Re:Re:The Church of Us
Message from Glass [REPLY]
>Maybe shut this down?
"What the fuck," MMori said again. Everything went down the same-- he coughed and fell and was unresponsive and Atai screamed at him to get up. The world was slow, the way it was supposed to be in nightmares, and Atai felt that curled-up spiral in the back of her mind, that self-feeding ouroborus of dread and doubt.
"Look, Atai," Mori said when he had recovered. "So, there's something you probably know about me.
"I mentioned that I was good at extracting information, and that it was that that I did for my old gang. You probably thought I was a torturer. I'm not. Atai, this is going to sound stupid, but I'm psychic."
"I'm a robot," Atai said, because there was little else to say. She had already accepted that myth and magic were real.
"I'm a psychic. Can't read your mind. I figured something was up."
"...So what, you can read minds?"
"Yeah. In person and over voice calls to an extent. Sometimes I get impressions off of text, too. Depends on how well I know the person."
"But never me?"
"You don't have a brain, I'm guessing is the issue."
"What does this have to do with your fainting?"
"Trying to read people in the Church of Us... doesn't go well. Sometimes I get that from random people crossing the street but when I hit the Church building it was /every one of them/. I got this... weird sense from the messages from the weirdos in the thread you made, too."
"Weird how?"
"It's like... if I get an impression from something written, it's almost like trying to read a message written on a piece of paper that already had something written on it. With Glass now, it's a whole fucking novel, all compressed onto one page. I think reading the Church people's minds is just the... mental equivalent thereof."
"...Is that the secret information Dante mentioned?"
"Probably."
"This is just the Church of Us?"
"Yeah. I went over to the local 'That Other Cult' center right after my fainting spell the other day and I could read their minds like normal."
"...What does it mean?"
"No fuckin' clue. But given that psychics and faeries and robots and god-knows-what-else are real things, I'm guessing it's something like that."
Atai couldn't understand. The world for her was projected, something she struggled to make sense of out of words on a screen, and she didn't get it at all.
"...And Glass?"
"Used to be a normal kid, inasfar as I can tell. I get normal impressions off Vlad though so what the fuck do I know. Now he's definitely drunk the fucking kool-aid."
"He-"
"His mind is not his own. It's the same shitty black MIDI mind as everyone else in that fucking cult," Mori said. Atai swore she could hear his teeth grinding. The world seemed to crumble, the more she knew about it, bits and pieces coming undone and casting themselves into the void.
"...Mori," Atai felt small. "What do we do?"
"Call up Tall and Vlad and Nade. They're obviously going to buy my explanation. Dante, too, though I dunno what someone in Paris can do for us here in Chicago. We're going to bust in there and demand some goddamn answers."
"Why would--"
"Call Tall. I'll call the girls. I dunno what's going on but I'll be damned if Glass' gonna be a part of it."
MMori disconnected, and with little else to do Atai called Tall as she was asked.
"Atai?"
"...Um, MMori, uh, he's a psychic, apparently?"
"He's mentioned this."
"...I'm a robot," Atai said again. It was becoming rote.
"I'm aware." The response was also growing rote.
"He said that Glass' mind has been, literally, hijacked by the cult?"
"...Still?"
"Yes."
"Do you know anything more?"
"He seemed to talk like, uh, like the Church people aren't even human."
"And he wants me to help."
"Yes, uh-- Why, do you believe all of this?"
"I'm not human myself, Atai," Tall said.
"Y-"
"I'm a golem. A construct of clay and magic. I stay inside a lot."
This was different, then trying to understand what had happened to Glass, even than trying to understand Vlad or MMori. This seemed right, somehow, that Mud would be like her.
"Is Nade, uh, or Pan--"
"Nadeshiko and Panpan and Glass are all human. Or, were, in the case of... young Glass."
"No more surprises, then?"
"Hopefully, no."
"Are you going to help Mori and me demand answers, or, whatever?"
"Yes. I am not fond of breaking the law. There is, however, nothing preventing me from being eight feet tall, intimidating, and capable of walking through the front door."
"Thanks, Tall."
"It is not a problem, Atai. I'm sorry it took me this long to act. I fear I have grown old."
"You're here. What else could I ask from you?"
The call ended, and a heartbeat later Atai was composing a message to Dante.
What The Fuck
Private Message from Atai [REPLY]
>Okay so
>Uh
>What
>Do
>
>You're clearly involved in this supernatural... stuff, right?
>The members of the Church of Us are not human
>As near as we can tell
>And whatever they've done to Glass has made him also not human
>
>So the question is what the fuck /are/ they?
The moment she was done composing the mail, she received one from MMori
Locknload
Private Message from MMori [REPLY]
>Alright Vlad and Nade are on board.
>They're gonna meet Mud and me in front of the CoU
>I'll call you when we get there
>Video
>I know you can't see but you ought to log what's going down
>People don't tend to do stupid things when on camera
>
>Okay that wasn't true.
>People don't tend to break the law when-
>It would make us feel safer
>that much is true I guess
She waited anxiously for a reply to her mail to Dante, but nothing came. The moment of confrontation came with a call from MMori.
"Atai," he said. There was a flow of video data she had no way of understanding, and she made sure to save every second of it on the already-cramped BASMUSH server.
"It's me," she said.
"Atai, don't worry," Tall said. "We will be fine. They will tell us what we want to know."
"Enough chat!" Vlad said. "Let's break some heads!"
"I can't believe I've agreed to this."
"Wait, uh, Mori! Did you get a hold of Dante?"
"No," he said.
"Keep trying," said Tall, "I'd like her... expertise, as it was."
There was the sound of the doors slamming and a stomping of feet.
"Hello. I'd like to ask a few questions!" Tall managed to make his innocuous statement seem deadly. He bellowed it, in his hollow golem's voice.
She heard a sickening sound. She recognized it well from Black Alley Stories, like most of the sounds she was capable of understanding. When she had matched the pattern, she had put it in her database of sound effects, but it was never one she had expected to hear in real life.
It was the sound of a gunshot.
Nadeshiko was on the floor screaming. Atai assumed she was on the floor, because of the accompanying thump, but the screaming was all too self-evident. Dimly, she was surprised she even recognized her voice.
There was a massive boom, and another thump, and more gunfire, and more roars of pain.
She heard a sound close to cracking glass. It confused her for a moment until she realized what it was.
Pottery. Tall Mud was being broken apart. She heard him muttering in Hebrew, and the sound of boots on wooden floors. Everything else was quiet.
One more gunshot rang out and the call dropped.