves his feet forward. He shrinks back with a yelp.
His dad rescues him by stepping forward first. “Come on son. Let's leave.”
“It's dark up there.” Emir pictured the world as a bright and welcoming place. This doesn't look at all like what he imagines.
“We're going anyways.”
It's immediately apparent when they do get up there, that his dad has no idea where they are.
Dark, cold, wet, unrecognizable, and of course his son will be hungry soon. They are not going back into the ground for shelter now, despite it being the worst possible circumstance above ground. Atom and Ceres could double back, the Director may succeed in freeing herself, anything could still happen.
A preciously happy voice meets his ears. “Dad... what is this?”
“Rain... That's rain.” He can't make himself sound excited about it, but Emir won't forget this feeling he has in this moment for the rest of his life.
“We're too close to the entrance of the place son, we have to get going now.” He says.
They had been below a house with an old well, at the third lab. It was so well concealed in a back garden and surrounded by craggy foliage, no wonder nobody had ever found the place and come to save them. What a terrifying thought, that it could have been the place they had died and nobody would have known or missed them.
As soon as he reports it, this place will be destroyed.
Emir begins to feel the weight of their escape. They're still so close to the lab, and he notices the darkness setting in more and more. “D-dad?”
He nods. “Lets go towards the streetlights.”
“...okay.”
“Keep close.”
“Okay.”
Emir spends the better part of the next two hours seeing his father's back and following him through fields and along poorly lit roadways.
What was novel and fun becomes scary and uncomfortable. Still, he trusts his dad. He follows him diligently, crying out when he slips on the wet grass or his dad is too far ahead. Malcolm waits ahead for him, encouraging him to keep up. They've run before in the labs, but never over terrain. He'd go easy on his son if he could.
Eventually, a junction in the road with a tall streetlight welcomes them.
More and more of a small city has become visible along the way.
Strange things go by too fast for Emir to ask about them. If he had the breath to ask. They run for their survival, for their chance. It helps that they have each other.
A small shelter is at the junction and if he had time, Emir would cry with relief.
“Dad... what is this place?” He asks, breathless.
“Bus shelter. Kind of... a nice one. We may be in a place where people have a good standard of living.”
“What's that mean?” Emir knows his dad won't waste his words and will explain quickly.
“It means son, that if we can't find our family right away, this is a good place to settle down while we look, and I can probably get work. It also means that the bus may not run at this hour as people have their own cars more often than not. Inner city buses would run more frequently, this one may be too nice... for that.”
“Inner city buses?”
“Like a big car...”
“I know
what it is, but inner city?”
Malcolm sighs. He had barely had a moment to catch his breath before all the questions began pouring out. “Sit down and I'll tell you more.”
It's a longer explanation than Emir was hoping for, but he hears about everything he asks about.
“So we just... wait here?” He asks, finally.
“Yep.”
Well over an hour and a half later, Malcolm is losing his patience. “You think there'd be one bus, a cab, a police car, anything! Where is everybody?!”
Malcolm has made a mistake, now his son knows that he has no control over what happens next. The next hour is now going to be about all the things Emir can think of to worry over.
This is hard, they're both tired. All he wants to see is someone who can help them drive by-
... or walk by?
“Hetfwb bhgsofbw$@!!”
“Dad- did you just swear?”
“I will swear fifteen more times like that if it makes this person go away.” Malcolm growls angrily under his breath. He's seen enough of eyes like this to last him a lifetime. They never mean anything good is about to happen.
“You mean... he's not going to help us?” Emir whispers back, the whisper of a child who fails to conceal anything with their loudness.
Malcolm cringes. “Or worse...”
“I'll call you cab.” The man says softly, turning away into the rainy night.
Malcolm does not respond. He sits stoically, letting his leg fall asleep, until Emir can't take the silence any longer.
“He said he's calling us a cab, dad.”
“Yeah that may be, but we're not getting on it.”
“But, I'm really hungry now, dad. Can't we eat something, soon?”
“Son, that man is called a stranger. That means, to us, he is strange. He doesn't know us at all, so why does he assume we need a cab to be called? Isn't that odd? I have to protect you, so, no.”
“So no, we can't get something to eat?”
“No, we're not getting in a cab that a strange man calls for us without us asking, no.” Malcolm says the words in a more angry tone than he means to.
“Not the best night to be waiting on a bus.” The man remarks, eventually walking into the shelter.
Malcolm is not going to talk to him. He motions to Emir not to talk to him or say anything, out of an abundance of caution.
Emir is not done, though, he's wondering if the food in the city is any good? Can they get whatever they want? Malcolm responds with an exasperated groan.
“Try to close your eyes, okay kid? I'll let you know if a bus comes by.” He says.
“No buses out here, this late.” The man says.
Malcolm knows. But I know you shouldn't be here right now, either, he thinks.
By the early morning, and against all better judgment, Malcolm had accepted the man's help. He had demanded to make the call himself, and the man lent him a phone. As they were exhausted, they went to a hotel right away for Emir to rest, with the plan being to make a formal report at the police station first thing in the morning. He had used the phone at the hotel to make a call to the police to explain the situation and location of the lab, telling them he would be coming in to make a report on a criminal kidnapping case, and left a message for a detective. If Malcolm had been in his right mind, rather than exhausted and hungry, he might have had the wherewithal to visit the police first.
The hotel had some meager offerings that they've taken advantage of; sundries, travel supplies, a few articles of clothing, something from a local deli. Malcolm packs what they didn't just eat.
Loki gazes out into the patio as if nothing here really concerns him afterall. “So what are you going to do now?”
“Isn't it obvious, I'm taking my son and we're going to see our family back home.”
“You're going back to your wife?” Malcolm pauses for a second before he resumes packing. Loki continues. “What if I told you that she's no longer living in Starlight?”
Malcolm takes a steady and careful breath, trying to suppress his deep dislike of this person, despite all that he has done recently. The blond man adds, “I'm going to suggest you don't approach her for a while.”
Malcolm zips up his duffle bag and tosses it angrily on the bed. “I'm not interested in your suggestions.”
“Circe has other people on the outside. Do you really want to lead them to her? All I am suggesting is that you wait until the other lab specialists are apprehended.”
“That could take years.”
“...it might.”
He rolls his eyes. “Well that's not going to happen. Also, I doubt they're going to act in her favor, she should be in police custody right now, isn't that the case? So, let the police do their job, and I will go and do my job, as a husband and a father.”
Loki's voice is quiet now, a low warning in a tone that seems conversational on the surface but betrays a certain depth of first hand involvement. “What will you do if she's moved on? You've been... gone, for a very long time.”
Malcolm narrows his eyes. “You are not at all like I imagined you would be.” He comments, folding his arms over his chest.
The blond man raises his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“Your ex-wife weaved so many angry tales about you, most of them carefully designed to garner sympathy from her victims. She hates anyone who is not herself of course, so this didn't do much to persuade us, as she was probably just attempting to justify her actions. Ultimately, I did learn enough, about who you are.”
Loki waits, coiled in his chair for the next words to come out.
“The pieces fell into place pretty quickly. Did you think I wouldn't recognize you as Luke, the man from the ferry station?” Malcolm asks, his green eyes glittering. “You can stop hiding behind a facade, your possessive behavior shows well enough who you are. I've gone along with you all this time, pretending not to know, because you were doing the right thing in destroying what that evil woman had built. You retrieved Jiraya, helping to drive her into a corner in her last hideout. Can you assure me that he is safe?”
Loki smiles. “He has been returned to his family, yes. It wasn't immediate- there were procedures-”
“That matches most of the report I received while I was still captive, then. Until that moment I wasn't sure that you'd not had a hand in our abduction: I thought that you and that evil woman had betrayed each other in some way and separated.”
“You've had a lot of time to think about this.” Loki allows.
“I have also had time to observe you. But do you want to know what matters the absolute least in all of this?”
“I do.” Loki says as he rises, fascinated by the man's unaffected attitude.
“Whatever my wife has done in my absence, when she thought I was dead.” Malcolm continues, his lips pressed into a thin line. “I hope she has moved on, that she hasn't spent the last FOURTEEN years wasting away thinking of me, and of our son. I hope that she's found some work that she can be passionate about, I hope that she is healthy. Whatever she has done or not done well, I will forgive, I will overlook, and I will return to her anyways. Because she deserves to know the truth.”
“Even if she rejects you?”
“You sound actually concerned for me, I'm touched.” Malcolm intones dryly. “What I think you ought to tell me, is why you're so preoccupied with having our reunion be delayed. What have you misunderstood about the phrase 'Jyoti Sparrow-Meir is my wife?'”
“Nothing.” Loki says quietly. He thinks back to the ferry station so long ago, when he gave up in his years-long pursuit of the woman in question, because of this man and his distress. “She and I have a son. For what it's worth... I also thought you were dead, for a long time.”
Malcolm stands for a moment, clenching his fists until the knuckles are white. He had considered the possibility, once he realized who the Director's ex husband was, once he realized that she was exacting revenge on the family that he was interested in or involved with. But to hear it confirmed first hand like this... all the breathing techniques he's practiced in those subsurface dungeons almost fail him now. His heart hammers in his chest, sending a cold shiver of adrenaline to every part of his body. He doesn't act... he needs to know the extent of the damage that has been done. “How long did that take you, to poison her mind enough to want to be with you?”
“She made the choice.”
Malcolm scoffs. “Sure she did. But …it doesn't matter.”
“Don't you think that coming back into her life now is going to throw it back into chaos?”
“I don't deny that. Are you afraid she's going to abandon you, as you deserve?”
“She and I no longer have that kind of relationship. But she is raising my son, and I would like it if she were able to continue that with complete ...focus.” The vampire replies with a straight face.
Malcolm sputters at the hypocrisy. “YOU-”
Loki holds up a hand, retreating half of a step, but he's still talking with the ease of authority. “All I ask, is that you let her find you. Don't go barging into her life and breaking it back into pieces when she's finally getting things patched back up. If she finds you first, I will have no complaint. But do not go searching for her while she is raising my son.”
Malcolm clenches his jaw this time, and slaps Loki on the chest with the back of his hand. “You are not in any position to give me orders. If that's meant to be a warning, then you should know that I'm not afraid of you. If you want me to stay away from my family, you're going to have to restrain me with force. She is MY wife. She and I have made vows. You are probably just her biggest mistake.”
The vampire smiles, a thin and forced thing, and looks the angry man up and down once. He always conserves his energy. “All I have to do is make you forget for awhile. Don't worry though, unlike me, you'll have your day in the sun.”
“Coward.” Malcolm bites out, before blackness.
Emir has a feeling just then, and he jumpstarts awake from where he had been napping outside. He knows something is wrong with his dad, but he doesn't know what. After suffering so many things together in places where they couldn't reach each other, they have developed a sense for one-another's well being that could not be explained.
When he goes inside his dad seems alright, assuring him that it was probably just a nightmare he had, and to go back to sleep.
His dad seems more than a bit off, his eyes were out of focus for one thing, and lined with stress. It wasn't a nightmare. What it was, he's not sure exactly. But the blond man suddenly gives him the heebie-jeebies.
He goes back to lay down, disgusted. Adults think he would really believe such an obvious lie, just because he's still a child. His dad would only cover something up to protect him, but he's going to keep an eye on the blond man. Maybe they shouldn't have accepted his help, after all.
Malcolm won't know what came over him in the moments before for a long time.
The story is broken on the evening radio programs that the Piper has been apprehended and an unknown number of victims rescued. The fabled lab that had become the subject of comedian's jokes and children's playground games is revealed to have been real all along. There is a scramble by the press, and the investigators, and the police, to interview everyone who knows anything about any of it- missing or adopted children and the homeless or other vulnerable populations are in focus for quite a while afterwards. Novels and articles are published, there is even a play written about it eventually, titled Following Olivia. In most of these there is a heroic figure among the victims who helps the children before disappearing with his own son, whom nobody can find after they are all free. Sometimes he's also a victim, sometimes he's more of guardian angel.
Emir doesn't understand it, but his dad refuses to let him come forward, or to be interviewed himself. Instead they settle in to live a quiet life without discussing the past. Malcolm goes as far as giving Emir a story for fellow students and the teachers in school about how they've recently moved into town, and forbids him from mentioning the trauma that they both had suffered at the Director's hands. Olivia (subject 502) moves to Bridgeport when she comes of age, finding herself to be an instant celebrity. Planchette escapes the capture of police after running from them in the lab and Circe is arrested; Atom and Ceres are nowhere to be found.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOBODY could've predicted that! Err...
...We'll be seeing this guy again, eventually. It just felt refreshing to finally clean him up a bit! Several shots like the one above and the last scene in the 'hotel' were just people's homes in RH, tweaked. This is such a good world for staging.
Loki won't admit that he's afraid to lose access to Casimir should Jyo get involved romantically with someone else, even if that someone else is Malcolm. That's what happened with Circe; she dated around, and her children never got to know their father as a result because he was shut out of their lives. Comparing Circe to Jyoti is incredibly unfair of him, of course, so it may be some leftover human emotions that he's kept hidden away even from himself. We'll see how things play out soon enough. Or, how they did play out.
Lab Overview for the most part (first and third locations)
Don't break your game with lots of new downloads and three labs for a story like I did, kids. (Actually for some reason the game had an easier time when my family didn't own the lot and it was set to 'community, no visitors')
I staged all of this for nothing really important to happen in it. Scenery though, right?
For those who are curious, this series involved over 6,000 dedicated screenshots, 33,506 words. Thanks for reading my novella... O_o;
...
Now excuse me while I go set up Midnight Hollow to play as Beaker Beaker for a while. He hates children and rolled for three with the deadbeat parents generational goal, and his job will be lazy as all heck. I normally only roll for these sims once, so I rolled for him out of curiosity, and now I am all excited. He's on the exchange, btw @Frogsnack. >:P
Some photos in case I don't get to blog him. He makes some of the best faces. As we all know, that is all I require in a sim I'm going to play for more than thirty-eight seconds. Also... looking ahead at potential partners, there are very few sims he won't make nice kids with. Not on Sim file share unless he gets a blog one day. Got lots more writing to do. Please let me know if you use him, I will be happy to comment back on your media. I don't know why I like him so much already.
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9631739
He is friendly, hates kids, virtuoso, green thumb, and was a klepto but I made him a night owl instead. Oh yeah, and it turns out his hair is also from Loki's sister Erin. Go figure. Maybe I should've let her be in one of my towns.
Happy simming, people!
