sgt cal davidson. (resourcefully) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-09-19 12:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [09] september, calvin davidson |
when i get older, i know there will be a moment of reckoning.
Who: Cal [narrative]
Where: La Quinta
What: Checking out, and making a decision.
When: Morning of Saturday, September 7
The week had gone by at a crawl. The hotel windows didn’t open all the way, and he couldn’t pry them open beyond a thin, narrow crack—once upon a time, they’d been like this to stop rich hotel guests from falling or flinging themselves to their litigative deaths. But nowadays, he presumed it was useful in case someone turned and started trying to escape. People brought him food, but the door always locked after them. Like prison (and his skin crawled at that awareness), but a goddamned luxurious one: his first experience with anything close to quarantine, and he knew it was far more comfortable than it strictly needed to be. Cal paced the confines of the room, like a dog with its stake driven into the center of the space. He’d shoved some of the chairs aside into the corners, clearing an area in the middle where he could do push-ups. Tried pull-ups on the curtain rod in the closet, but was afraid of tearing it loose from the wall. But he didn’t even feel silly doing this: he wanted to stay active, even cooped up as he was. There were long hours with the curtains open to get whatever measly dribs and drabs of sunlight he could, flopped on the bed and reading Nate’s books. He tore through them until done, or at least until sick and tired of reading; if they hadn’t been precious and worn to bits and in danger of falling apart, he might have flung one across the room to land behind the dead television. Then his phone would ping, and he’d glance over to the freenet. He would aimlessly browse, comment, respond to messages. It had been fine, if uneventful—like some sort of vacation, camp, just as he and Nina had predicted— Until Clover’s message. After that point, he felt like something in his chest was going to burst from sheer impatience and sick, cloying fear. His pacing became more frenetic, practically wearing a groove into the carpet, until he could feel sweat slicking his neck and there was a knock on the door. One of the guards—Are you alright, Davidson?—with his voice sharp, too sharp, keeping an eye open for fever. “Just peachy,” Cal had said back, even as his palms felt clammy. She’d stopped responding completely. Even as the light at the end of the tunnel inched closer and he knew he’d be out soon, each dragging hour was another sliver beneath his fingernails, another awareness of She might be dead and She might be dead and it might be because I couldn’t get out there because I’m in quarantine and it’s my own fucking fault. His hands drummed against his knees, against the endtable, against the comforter. The morning of Saturday the 7th dawned and Cal was up at 6:52am on the dot; the moment sunlight hit his eyelids, he rolled out of bed like a shot. He took one last shower to wash off the sterile mustiness of this room, then packed his duffel bag with machine-like efficiency. His hands were itching and he felt naked without his weapons. And Sergeant Davidson had a message to pass on. Willa’s information sat like a leaden weight in his gut, unable to digest. He’d tried to think about what it meant, and what hitting ‘send’ on this email would do. It was the name of the spider at the heart of the web—if he was lucky, maybe even the one who had stabbed him, who often rode near the front of their bike formation, blond and proud like some golden lion at the head of the pack. But this would be above and beyond the usual. This would be the name they’d all been chasing, and Bode was in close to it; it’d been easy enough for Cal to put his head down and keep doing his work, but going to Mayor Olinger was a step up. Olinger was patrolmen, and logistics the DoR couldn’t ever refute or deny even when they needed those trucks, because what the patrolmen said was law: above my paygrade, as Cal might’ve joked. Because it was. It was. Staring up at the ceiling, he felt his hands knot into fists. Pull one string and the whole sweater would unravel. Bode was in too close. Would most certainly get caught in whatever fallout occurred from this. But if Willa was willing to sell him out, then what position was Cal in to undo that? There were bigger issues at stake here. An entire operation to take down, their Prax to sniff out and dispose of. End this goddamn blight on the city. Stabilise the region. Make things safe for himself and Karen and Fletcher and Sanada and every other agent. They couldn’t unravel the deaths that had already happened, but with the Dog King in the Capitol’s sights, maybe someday soon it could stop. Clover. Torrie. Emilie, even. Whoever she was before the Prax, surely she wouldn’t have thrown herself at an armed military officer to claw out his eyes. Clover. Torrie. Cal hit send. After the medical clearance, he checked out as healthy and hale as the day he checked in, though his nerves were rattled. After retrieving his truck from the parking garage, Cal drove and drove and drove, not stopping, not leaving the vehicle (he’d learned his lesson, that was the whole reason for the quarantine in the first place). The tires rolled over familiar streets and he passed the subway entrances, keeping an eye open, and saw nothing. The panic was thick in his throat, and he had to ease off on the pedal for a moment lest the truck ram right into a defunct fire hydrant or lamp-post. He paused by the side of the road, hands clenched around the steering wheel, and just focused on breathing. Count to ten. Calm down. Settle his heartbeat with the ease of long practice and technique. Finally, he circled back towards the Capitol. Time to get home. He had somewhere to be in the evening. |