Mask or Menace ☂ IC Phone Post

[numberthree]

INBOX Voice | Text | Call | Video | Surprise Me A flat computer automated voice comes on and states in monotone: "This is the voicemail box for Allison Hargreeves. Leave a message at the beep."

Luther

Diego

Klaus

Five

Ben

Vanya

code credit

Comments

audio

[obediences]

[ Considering the last time the Hargreeves clan got together in full, they literally ended the world, the reunion at Allison's place could've gone a hell of a lot worse. So it's hours later, after everyone's gone their separate ways to their own corners of the world, that Luther is left in a lonely house of strangers, in an unfamiliar room in De Chima, staring at an unfamiliar piece of tech. He mulls over it for a long time, before finally punching in her contact information. This strange little device is a lifeline. It's a way to reach Allison even if she's states away, even if she doesn't have a voice.

It's a godsend. ]


Hey.

[numberthree]

[ The house is quiet and empty. It's nothing like the mansion, in piles of endless rubble. It's nothing like her own place, just as vaporized as the rest of the world it stood in. With them here at least she could let herself wait. Let herself keep everything just a few steps away. A glass wall partition between her and all of it, with its own well-trenched rules. It holds like like steel next to other people, even her siblings, and yet it dissolves like sand in silence.

She isn't expecting the communicator on the bed table to buzz. Or the voice that comes out of it when she finds the button in the dark, after fumbling with it a few seconds first. Before a single word can make her fingers and her shoulders tense. The way she swears for briefly in her head that Luther continues to have the best sense at worst timing.

But really what she thinks she hates most, just for a second, is she doesn't hate it at all.

Even if for a moment she can't really think of a word. But she doesn't turn it off either .]

24-ish hours post-diner, text;

[hellogoodhigh]

[ It's nearly 3 AM, and he can't sleep. The way he left things with Allison- all the anger and pain have burned out of his system, evaporated like they never were there to begin with, and now he's tired. Bone dry. Exhausted.

Which is why he's staring at his phone and wondering if he should reach out.

A vague comment from Diego, something about only seeing each other at funerals, clicks in the back of his head and he doesn't want that.

They have a second chance here, and he needs to try. He wants to be better. Wants to do better. And that means reaching out and apologizing. Even if she won't have it. ]

hey
um

i was an asshol
i lashed ou
your anger hurt so much
i don't know when to shut up
i'm scared that your inside my head just as much as i'm in your
i don't want you seeing me lik
fuck this is hard

i'm sorry
about what i said earlier

[numberthree]

[

Read 7:13 ✓✓ ]

text; 7/24

[the_horror]

I've got a strange question for you, and i know no one else who would be able to answer this better than you

[numberthree]

Alright. Color me curious.

untraceable text

[maskormods]

\\

h-s•-n-i
o-n-’
t-o-t-s
t-s•-h
s•-s•-r-:-n-t•
d•-v-i-e-o-l
i-t-t-g-a
e-h-s•

text / october 1 onwards

[obediences]

To: Luther Hargreeves (Private)
From: Allison Hargreeves

Finns taking vanya and I to Aegis


we're okay

i'll tell you more when I know it

To: Allison Hargreeves (Private)
From: Luther Hargreeves

Okay. Keep me posted.

[ During this. Despite Allison's intent, it isn't the most reassuring thing he's ever heard from her; they often lie about being okay when they're not, and the erratic typing worries Luther more than anything else could've. Has him stewing over it even as he goes about relocating Diego, moving injured people as easily as lifting a puppy, shifting rubble. None of it is physically draining, not for him, but he's still exhausted. Feels the emotional weariness like a deep soul-ache. ]

There's a lot of damage in Nonah but the house is mostly alright. Family's OK. Getting guests medical attention now.

[ No assignation of blame. Flat, terse status reports like something he'd have relayed from the frontlines, a lifetime ago. ]

[numberthree]

[ She can't pay attention the first time Luther's name pops up,
on her knees on the street, holding Vanya and the violin, vanishing in a sickening lurch.








She can't bring herself to look at it long the second time Luther's name pops up,
flips it off her vision almost too quickly when the second one comes, unable to look away from Vanya.

Still unconscious, and so very small. The details feel too much like responsibility. Too much like shackles.
Too much like they are missing the other shoe that isn't in his words.

He let her go, and she still let him down.
(And she still chose Vanya. At the end. Again.)








When it happens, it's only five or ten minutes later, but it feels a world of after.
Horror is still in her eyes while she's staring at Vanya. Trying to take it in.

What happens, happens almost without her ability to realize, to focus, to coordinate.
The shock feels too great. It's as much reaching for an anchor while still reeling from too much.
Words. Facts. Words. The. Reason. For the party. For. For ... everything. And somehow he thought now. ]

Klaus stole Dad's journal.
For that box he kept it in.
For his next fix. He didn't.

He left the journal in the dumpster outside the Academy.
Luther. That's how Harold knew. About Vanya. About everything.


That's

11/3

[anathemic]

To: Anathema Device (Private)
From: Allison Hargreeves

Anathema, I presume?

[ The baffling text goes to Anathema's inbox, and languishes for a while — she's out wrangling a friendly ghost — before she finally returns to it, in all confusion. ]

? That's what it says on the ID, yes. You're one of the Hargreeves? Did you find Klaus?

[numberthree]

[ It takes Allison a moment looking at the poped up words, before she remembers. But there's a freeze that went with it and she realizes it more when she's blinking her gaze from the words and focusing back on Luther's suddenly focused expression -- that she can read clearer than words; choking hope warring with ready warriness for good or bad news updated -- before she waves a hand, with a shake of her head, to say it's not Klaus.

Everyone's on such high alert. With good reason.

Because it feels wrong to stop for the night. For even the necessity of sleep. But they can't find him if they can't stand up.
Yet still even with that truth, they've both been dragging their feet leaving the study. (Each other.) While one of them is already missing. ]


Sorry. My apologies for the strange message earlier. It was a mix up at your store.

Yes, I'm Allison, and no, sadly. We split into a number of parties but no one turned up anything today.
There's no chance he contacted you since this morning either?

Text

[callmesuperboy]

Miss Hargreeves, this is Conner Kent. Looks like we got slotted to travel to the Gala Ball together, and I just wanted to touch base.

Its been a few weeks since I last saw you at that one shoot, but I look forward to the evening.

If I can do anything to make the evening better for you, please let me know.

-Conner

Re: Text

[numberthree]

[Hmm. Polite and professional.]

Evening, and thank you. I will be nice to see you again.

If transportation is large enough, I was considering inviting my family to ride with us once everyone's to Jeopardy, if it wasn't too great an inconvenience for you?

[iminthebook]

[ On the evening of the 15th, a simple white envelope appears at the front door. Inside is a small card, with the following written on it. ]

You are formally invited to this year's small gathering of Winterfest, located at Harry's Dresden's residence on the 21st of this December. The doors will be open from 8 pm, but the true celebration takes place around 10 pm to midnight. Come any time, and stay or go as you like.

-Harry Dresden.

[numberthree]

[ Allison isn't there yet when the card arrives given the nature of her mostly long hours and haphazardly changing schedule, based on locations and events as needed and contracted, but she finds it shortly after arriving home, waiting with the other mail in neat stacks by the door for who got what that day.

She opened it and read it quietly, running her thumb along the edge. Then, closed it, with the faintest smile, tucking it in her purse as she made it the rest of the way in for the night, to see where everyone was and if there were dinner leftovers or cooking, or ordering, was somewhere on her near horizon. ]

Action ;

[privatepurchases]

[Gabriel hates this because he has to knock but apparently there will be someone working on a solution - maybe. Possibly so he can get his body back and she can get hers and it has been-

Honestly how do humans do it. He feels like he's going insane. He is a boundless, infinite being, but there are infinite details in the smallest parts of these creatures and he...

Truthfully it has brought back a degree of faith in Her. Thinking about it, he's found a degree of grace in it. Not to please himself (no never, of course not) but these beings are...the level of detail and...

He has a lot to think about but this experience, if she intended it to humble him, has worked. At least he feels it has, but mostly what it has done was instilled a need to appreciate and protect the human who he shares this bond with.

Hence. His hunt for her and - after ascertaining the room the Allison and making sure it was not the bathroom the door is opened. Dressed in some of her nicest clothing worn utterly incorrectly, the archangel-turned-human crosses arms over chest and holds out his communicator.]

I need to talk to you.

Re: Action ;

[numberthree]

[ Allison tries very hard not to cringe noticably at the assortment of things that accost her eyes as being on her body. This is still such an odd situation, and it's like a five-year-old is playing dress-up in her skin. But he seems well meaning enough at times that it makes it only ten times worse. God. She wants her own body back. Especially when she reads the words, her brows pinching in this male face in sudden concern. ]

Is everything okay?

a delivery.

[obediences]

[ Valentine’s day. Not a day that Luther’s ever in his life had an excuse or a reason to celebrate, and never, in his life, had a person that he’s wanted to celebrate it with—

Except for one.

Except that’s not what they are to each other, except that the cities and shops and screens are overflowing with persistent ads for the holiday (closed off from the media his whole life, he never realised how irritating advertising could be). And there’s lingering memories from the City, ones that he can’t quite see clearly but which leave Luther with a restless nagging instinct. Like there’s something he forgot to do. Like there’s something missing.

And in the end, it’s not really a big gesture. It’s not the locket. And he doesn’t think he’s very good at gestures anyway. (This is the boy who, once upon a time, brought an axe to a romantic picnic, just in case.) But Luther uses his teleportation ability for a hop, skip, and a jump southward, to warmer climes, where spring’s sunk in its teeth properly, and he finds a patch of wildflowers and he picks a few. Takes them home. Wraps them up in twine.

Deposits the simple bouquet on Allison’s bed, when she’s not around. He doesn’t label it; there isn’t really anyone else left, nobody else that this might have come from. ]

[numberthree]

[There isn't any question about who, but there is a little bit of how and a rather heavy dose of why when Allison freezes, right before she'd been about to toss her purse and the day's heels on her bed, aiming originally to jump drop on the sofa near the window.

Maybe not why. (And yet.)

Her purse and her heels ended up placed on the bedtable, and she sits down, looking at the bundle of flowers, so obviously not professionally made. Loose, with some nodding heads, in various states or open and growth. The not perfectly symmetrical tie o of the twine. She couldn't even begin to count the number of flowers sent to her in the last decade. But she could count the number of flowers picked for her, not by Claire, from their garden.

(One.)

Allison sat down, reaching out for it after a second, something at the very edge of her thoughts. Hazy. Uncertain. The edge of a half-remembered smile. A touch. She rubbed a delicate white petal between her fingertip and thumb. Who was easy. How was even not hard. Why. Why was a question she wasn't supposed to ask.

They had a name for this.

The same name they'd initially had for this.

The same name under which she'd never fully managed to stay within.
Not then. Not when it didn't exist. Not when she was married.
Not now in the sudden aching loss of their family.

(When it seemed so easily he might vanish.)




Allison curled her knees up, leaned her head back against her headboard, and rubbed that same petal slowly. ]

3/13: swear-in.

[obediences]

[ From here. ]

It's the first swear-in Luther's attended since November, and that hadn't even been proper attendance: it had been an impromptu celebration, cobbled together on-the-fly when all the imPorts were set loose out of the Jeopardy reality storm, and he'd gotten swept up in it. He doesn't particularly like the crowds at swear-ins; tends to only attend them for his family, or to be on-call in case something goes horrifically awry.

Nowadays, though, it's probably a good excuse to get out of the house. Stop moping around in an empty mansion. Be around other people, no matter how strange it still feels. And one thing remains a constant: he stays close to Allison, never letting her out of his sight, half of his attention always craned to track her through the crowd even when she's pausing for selfies and photo ops for her modeling agency. Luther's always careful to stay out-of-frame (he'd be a horrifically awkward photobomb in the background of every shot otherwise, looming visible above the crowd and looking startled every time).

When he samples AtlanTech's wares and puts on the AR goggles, he's impressed and a little wistful. Reginald would've loved to get his hands on one of these, disassemble them, find out how the tech works.

When he accidentally comes across the adult entertainment, he blushes beet-red and aLmost yanks off the glasses, but instead just walks, very carefully and silently, away from that exhibit.

When he stumbles into the icebreaker programming, a random question materialises tagged to his account:

What board game do you like the most?

Luther pauses to read it, and snorts a laugh. And a message pings its way to Allison through the mental network:

'What board game do you like the most'.

Do we even have a favorite? Half an hour a week wasn't long enough to finish any of the games, so we never actually saw them through to the end.

[numberthree]

Far across the floor, Allison luckily isn't busy at that moment. She's gotten better at concealing where the words pop up, but she's not perfect at it still. It's going to be hard to ever be, when it suddenly springs up into her vision between herself and someone else, when she isn't expecting it. Though most people don't expect anything from her of it. It's both professional and personal reasons that have it down as a goal to be mastered to flawless. Somehow.

The momentary surprise gave way to the easiest of a very small smile that she concealed in taking a sip of her drink while she wrote back, without any pause. Even if her eyes do keep drifting toward the floating 'we' there. Like it would have been by committee, and it would have been just one, and it would have been just them.

Hmm.

Anyone else? They'd probably guess Chess. Or Risk. For you.
For me, god knows, probably like Mall Madness if we're talking about back then.


Why?

text.

[obediences]

[ You'd think he'd be used to this by now.
You'd think each successive disappearance might hurt less and less, like a calcified wound, scarred over and healing. It's supposed to hurt less when it's not family, either. So you'd think.
But. ]

Shaun is gone.
The Masons, I mean. Both of them. Shaun and George. They're both gone.

[ This one stings like hell. Because Shaun had promised. Luther knows it's childish and unreasonable, like a talisman against disaster, and a pledge they obviously couldn't keep if the Porter decided to act up, but—

But you're not gonna get stuck alone in this place. For one thing, I'm way too annoying as a friend to let you have that much peace and quiet. ]

[numberthree]

[ Allison is busy ignoring the flies buzzing around her. Leaned back in a barely padded chair, as disassociated from her skin as she gets really. Patience is virtue she long ago learned she had no option with. She's gotten used to the Mental Network, both as a convenient distraction already behind her eyelids, accessible even more easily than pulling out a tablet. See can do most things without anyone noticing.

Still, Allison sat up fast, suddenly raising her hands and waving away the hands with wands and applicators in her vision. Staring at only those words written across her vision and nothing else. ]

When? How?

[ Maybe even more importantly. ]

Where are you?

7/16: the anniversary; again.

[obediences]

[ It's been ten days since they accidentally overturned that stone, ripping open a subject that he hadn't meant to confront quite so openly. Not with Allison, not with his name attached, not in-person. Maybe they're still picking up the pieces from it. But he's not the only one walking wounded, and she has her own scars both literal and metaphorical, and there is one particular date that he'd meticulously filed away as being of significance: July 16th. The court trial. When Allison lost custody of her daughter.

She'd sought him out last time, the only person she'd told about it. This year, all things considered, Luther approaches her first with a morning text, because regardless of anything else, he's here for her: ]

What do you need today?

[ It could sound innocuous, like it's just about him picking up groceries or more toilet paper for them. (Of course it's not innocuous.) ]

[numberthree]

[ Allison can't blink at the words that show up at the edge of her vision. She can't blink at all currently. She'd say you get used to it. But you don't entirely, even when you do, and she's been irritable. She knows why.

She wants to frown at the five words. Because they hit too close to why.
(She can't frown either. She's not supposed to move until she's told.) ]

For this makeup artist to stop trying to blind me with excess eyeshadow. You'll still break me out if I become the first person in two universes to kill someone with an eyeliner pencil, right?

text;

[timehit]

[ Let's not call this a check-in. The whole Luther situation is...a raw wound for all involved, and it's not something he particularly wants to stick his face in directly. Five can drum up equations for all manner of temporal issues, direct all of his focus for thwarting an apocalypse. But some things currently remain out of his element.

Regardless, he doesn't keep himself entirely outside of things either. But how does one even go about the not-so-simple task of looking out for your two family members who, just like you, are stuck in a time and place outside the natural order? Well, here's a start. ]

What do you know about cooking?

[numberthree]

[ Allison is a little surprised, but it's an easy enough question. ]

Depends.

Are we talking the macaroni or Julia Childs end of the spectrum here?

Phonecall; mid-day, 8/23

[iminthebook]

Harry was pacing, having spent some very good hours reconnecting with, and talking to, his wife, and now, well, he was calling the second most important person in this world to him. He had news, but more, he had pictures to show.

He grinned as he looked down at the pictures, an entire small pocket album that had been with him when he came through the porter this time.

He needed to show these to Allison. She, along with Wanda, was the only other person who would understand, and in some ways, she would understand even more than Wanda, for Wanda did not have children. And Allison knew the pain that he had felt for a year and more of not being home, not seeing his daughter. If anyone would understand his need to show these pictures, tell these stories, it would be her.

And so he dialed, and waited, tapping his feet, and chewing on a pen as he paced.

[numberthree]

She can do this. She can. Already has. She just has to actually decide to actually step up to the fucking plate and deal with it. Like dealing with it yesterday hadn't been entirely like pulling her skin off inch by inch like it didn't matter, and like it wasn't bleeding part of her dry.

It only feels a good deal like stabbing herself, when she pulls up her communicator, juggling some grocery bags to free an arm, and tries to make it sound easy. "Allison Hargreeves."

late august: the other anniversary. text.

[obediences]

[ Oh, yeah, we're coming up on a year now, Ray had said. So blithely and so innocently, despite the fact that each word had been another bomb going off in Luther's head and heart.

Luther doesn't know exactly when her wedding anniversary is. But it must be soon. And she's one of his most-used contacts in his communicator, so of course Luther notices the day her display name suddenly changes, and he realises she must have put through the paperwork with the government. From Allison Chestnut back to Allison Hargreeves.

He hadn't known that version of her; that first name had never quite sounded right, hadn't fit her. Even back home in marrying Patrick, she'd never actually changed her maiden name. Had never stripped away her identity like that. ]

Hey. Are you okay?


[ God, that's vague. He's so, so bad about not calling things out as they are, in that first volley. What it should be: It's your wedding anniversary soon and you just changed your name and your husband's gone in another timeline. Are you okay? ]

[numberthree]

[ She's luckily on a break so all she ends up doing is shifting screens on her communicator, while sipping water through a straw in her water bottle, to squint oddly at Luther's words. Aside from the fact that's pretty much the universally worst asked, least answer-meant question, it makes her brow furrow. ]

Yeah? Did I forget something?

[ It's an odd check of things through her head quickly. Purse. Keys. Bag with a change of clothes. She's pretty sure her coffee cup ended up in the sink, and she knows she put away the heels she'd left in the living room last night. She remembers saying goodbye even. Did she miss something? ]

misfired text

[irondad]

Are we just going to collectively agree that September didn't happen? Cool.

I've chartered a flight to St Martin; plane leaves at eight tomorrow morning from Orlando and will return to the States on Monday. Flight, room & board covered. Just show the Hell up, be registered, and you're good.

-Stark

[numberthree]

[ Allison blinks.


Stares.


Maybe even -- no. No. She's not even going to think it.
She shoots back the most logical thing that she should in this situation. ]


I'm pretty sure you meant to click someone's name above mine. [ Because below hers in the next list would be Hargreeves, Diego (would actually be Ben's, if Ben would just show back up, again, already), but unlike her other siblings, she is the top of that list thanks to the first letter of her first name. ]

mail;

[irondad]

( Arriving in the mail today is a slim, black envelope addressed to you, closed with a black wax seal. On opening, there’s an invitation. How curious! )

[ text ] » (forward dated a couple-ish days)

[divaricate]

[ Allison is one of the two people that first come to Wanda's mind when she has to come to the conclusion that Everything Sucks Here Again and that a port out has become likely permanent, and not just one of those quick ones where someone gets powers updated or whatever. ]

Hi, Allison, sorry to do this over text, but I'm not sure words will actually manage to come out of my mouth if I tried? And I know how much your friendship meant to him, so Harry has been ported out for a few days now, and almost five years of this world makes me think a port back in isn't going to happen for a while, if ever.

[ short, sweet, and to the depressing point. but she's sure he'd want her to know. ]

I am five billion forever's late, but here. :(

[numberthree]

[ Allison stares at it. Feelings she can't even put into titles and categories balling up in her throat. No one who's mattered has ported out on her. Unlike Luther, who had an entire list of people he'd taken hard having done so, even though he claimed to still not have a clue how to make friends. While keeping them shoved in a box. (Or her in it.)

She doesn't know how. Or what to. ]

... but you're sure?

mid-november: action. all along there was some invisible string tying you to me.

[obediences]

They've been settling into this new normal over the past few weeks since Diego moved in, adjusting to a house that suddenly seemed far too full, even as Luther and Allison are still feeling out the edges of unexpected tension between each other, in the wake of their first real fight in this world. They're getting over it, slowly, but he still hates this feeling, like ozone in the air after a lightning storm.

And apart from the two times when Allison came barging into Luther's bedroom, they never really broached the doors of their respective rooms: they could always settle for hearing the creak of footsteps next door, running water from the jack-and-jill bathroom they shared. Unspoken and yet tacitly agreed-upon boundaries. For over half a year, they'd had the entire rest of the house to themselves, after all: unhurried weekend breakfasts together, or a quick conversation over morning coffee as one of them sped out the door to work, or winding down in the living room in the evening together. He was trying harder these days, too, to dismantle the rigid compartmentalisation he'd set up between his family and his life outside this house. Letting Allison into it.

Now, though, he found that if he wanted a word with her alone in private, and not under Diego's nose— he had to get creative.

(It was a strange echo of their childhood, where they'd had to consciously slip away, find secluded areas where they couldn't be overheard or eavesdropped or monitored by ever-watchful cameras. Over time, Luther had memorised the blind spots: he knew the exact bend in the staircase where they couldn't be seen, and the corner of the library that Reginald didn't monitor, and the abandoned greenhouse on the roof that was an entire slate of freedom for them until those doors had slammed shut.)

But here, in this suddenly too-small house, it means each others' bedrooms, and a more regular broaching of that boundary. So, this evening, and with a vague thought on his mind that he wants to talk to her about, Luther moves to the bedroom beside his, and knocks on Allison's semi-open door.

[numberthree]

She's been spending more time in her room. Not that she's avoiding them. She isn't. Truly, isn't. She can still be found in the kitchen in the morning or stays in the main open-air rooms for most of the evening. Throughout weekends when she doesn't have somewhere else to be or something she's set her sights on doing.

But. It's still different—the underlying need for space.
For somewhere she can breathe and let her muscles unstring.

It's not as easy here anymore, and she's realized only how much she'd gotten used to it when it's not as questionalessly effortless to slip back to. There's space now, and even when there are questions, or comments, that come to mind, it's in the wrong kind of company to say them.

So many words she can actually speak now, without any pauses, and it feels almost like it's even more impossible to say them than when she didn't have a voice. She's not exactly thinking about it now, but it sits knitted in between her shoulder blades as she's scrolling the network aimlessly when the knock comes, and she looks up toward her door, "Yes?" coming out more habit than thought.

Realizing only after it's out, she knows it has to be Luther because she doesn't think Diego would knock if her door were open. Closed, maybe. But she knows it isn't.

early december, just spamming you forever

[obediences]

[ After this. ]

Hey -- how busy is your month? The beginning of your month, I mean. December.

[ he is! still! so! bad at this!! ]

you promise?

[numberthree]

[ She's not expecting it, but she's got a minute. ]

Winter LE retakes, and some guest appearance on some tv show, so really not all that much yet. Why?

mid-december

[obediences]

[ He had promised her.

If he hadn't, it's entirely possible that he wouldn't ever have given her a headsup about what he's up to. Would have gone about this entirely alone, with no forewarning to the others, with the intent of coming back changed — or, worst case scenario, not at all. She'd yelled at him for it, tried to talk him out of trying to fix change his body using someone else's powers, before finally wringing that concession out of him to tell her what he was doing. But Luther Hargreeves does nothing impulsively. And he's been sitting and stewing and chewing over this decision for four, five months. (Or five years, by another measure.)

And so he finally has to rip off the band-aid and do it. Fulfil his promise. Give her the headsup. ]

So I've been thinking.

[numberthree]

[ It really is the vaguest kind of opening, and for that alone, Allison really only gives it a small portion of her attention. Typing a response in her vision because her hands are currently busy as she's sorting important things from one bag into three smaller ones. A habit she's juggles at her convenience now and then. ]

You do a lot of that.

Gift

[anthropophagite]

[ Sadly, Kaneki isn't well versed on the whole Christmas thing and doesn't know which day he should be giving presents, so his will be delivered on the 26th. Allison will receive a small little box with some cute mochi that he made himself.

And of course a note saying "Thank you for coming to dinner, it was great talking to you. I hope you had a lovely Christmas" ]

aegis force; closing time.

[obediences]

New year. New him. A bright new future looking like himself again; Allison's new year's kiss still burning on his cheek; signing up for more responsibilities at Aegis, feeling more like himself again.

What it wasn't meant to be: a long silence from Helix Station, no word on his upcoming shift rotation, and all of the agents' IDs appearing deactivated on the network. All of them all at once, as if eight doors all slammed shut at the same time. They've been through this before, and Port-Outs aren't uncommon, so Luther tells himself — firmly, pragmatically — to not worry. Not to jump to conclusions.

He lets a day go by. Twenty-four hour Port-Outs aren't uncommon, either; that had happened when he'd come back with his Televator power, after all.

But the more that Luther tests sending further messages to teammates that he didn't know all that well and had rarely spoken to, and even their accounts are deactivated, that fear starts ticking higher and higher in his throat. And he decides to look into it. Just in case.

He's thinking it could be a trap, it could be some sort of attack or abduction targeted at Aegis Force itself — the team's made a few enemies over the years — but the news is already starting to spread over the course of the next day's morning, afternoon, and then heading into evening. It's looking like a mass Port-Out, possibly like what happened when they all went to the City (or to that golden island—). Maybe it's happening again, and this time he's just the one left behind.

In the end, on that second day, he waits for Allison to get home and then asks her to come with. He isn't as stubborn these days about going it alone.

They head to Maurtia Falls together, where she'd once lived, and Luther keys in his security credentials at the entrance to the massive white citadel of Helix Station, and they enter the echoingly empty lobby. He's used to seeing the place bustling, with up to fifteen agents at a time, with the occasional visiting civilian asking for help, or government reps here for meetings. Tonight, however, the place is empty. His hair is standing up at the back of his neck, and he's waiting for— something, anything, to reveal itself, but the fact remains that there's nothing here to fight. And that's worse. It's just empty.

"I talked to some of the non-imPort admins earlier today," Luther says, in that crisp curtness that she recognises as his Number One voice, "and they confirmed that they haven't seen anybody else around. All of the other agents are just... gone."