#but eiffel and lovelace ARE friends too and it's sweet sometimes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

geejaysmith · 5 years

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Wolf 359: A running list of things I have a heightened appreciation on second listen, pt. 2

Part one here.

SEASON 3:

Pan-Pan: Still a little miffed they didn't explicitly do the "we have to huddle to conserve body heat" trope. Yes, it's corny, but also shut up, let my touch-starved space disasters cuddle.

So Eiffel stopped Hera and Minkowski arguing in season 1 to address an emergency, and now with Eiffel absent, the team starts arguing again. The fact he doesn't exactly have much Pride In His Own Self-Sufficiency to get in the way of "hey! Guys! Remember, imminent death? More important priorities happening?" tends to defuse situations like this aaaaaand now he's absent.

"Cutter will send a squad of psychos to come up here and kill us faster!" ...she's not wrong.

"Pick a corner and relax! Hop to it!" I just like this line delivery.

"The entire station is a SPACE YUKON and this thing is overheating!" I know, it's like it's symbolic or something.

Episode 29: "we all feel responsible for losing Eiffel and are lashing out because we're scared and sad and grieving and fear getting backlash while we're vulnerable if we admit we need help, and we don't know what to do but keep going because the alternative is breaking down and possibly never getting back up again." Alternatively: "It's Metaphors All the Way Down."

Mayday: Eiffel's frustrated screaming.

Brain Ghost Minkowski showing up like "Yeah, we know I'm a hallucination, or Weird Alien Shit, or maybe just a clever metaphor representing the abstract process of thought, but who gives a crap, this is more interesting than listening to you talk to yourself for an entire episode."

BGM: Hi, I'm your thought processes externalized using a face and personality that you subconsciously think you need to hear from in this situation, possibly because you think so little of yourself you need to hear it from somebody else first. Eiffel: Oh hey cool, this is just like this one web comic I kept up with sometimes back on Earth- BGM: Not another word.

Eiffel getting slapped by Brain Ghost Lovelace, who is a projection of his thoughts.

What is that whispering in his head that reminds him of the Hermes' name supposed to be anyway? Score one for my Weird Alien Brain Shit theory. Having Lovelace's alien juice in your system comes with such fun side effects.

"I dunno, I only know what you know." "Shut up, don't go meta on me." / "Hilbert wouldn't know that word! He's never even heard of Empire!" Yeah, toldja: it's Brain Ghosts.

Brain Ghost Hilbert may represent the realist in Eiffel and the brutal, calculating reality he doesn't want to confront, but Brain Ghosts Minkowski and Lovelace are his cooler head and ingenuity, working him through staying calm and devising a way to survive, and Brain Ghost Hera, who appears when Hilbert tells him it's hopeless, telling him that against all the odds he will be okay, is his stubborn determination to never, ever quit. They're all his determination to live when Doug might want to just stop trying. They're the better parts of himself, reflected in the voices of his friends.

And Hilbert. But I digress- HOLY FUCK, I just realized the brilliance in the one-two punch of the Brain Ghost Brigade contrasted with the previous episode's Stress Fracture Argue Crew, it's The Sound And The Fury all over again.

Paging the Wolf 359 incorrect quote blogs: "Save my friends! And Zoidberg Hilbert!"

Sécurité thru Don’t Poke the Bear: Maxwell! I've missed you! (':

"And I build pretty awesome battle drones on the weekends." ...Does Maxwell have her own souped-up version of one Jamie Hyneman's Blendo?

Eiffel, realizing he's starting to sound like Minkowski: My god, what have I become.

Eiffel mumbling to himself in general. "This is hell and I'm in it."

Is it just me or is Kepler's pig story not as agonizingly drawn out to listen to the second time around?

A Matter of Perspective: Funzo: 12 different board games, three of them TCGs and maybe at least one TTRPG, all tossed in a blender, because Pryce and Cutter are psychopaths.

The Funzo manual is the size of the actual Bible and don't try to convince me otherwise.

How into the game the girls all get.

Headcanon: Minkowski and Lovelace are both the types to get stupidly competitive over any kind of game regardless of their initial level of investment.

Eiffel keeps a photo of (it's implied) him and his daughter taped to the underside of his console...

"He looks so... happy." shUT UP

"I had no idea Eiffel had a-" daughter. Was it "daughter" you were going to say Minkowski. Well, no one else knew you were married til you brought it up, so turnabout's fair play.

"You think you know me? You know the artist formerly known as Warren Kepler, you've met my job. Aside from that, there's no one left for you to know." In light of the series finale, I, uh... I don't if I like this, Scoob. Also, stop reminding me all these people are human persons underneath all the desensitization to horror and violence.

"Happy birthday, Eiffel." They remembered! Hope this one is less traumatizing than the last, Doug.

"Happy Kwanzaa!" "Lovelace."

"Long Story Short, that's the last time I saw Maxwell's feet" wh. What. What happened involving Maxwell's feet. What's. why-

And to make a long story short, that's where my "Maxwell has hands for feet" headcanon came from.

Need to Know: Minkowski's dreams, apparently, include both creating musicals and commanding a deep space mission. She's gotten the latter way the hell off the bucket list, somebody with actual songwriting skills want to get in and write the former with me?

Lovelace overindulging on painkillers for her broken arm after losing Officer Fisher... "It was a difficult time." ):

Aaaand serious implications of the above are immediately headed off by Lovelace quacking aggressively at Jacobi.

Fire and Brimstone: where is my fanfiction about Lovelace overseeing Minkowski during her solitary confinement?

The Backstory Episodes: Zach Valenti wrote all the backstory episodes! I just find that kind of sweet.

Once in a Lifetime: Small detail I only noticed on my second listen, after a fanfic put the thought in my head: Minkowski's parents are only referred to in the past tense. Oof.

"Thank you for coming in on such short notice. We had a hiccup in staffing for this upcoming quarter." So... according to the wiki's timeline, the launch for the second Hephaestus mission was some time in late March 2013. The beginning of this episode (and Eiffel's) states it takes place in 2013, with 3 months of training, meaning they were probably brought on board in January and the whole thing moved *ridiculously* fast. Everything points to them wanting to get people up in space as quickly and with as little fuss as possible, giving the newcomers no time to think it over or do additional research. Once they start the training program, they're probably too busy to look further into Goddard's deep space missions, and are likely in an environment where Goddard Futuristics can cut them off from other information sources. The people they select are relatively isolated (Minkowski and her husband being an exception) - the easier to make them disappear. Even Lovelace has been stationed at "a lot of very isolated, very quiet outposts", the implication being her superiors wanted her somewhere out of the way. Kind of makes me wonder about the rest of the Hephaestus 1.0 crew...

Greensboro: Nice ominous foreshadowing you've got there vis a vis Captain Lovelace and "are you an alien?"

Decommissioned: "We're not about to force anyone to do something they don't want to do!" ...Marcus Cutter deserves to have his trousers ablaze constantly.

All Things Considered is still a bit confusing (because I somehow keep listening to it while doing something else) and I'll need another listen to figure out what probably actually happened, but it is also hilarious.

"Eiffel had engaged the machine, but that's why I build in extra safeguards. My mistake, clearly, was to assume that would be enough to stop the slapstick routine."

“All Things Considered”: Did you have fun with this over-the-top romp of hilarity and and hijinks, dear audience? Good! Because that was us burning off our comedy quota for the rest of the season. Get ready for six whole episodes of nonstop emotional gut-punches!

MEMORIA.

Just... Memoria.

Putting this quote here because of Reasons: "Three years... Three and a half years... I've had this thing in my head breaking me, and making me think it was all my fault, that there was something wrong with *me!*"

So Memoria is still one of the best episodes and the last five minutes fuck me up in a special little way.

Time to Kill: "Or the one outside is the real Jacobi... and the alien is already in here with us." The funny thing, Maxwell, is that you were half-right and didn't even realize it, and you *were* just speaking to Lovelace.

So... do alien duplicates only get reloaded from the singular "snapshot" of the person, or does getting flare-scanned once give them a continually updated source of info? What I'm getting at is: if another Jacobi shows up post-finale, would he need to be filled in on events between his horrible, terrible death and the present?

Persuasion: Maxwell switching to First Name Basis to get Jacobi to be honest with her.

I always forget until the scene after that Hilbert is totally setting up the Space Telephone to manipulate her, but of all the ways he could've gotten Minkowski around to "we are disposable and need to act *now* before these people decide they're done with us", it still kinda touching that this is the method he chose.

Desperate Times/Desperate Measures are just a blur of "oh god oh god oh god" and it's just as nailbiting the second time around. One thing I love about this podcast is how comfortable it is with (for its medium) long stretches of silence, which can feel a LOT longer when you have no other forms of feedback except dialogue to know the first gunshot was just a warning.

So you really *do* feel Minkowski breaking out into laughter when Eiffel tries to invoke Air Force code is a release of the tension that's been building for multiple episodes. Like he's finally gotten through to them just how far this has all gone and how much further it could still go. I keep saying this: when the situation starts to threaten violence, he's got an amazing gift for keeping the rest of the crew in touch with their common humanity when the rest get far too used to a world that runs on self-interest and subterfuge. Hell, he even gets Hilbert and *Kepler* opening up over the course of the story (presuming Kepler is being honest when he talks about being a shell of himself, but even though he was trying to manipulate Eiffel, that doesn't exclude there being a kernel of truth in those words).

Speaking of Kepler: he's definitely riding the adrenaline high of the situation and it turns him into a monster with a manic streak. It makes Jacobi's and Maxwell's relative calm all the eerier by contrast. Those two really do make you forget that all of this is... pretty horribly routine for them.

Until they meet their match, that is, when the women of the Hephaestus refuse to stand down, and each of them is unspeakably badass in their own way. What Kepler didn't account for is that they're ready and willing to die together rather than sacrifice one another for their own survival.

Although again, the irony of the situation is that just dropping the station into the star could have let them avoid, /gestures at season 4. BUT I'm not gonna rain on the Badass parade here.

Bolero, aka "The podcast kicking me in the feelings while I'm down."

The way Minkowski orders everyone else out of the room before Brain Ghost Lovelace conversates with her. ...did she pop up in the middle of that conversation, I wonder? And all this when psi-wave radiation is spiking, apparently. Coincidence?

Oh come on Hera, war is no reason to end a friendship- Look, I came here from Metal Gear. I see folks dunking on Hilbert and I'm just over here like "he's still not as revolting as Huey Emmerich."

Listen I've seen enough of Warren Kepler and Marcus Cutter in this fandom to know y'all aren't above liking a bad guy, you just prefer the ones who're having fun with it.

"You're gonna come to my funeral! And you're gonna like it! ...I mean you're gonna feel really sad! And cry! And stuff! GOT IT??" Ah, good ol' Eiffel.

THE COMPUTER ALSO HAS BRAIN GHOSTS

"If I'm not your doctor, then what are we?" "We're... complicated?" Listen, Eiffel, if you're not careful, I'm going to start shipping you and Hilbert ironically For The Lulz, and we all know where shipping things ironically always leads.

Errybody gets brain ghosts this episode. Again: I accept that this is a device that's more interesting than an alternative method of expressing these same ideas, but the ambiguity of a Watsonian explanation (is it all in their heads? Do they really see an apparition of some kind?) lets me do my Weird. Look, I once wrote in a joke in a fic about Death from Discworld complimenting a Quirky Miniboss Squad member from Metal Gear Solid 3 on his taste in interior decorating arena design, and that spawned entire subplots in projects for two different fandoms, and eventually roped in a third fandom to elaborate further on their now-intertwined cosmology. Do not underestimate how much I can give myself to work with.

The last ten minutes of Bolero also fuck me up in a special way, partly because We Are Dealing With the Hard and Unavoidable Fact of Death but also the aliens are about to throw a curve ball that'll... alter that last part a little.

Like, words cannot describe the "Dead Man's Curve in the wet" hard right turn of going from being in mourning for several beloved characters (including my favorite) to SURPRISE, SHE'S BACK! I love it.

I'd have to check the scripts to be sure exactly because some words got lost in Lovelace's respiratory spasms but I do like to imagine the her head wound closing up in front of a horrified Eiffel and Minkowski, with a side order of glow-y shit. I've drawn too many Homestuck god tier revivals I guess.

Update: I DID check the recording script's stage directions to see just how disgustingly physical the whole event is and okay, so no weird glowing shit (I reserve my right to depict it that way anyway) but I'm delighted to report that the gross anatomical-ness I was picturing? It's worse! It is so much worse!

The goddamn AGONY that is the Special Episode being TWO HOURS LONG when it comes right after the BIGGEST CLIFFHANGER IN THE SERIES.

You have NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF TEMPTATION IT WAS TO SKIP THIS AND COME BACK TO IT LATER

LOVELACE 1.0 I LOVE YOU BUT ALSO I WANNA TO SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING TO FUTURE-YOU RIGHT NOW

Change of Mind: love the framing device placing this episode as within Lovelace's mind during her successful cranial reconstruction saving throw.

"Buncha nerds, gonna crash my-"

Just how familiar she is in this place, with these people... Hera was installed in her sister's grave (as another post put it), but Lovelace lives in the gutted cadaver of her home.

Zach Valenti's Lambert voice *does* sound like a bad Minkowski impression.

"I have a physicist to put the fear of *me* into." That's my girl. She kind of was more of an ass pre-Total Party Kill, though? Like come on, Isabel, how necessary *is* all this arguing with Lambert?

Fourier's voice is very nice, also. Very soft, very easy on the ears.

I'm now appreciating how it sounds like Fisher is the older and calmer mediator among the crew.

Also the image of Isabel just floating out in space and listening to some chill tunes is sooooo good.

Hey Doc, did it turn out Fisher was too perceptive to live. Was getting caught outside in that meteor shower really an accident. Hey. Hey Hilbert. Answer me.

Also goddamnit, has EVERY character in this series has read Harry Potter?

Did the Fishers always differentiate each other by audio channel? I had to rewind the scene when I realized Lovelace's questions in my right ear weren't getting an answer.

"Say you're a big pink elephant!"

*gunshot* *gross biological dissolving noises* WHY

"Just because somebody made you something doesn't mean that's all you're going to be - you can be more!" I wrote this line down prior to the end of the episode's confirmation that it's a Big Thematic Point.

Aaaand we're back to the framing device, and with that, season 3 wraps. Or maybe season 4 kicks off? Either way, hell of a way to kick it off.

Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs had a hand in writing this episode? Aw... that's sweet...

So, yeah, headcanon: Alien resurrection does the weird glowy thing to close any obviously fatal maladies, then the gross biological viscera part kicks in, hence Lovelace sounding like she's trying to hack up her lungs as soon as she starts using them again.

Listen, sometimes the gross biological viscera parts are my favorite parts, okay? Okay.

#wolf 359 #wolf 359 spoilers #long post #i underestimated how detailed these posts would get as the plot ramped up lmao

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ihaveapencilbehindmyear · 7 years

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“His friends are safe. They have a new shelter. But everything is still so loud, like a battle. Frankly, Doug is sick of it. And Hilbert says he has a cure.”

Finally, the Wolf 359 Bright Sessions AU you’ve all been waiting for! Wait, you haven’t been waiting for it? Well, check it out anyway, and all the other Wolf 359 2017 Big Bang works!!

It’s starting to get either cramped or cozy in here, Doug isn’t sure which. Cozy because they’re settled into a comfortable schedule, him and Hera and Minkowski. Hilbert is still hanging around the sidelines of everything- he hasn’t quite figured out what to do with all his guests yet, even though he’s the one who let them in. He mostly stays in the lab except for meals, and sometimes, Doug hears him pacing around the safe house. The Hephaestus he calls it. Doug calls it ‘the-way-too-damp-cave-system-in-an-uncharted-mountain’, but hey, whatever floats his science boat. Doug isn’t about to piss him off and get thrown outside into the elements. Minkowski said it wouldn’t be half bad here if everything didn’t keep breaking- luckily, Hera always knows what’s going on. That’s the schedule. Wake up, breakfast, alarms go off, Hera tells them what’s going on and the rest of them fix it. Eat some more and go to sleep. It’s better than what they were doing before, that’s for sure.

Cramped because, as usual, he can hear everything. Everything. Every alarm, every sigh, every complaint, every creak and groan of the old floorboards and bang and clash of the shitty pipes. Now normally, Doug isn’t one to pop out of bed straight away. He can and will longue with the best of them. But these days, his headaches have gotten so bad, he can’t even get up for a hour or two. He wakes up because something is too loud and can’t sleep again, so he stays laying down, eyes shut until he hears Minkowski get up. Nothing, of course, can be easy for Superhero-in-Training Doug Eiffel.

God, he wishes. Just maybe, if this was a super power, he could learn to live with it.

No. Instead, Doug is an Atypical. Humans with special talents. Gifts. Superhuman mutations, if you will. Minkowski, for instance, can make things levitate, which would be lame, if that didn’t include herself, which means Rene Minkowski, the uncoolest person in the world, can technically fucking fly. Then there’s Hera. Who can predict the future. Because who doesn’t want to do that? Even Dr. Alexander Hilbert has some kind of super genius gene floating around in his DNA.

What does Doug do? Wait for it.

Super hearing.

So yes, before you ask, he can hear you pee a mile away.

It was useful when they were on the run. He could tell when danger was coming, but not where it was coming from unless it was an especially quiet night. You don’t know how many sounds there are. You try pinpointing exact ones where everything in the world is either humming, buzzing, or banging these days. It hurts. A lot. Being closed off in a mountain doesn’t help, because everything has some kind of echo-y quality to it, so each sound comes back. And comes back. And comes back. And Doug wants to cut his own ears off sometimes. You’d think he’d be used to it by now.

Maybe earplugs would help, now that they’re safe-

Wait. Someone is approaching his room. By the heavy, shuffling footsteps, and the tense breathing pattern, it’s definitely Hilbert. Yeah, Minkowski and Hera are still in the dining hall, Hera prepping breakfast and Minkowski chatting with her about today’s repairs/future disasters. Hera is laughing, maybe it’ll be a good day. He can hear the hint of a smile in Minkowski’s voice as she leans back in her chair at the table and the boiling water from the stove, aw man, Hera is making grits again? -

“Eiffel. If I may have a word.”

Doug swings his legs off the side of his bed, the fullness of Hilbert’s voice bringing back to his own room with a wince.. “You know, it’s typically considered polite to knock, doc.”

“You hear me coming. No need.”

They stay there for a second, awkwardly. Hilbert clears his throat after a moment, and Doug winces. “That is what I’m here about.” Hilbert says, beaming- well, as much as Hilbert can beam. More like his eyes lightened slightly, and his typical frown wasn’t as hard as stone.

Doug blinks. “Your- your cough?”

“No no. You.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I’m here to help. With your power. Each sound too loud, affecting your mental and physical states, yes? I’ve been working on a few experimental trials regarding the nature of powers, how to control them better. Your gift is not a matter of learning like Minkowski’s and Hera’s. You already know how to hear things. You need to learn how to tune out the unimportant sounds.”

Like that hasn’t occurred to Doug before. He may not be a super genius, but he’s not a complete moron. “Look doc, I’ve tried that-”

“I’m sure you have. That’s why I’m suggesting these trials. I’ve been developing this drug for a long time now, and I assure you, it’s perfectly safe. Perfectly. I was in the middle of testing it with other Atypicals when the AM caught wind of us and captured them all. I got lucky. So I can continue to help Atypicals, either by providing shelter or providing treatment. I understand your skepticism. But I do mean well.” He’s walking away, and the footsteps are too loud again, and a pipe just burst in the bathroom and Minkowski is swearing under her breath and it’s so loud and he says, “Doc, wait.”

“We’re too comfortable.”

“That’s the idea,” Doug says, because he’s still in bed, surrounded by at least ten blankets, and frankly, is too tired to be confused as to why both Minkowski and Hera are hanging over him like they’re waiting for something.

“No Eiffel. Not what I meant.” Minkowski continues.

“Alright, well if you don’t want to join the cuddle puddle, I’ll just ask Hera. Hera baby? What do you say?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabs her hand and drags on on top of the pile of blankets. Hera squeals happily, which is still too shrill for Doug’s ears, but the rush of the stream running in the caverns over their heads is less insistant. He doesn’t even want to see the look Minkowski is giving him right now. If he focuses, he can hear her teeth grinding behind her pursed lips.

“Eiffel, focus. I’m trying to say I think something suspicious is going on here.”

He rolls his eyes. “You always think something suspicious is going on everywhere. Commander, you’re the one who was saying it’s not a bad place to stay. Why shouldn’t we be comfortable here? What, do you not trust Hilbert?”

“Doug, I don’t trust anyone.” she said, which didn’t answer his question, and kind of stings. It’s like she’s saying Doug is wrong is let Hilbert experiment on him. It’s like she’s saying she doesn’t trust Doug .

“She doesn’t mean that,” Hera murmurs to him, not directly in his ear but more into his shoulder, so it’s muffled and not as loud. She’s sweet like that.

“Well if you’re so nervous, what do you propose?” Doug finally says.

“Hilbert is going to be busy today, she wants to explore the places in the base we haven’t seen yet. Just in case he’s hiding something.” Hera explains, and Minkowski nods. “I know you’re going to say no Doug, so I’m going to say, please? For me? For the thrill of the adventure? And you’re going to say-”

“Well I can’t argue with someone who knows exactly what I’m going to say. But-”

“Why can’t you just look into the future and tell us what we’ll find?” Hera puffs out her chest and lowers her voice, trying to copy his signature shit-eating grin. “And I’ll say future events can all be different, because there are many different outcomes to all things. I can’t say with one hundred percent confidence what we’ll find. Soooo-”

“It’s adventure time then.” Doug finishes for her, and she grins.

Hera seems excited, at least. It’s enough to perk him up. He feels kind of weary, but it’s not from the echo of their footsteps this time. Secret experiments at night really drain a guy.

I wonder if Hera knows.

No, probably not for sure. There are many different outcomes to all things and all that. If something were to go wrong with even the slightest possibility of it, she’d tell him. He’s sure of it. So they explore. They find nothing but old files. Other Atypicals who have stayed in the safehouse before. Someone named Lovelace, someone named Lambert. Nothing interesting, and if Hilbert knows they were snooping, he doesn’t say anything as he sticks another needle in his arm.

Weeks pass, not without incidents. They’re just not as noticeable to Doug anymore. He can still hear them, but it’s. So nice. Not to have everything crowd his thoughts all at once. He doesn’t even mind the alarms at this sound level. They’re almost soothing.

Well, the normal ones might be. Then there’s this powerful one that would have brought him to his knees if it wasn’t for Hilbert’s drug. He groans, and Hera jumps, and Minkowski barks, “Hilbert, what the hell?”

“That’s the intruder alarm!”

“Intruders?! Eiffel, didn’t you hear them coming?”

“Forget why he did not hear, why did Hera not see?!” Hilbert snaps, then runs out of the room, calling back, “I’ll see if I can enhance security in time!”

With a real emergency, and Hilbert out of the way, Minkowski finally blooms back into her commanding, uptight, perfectly prepared and ready to face a shitstorm self. “Head to the entrance. Hera, what do you see?”

“N-nothing Minkowski, I didn’t see anything like this-”

“Eiffel, what’s your take?”

Even with Hilbert’s help, he can’t hear a thing over the alarms. “Uuuuuuuugh, no good commander, too loud to hear anything.”

“Then we need to act fast. I’m going to-”

There’s a crash, and Doug screams, he thinks he’s screaming, he can’t tell over the rush of air pouring in and the sound of grunts and groans, as if there’s a whole army on the other side of the door. Instead there stands a woman, bathed in gold light. There’s blood on her lips and dirt on her dark skin. She spits red on the ground, and the glow around her fades. “Who the hell are you?”

“I believe we should be asking you that.” Minkowski says stiffly, and Doug can see her fist tightening. A desk behind the intruder is now hovering a few inches off the ground, just in case.

“Alright. If that’s how you want to play it, fine. I’m Isabel Lovelace, and I’m here to destroy all of you.”

“Isabel Lovelace.” Minkowski repeats, and Hera says, “That’s not possible.”

Doug, ever the sensible one, squeaks out, “Whoa whoa whoa, destroy us?!”

“It is possible, because I’m here, and I’m going to kill you.” Her eyes are burning. “And when your precious backup gets here, I’m going to kill them too. And I’ll make my way to the AM, free all the innocent people have hurt, and burn the building to the fucking ground. You can’t get rid of me. I just. Keep. Coming back.”

Then, everything happens at once. For once, Doug sees it instead of hears it.

Hilbert stumbled back into the room, and he’s letting out choked gasps.

Isabel is glowing gold and then suddenly, there’s two of her, and one is dashing at Hilbert.

The other is knocked out cold, because Minkowski put her floating desk to good use.

The second Isabel grabs Hilbert, she’s tackling him to the ground, but when the first is on the ground, she blinks, and multiplies again. The third Isabel Lovelace is more visibly relaxed. “Atypicals?”

“What did you think we were?” Hera demands, vibrating with anger. She normally doesn’t fight, when they were on the run all they needed was Minkowski and a really big boulder, but she seems ready now. “Agents in a safe house?”

“Kid, this is the worst safe house you could possibly be in. Selberg over there is an agent, hiding innocent Atypicals before the AM sweeps in and kidnaps them. He did that to my old crew. And the agents on my tail are the ones who tormented them.” “You lead AM agent's here?!”

Minkowski’s snarl is waved away. “You got caught up in my war. But I can help you when it’s over. What am I working with here? Levitation,” she says, glancing away from Minkowski’s glower.

“Future sight and regular human.” Hilbert growls.

“ What was that. ” Could have been Minkowski, but he isn’t sure which because he can’t hear anything for some reason. He can see Hilbert’s grave face, Hera’s shaking hands, and Lovelace’s look of pity as Hilbert mentions the drugs, but all he can hear is the blood in his ears.

“C’mon Doug,”

It’s so loud, everything else isn’t coming through, it’s just his voice taking over his thoughts. That’s never happened before, why isn’t anything else coming through? C’mon Doug, focus.

“Selberg did that to you, didn’t he?”

He couldn’t even hear Lovelace come in. “What?”

She clears her throat. “Sorry, Hilbert. He tested on you. Didn’t he?” Doug pulls his hands away from his head, stunned into silence. She nods. “That’s what I thought. Stay back here. You’re not going to want to be around when the AM agents get here.”

Doug took that to mean ‘you have some time, but you should stay out of the way you weak little human’.

Doug did not take that to mean ‘they’re on the way and you’re going to be ambushed in the kitchen, so grab a snack on the way to hiding’.

“Put your hands where I can see them, Eiffel.”

Doug raises his arms slowly, still holding a frosty hot pocket. He knows that voice. He’s been running from it for years.

Warren Kepler stands in the kitchen with a gun, flanked by his trusty partners, Daniel Jacobi, boy on fire, and Maxwell, not a mutant super genius but might as well be. “Howdy. Surprised you didn’t hear us coming and get the door for us.”

With Doug as a hostage, it’s easy to get Minkowski and Hera to stand down. Lovelace is feisty, but the threats eventually get to her.

“I don’t think so, Isabel. We wired this place before we came in. One spark from Mr. Jacobi here and this whole place goes up in flames.” “Even your friends here?” Lovelace snarls, and Kepler laughs. “I take it you have it all figured out, now don’t you?”

“I always do Lovelace. And if you want to stay alive to, you know, kill us, you might want to back down. Maxwell, escort her out. Hilbert, old friend, tell me what you got here.”

Hilbert clears his throat, looking uncomfortable for the first time Doug has ever seen. “The same Atypicals I mentioned in my reports. Future sight, levitation, and our former Class C. I’ve been testing on him, and now he’s basically a human with above average hearing.”

“As usual, your choice of subjects is astounding. Still. Jacobi, take him to the back. I’m not interested in his kind.”

“Just relax Doug. I won’t hurt you. Unless you want me too,” Jacobi winked, which was not as charming as it would have been, considering his shoulders were on fire and he was holding a harpoon. Scary shit.

It was so tiring, dealing with all the scary shit.

No, don’t go there Doug. Stay focused. Keep him talking. Be cool. “Why would I want you to hurt me, Jacobi?”

“I don’t know, maybe you’re into that-”

“Don’t- why are you doing this? Don’t talk to me like we’re friends.” Shit, he lost his cool.

“Aww, Dougie, I thought we were friends. We’re pretty similar, you and I.”

“We are nothing alike .”

He smiles. “Huh. You know I was gonna say something about our loyalty to our friends, our general tomfoolery, but instead, I think I’ll agree with you. We’re nothing alike. Because I’m Atypical. And you’re not anymore.”

For a moment there, he believed him.

Then he could hear Hera’s quiet sobs from the other room.

Doug gritted his teeth. He couldn’t hear anything else.

#w359bb17

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