hector barajas. (taste) wrote in frontlinesic, @ 2017-09-21 23:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! logs/threads, ! pivotal plot, !! npc: corrine harper, adelaide booker, hector barajas, lupe barajas |
WHO: Hector & Lupe Barajas, Adelaide Booker, feat. Col. Corrine Harper.
WHAT: Adelaide finally gets what she needed.
WHEN: Thursday, September 21, evening, mostly, with flashbacks.
WHERE: The Barajas apartment in Stuy Town, with a few flashbacks.
WARNINGS: Unwanted use of mind-altering powers, non-consensual possession, drugging, violence
2010.
Hector has not been working at Project: Ascension long, but he is not unaware, in a sort of dim sense where you can understand that something is happening to you even as you can’t believe it, that he is important to them. The work piles up on his desk from all corners of the agency, and his life is now reading, listening, tasting, filing reports. It is enough, one day, that he is called to meet the Colonel, for a meeting longer than the brief introduction he received on his first day.
They go over a couple of his reports, and go into details of his power. At the end he recognizes a dismissal when he hears one. Hector stands up.
"Ah, just a moment." The Colonel holds up her finger, instructing him to wait, as she finishes what she's writing. A moment later she puts down her water-based black fountain pen and looked up at him. "There's just one more small thing, before you go.”
He stops immediately, where he had been poised to turn towards the door.
"Just to cover all my bases… you won't notice when I lie." She smiles up at him. "I hope that's not a problem."
Hector nods. “Thank you, Colonel Harper.”
2017.When Hector gets home from work, he is troubled. The day’s event sits heavy on him; it’s like a limb suddenly malfunctioning, even more shocking as he hadn’t realized how much he had begun to count on his power as an extension of himself until he perceived it not doing what he expected. He feels, almost, as though there was something that had been betrayed, though he is not sure of what, or by whom.
“... all words?” their new coworker is asking him, curiosity written all over his face. Hector humors it only this time, only because it is his first day.
“All words,” he confirms.
“And you catch lies,” the young man says, and Hector nods again. “All lies?”
“All—”
Sulfur bursts on his tongue and the surprise is so sharp that he literally stops mid-sentence, pressing his lips together. A lie, his own statement, a stark lie, not of omission or side-stepping, a bold lie. Of all the information he gains from others using his power, nothing he reads from his own words should ever be a surprise: it comes from his mind, after all, the one and only knowable thing. He parses his own words again and wonders if it was a mistake.
“All lies.”
It still tastes wrong.
A brief stop for something, she says, and Hector nods. The black car pulls up to the address, and he doesn’t move. Corrine pauses with her hand on the car door. "This is my home, Hector, and I am an extremely private person. You won't tell anyone where I live, or that you even know where I live." She opens up the door and steps out onto the sidewalk. "I hope that's not a problem."A location, a street, a number.
A pause. Then, “Not at all,” Hector says coolly.
"Good."