tampered | Log; Closed.

Current Location: Laboratory 4
Current Music: "Fear of the Dark" - Akira Yamaoka

Log; Closed.

When; August 25, midnight
Rating; TBA
Characters;

bloodyuseless.
Summary; Alice’s rude awakening to the brave new world.
Log;

Floating, drifting, a weightless sensation washing over the slowly burgeoning consciousness. Her head lifts, limp body springing to life. Pupils dilate against iris as oxygen starved lungs gasp a stagnant aquatic breath.

Water?

There was no time to think- only react. She sputtered, rejecting the acid-like mouthful; limbs unfurled, clawing for the surface breach. Head bobs under the frothing waning surface once, twice, taking on a mouthful of sterile preservative before instinct took reign: strike. Waves crashed overhead as water gushed through the glass wound before shattering, vomiting the broken Venus up on splinted terra firma.

Keep still. Don’t move just yet, Alice thought, suppressing the urge to cough up whatever it was she had swallowed; instead, remaining laying face down still as death while collecting a wealth of information surrounding her. The harsh abrasive smell of industrial grade astringent sanitizers, the panoply of chemical concoctions; her fingers resting against the floor tracing the ceramic tile’s grout before merging into a stainless steel grate. This certainly was not unlike the sterile, glass, and shatterproof plastic world of Umbrella. Laying still she felt for the comforting weight of guns across her body. On her back, on her hips, but were found to be missing. Each new piece of information telling her more and more about the situation Alice now found herself in. The most telling, the lack of nearby voices, their numbers, rich tone, and the quality of information transmitted. Wherever she was- she was in the belly of the beast.

The hard dank floor made the woman more acutely aware of the heaviness of her own body. Cut off from the constant drip of the harsh sting of drug cocktail permeating from every pore still lingering in her system, which had rendered muscles and consciousness incapacitated in suspended animation throughout a long ‘reconstruction’ process, permeated- weighted her down to earth. Every muscular sinew languidly burned vivid agony. But it wasn’t merely the sedatives coursing through her veins anymore. There was something else: something much worse. Crouched down, shivering as the water lapped at her naked body, veins budged, pulsing for a few heartbeats as she hugged her knees tight to her chest. Hands hit something solid, bewildered fingers sluggishly groped and fumble to clear spiteful glass away. Something sharp; hands recoiled.

Greedy waves lapped hungrily at bare flesh. While storm-battered body rests, disorientated mind’s daunting task had only begun. Disorientated, her drugged-addled spirit pawed through the thousands scattered and disjointed images flashing through a blank mind. As the etherized haze began to clear, a barrage of thoughts came steadily quicker. Each time she concentrated on one image to form a coherent memory a white wall went up to rebuke, buffering truth so desperately sought mere inches from her grasp.

She heard different voices converging on the same word: Alice.
Alice...? The cadence sounded right- sounded familiar. It was a name- my name, she inferred for now. Yet, something warned her against using any one name too often. Anonymity was something highly prized. And so, the woman was further astonished when alternate names surface: Janus Prospero, Marsha Thomson, and Alice Abernathy.

Now, that the ‘who’ was resolved, the 'what,' and 'where,' had taken a back seat to Alice’s survival in this alien place. Head rose upon hearing the faint, curious movement of carnival music stirring the air. In echoing from the hollow walls, it seemed to mocking in contrast to the cool surgical professionalism of the whited sepulcher, but any juvenile whimsy gleamed from the music box melody was belied by subtle haunting undertones of menace whereby the tick-tock-tick counting away seconds of life, which filled the sprawled woman with a sense of foreboding dread, making her hesitate for only a second longer.

Her eyes snapped open, the black pupils dilate then immediately constrict in correction, enlarging the green of her iris, drinking in the harsh halogen lamps blazing overhead. Peering out beyond wet tresses, intelligent green-blue orbs impassively scan the empirical landscape. Hands tightened sliding up under and pushing her body to stand upright on wavering legs. A mistake, she knew, but one that was quickly remedied by the grasping the operating table for support. When the swimming dizziness subsided, a hand found its grip around the steel latch wrenching open the cabinet; Alice confiscated the abandoned change of clothing. Dampened by her body, the fabric clung like second skin but it would do. Glancing towards the exit and steeling her resolve, the woman relinquished her hold and shuffling, stumbling through the shattered tank's remains, groping the stone columned walls blindly departed towards the answers she sought...

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((Hey. Where is Alice, exactly? Abberline's out in the snowstorm looking for someone that he's not going to find. He can stumble on Alice, if you want.))

((She can be wherever. That's why I left her walking off to locations unknown so whomever can stumble into her dazed presence at there leisure. Of course, being soaking wet in a snowstorm almost promises she'll catch her death of cold if she wasn't already 'altered' before-hand.))

Frederick pulled his scarf tighter around him and made his way quickly through the rapidly vanishing streets - vanishing under a blanket of unnatural snow. He felt like a complete idiot having underestimated the city's capacity for natural phenomenon, and after having gone to the fountain and then to building eight (with no real results in either area), he was now stumbling and fumbling his way back to his own building, freezing and soaked to the bone. Five minutes out, and he could have killed himself in frustration at not having just stayed in number eight - but oh no, he didn't want to live like a thief in some stranger's empty flat, and the thought of going to ask Scarab for sanctuary for the night made him embarrassingly nervous. You're an idiot, he informed himself silently, and kept moving.

The minutes ticked by, and things seemed to be going well enough when the storm increased. Abberline was forced to take refuge in an alleyway until he could get his bearings. The thing was blessedly protected from the elements. He rubbed his gloved hands together - and saw a woman, looking barely dressed and very dazed, wandering about the other end of the dingy street. He frowned, taking a half-step forward. She didn't look like a local; the natives were all too smart to get caught outside (not to mention the particular air about them that he found very easy to pick out).

"Excuse me?" he called out. "Ma'am?"

The sight had taken her back, lingering a moment too long in the steaming doorway; shocked, with white wintry world greeted her eyes. Had she slept so long that the vibrant pulse of the season had slowed and grown chilled? That thought seemed an eternity ago.

Noises echoed louder in the stillness broken by the momentarily shuffle of footfalls and her heartbeat and uncontrollable shivering thundering in ear. Alice swallows hard, blinking one, twice, focusing on the blurred shadowy figure approaching then stop. The bitter wind across bare skin bit fiercely as a wilted rose, sending cascading water streaming down to pool at her feet. The certain weight of uncertain clothing, many sizes too large and the wrong gender, clung fast in damp turned icy grip, had begun to drop her core temperature rapidly. Everything burned from the skin to bone and every muscle in between screamed out in agony as Alice took one shuffling earthward step forward then collapsed. Knees striking first then body planting forward in pain like scattered leaves.

While her mind pawing through the white haze was dimly aware of the iced earth rushing up to meet her with open arms, but it could not will muscles to catch her. Being so heavily under the influence of the sedatives and muscle relaxants, Alice felt like a fish out of water subjected to rapidly gasping for air between chilled shivers as water, frozen earth, and wind crawled across her skin. Slowly blank eyes rolled toward the shadow speckling the blighted landscape. When she tried to speak, her voice failed her. She could only gurgle, expelling the excess water, sending the viscous fluid trickling down her chin as the flakes of dispassionate snow began to drawl a numbing blanket over her.

It had been too much, too far, too quickly. She should have stayed put until the weather broke.

Abberline wasn't close enough to her to catch her when she fell, but he ran the rest of the way, stooping down beside her and tugging his outer jacket off only to throw it around her shoulders and pull it tight. She was wet, shivering, and looked completely out of it. He started back a bit when she vomited up the water, but it didn't stop him from scooping her slim body into his arms and moving hurriedly the rest of the short distance to the building where his flat was. Once inside the lobby, he set her down on one of the sofas there - small, drab, and uncomfortable, but useful.

"Are you all right?"

The momentary comfort found in the arms and cloth shelter was short lived. As she rested against him, damping the clothing her body touched, Alice drew arms and legs up tight gathering the excess fabric around her prone body. The warmth of the building, resulting in a light steam rising from her skin, as hot air met cold, seemed to revive her failing shocked consciousness. While coughing out the last raspy ounce of lake water that had flooded her lungs, Alice’s mind flickered turning to questions.
What happened? Had she been attacked?

"I..." voice wavered as she began.

Her face contorted in pain as she tried to recall, but each time she dove in the deep well of memory she hit a mental wall. White noise hissing around her foggy memory- not even a flicker of recollection had sparked to life that would illuminate this dark situation.

She couldn’t answer.

Frustrated, she shook her head trying to clear the fog that had settled over her thoughts. Then lifting her head Alice peers into the man's dark, but concerned eyes.

"I don’t remember... anything."

He waited while she tried to get her bearings, not sure if he should try and comfort her with a hand on her shoulder, or... he remained a respectful distance away, but close enough to assist her should she lose consciousness or collapse again.

Memory loss was never a good thing. She seemed to be recovering from some sort of traumatic experience, but what - clearly neither of them knew. The first thing that popped into his head was the red pyramid monster, but this woman, for all her terror, seemed physically all right. No obvious wounds... and, well, her skin was still on.

"Do you remember the date?" he asked quietly. "Approximately." Perhaps if she got thinking about broad things, it would trigger more - and if she could remember when she was from, perhaps Abberline could locate a companion in the city from her world.

Becoming more and more alert, the quickened heartbeat pumped increased blood flow flushing through chilled figure, and quickly burning off the remaining sedatives. Though uncontrollably shivering, her body aided by the jacket, Alice was able recover faster than expected by properly regulating body heat that fending off the numbing sensation lead sensation that began creep into limbs.

"The date-?" His worse fear confirmed in her hesitation. She fell sober and silent; fogged mind pawing through the mental cloud, searching for that requested tidbit of information. Strangely, blue-green eyes rapidly moved as seemingly if lost deep in dreaming sleep. Searching... flickers of remembrance: broken leaves, broken glass, an ill-favored wind brushing against her skin.
"Autumn; October of two-thousand and...two?"

Steadying herself with an earthbound hand, she sits up, gathering his jacket closer to her body as she looks back over her shoulder at the serene winter imagery that sharply contradicted her last memory. A grateful, "Thank you," and as Alice begins to slips an arm into the jacket sleeve when she stops then beings to disrobe. She did not want to presume, she slips the trapping off and offers the wet article back to man when she honed a keen inspection her savior more clearly. The clothing, the voice enriched with a British qaulity, it didn't mesh.

"Where-?" She attempted to right herself into an upright position on the sofa and then begin again. "What happened?"

Abberline gave a slow nod at her response. At least something was coming to her. Two thousand... Faye was from sometime after that. Evelynne, too, but not as much. He could ask her to speak with this woman, or maybe Scarab. He'd tried to keep track in his own mind who was from when and where. She sounded American, but not quite. Probably born somewhere else, but raised there. It reminded him of Mary, who's Irish only came out by slightly distorting her speech... No, there were other things to think on, now.

"You've been taken somewhere," he said quietly. "It's a lot to take in. Please, keep it." He doesn't take the jacket. "Let's get you warm and dry first, eh?"

If he had expected a grand outpouring of piteous emotions, wailing, and rendering of garments that he was sourly disappointed. The idea of being taken somewhere against her will didn’t surprise her as deeply as it should; instead, the woman, with expression unchanging, seemed to take it in with little more than a blasé, "Oh."

Grateful and even a little relieved that, the coat remained in her possession, she seemed to accept his explination and instructions with a childish naivity. With the immediate needs fulfilled, her attentions turn to social matters. Becoming reacquited with the coat’s dry interior, she attempted a more cordial face, hoping to learn more about her rescuer and this unknown location.

Honing in on the thoughtful man sitting a respectable distance, she began,
"My name," but her voice wavered in hesitated only to beginning again stronger.
"My name is Alice. Alice Abernathy," the blond softly affirmed with a humble smile, but so tentatively tripping over the name as if the name was an entirely new concept.

Then passing an acute eye over her benefactor, scrutinizing the exterior, and absorbing the minor details to percieve true picture, as she suspected he now did to her. The dated attire –high collar, wider tie, hairstyle–, the smooth British hue that colored his words and very engrained mannerisms- his being, and his fine attention to detail, which lead Alice to one conclusion.

"Cop or an actor playing one?"

"Hello Alice," he said, forgoing the customary 'Miss'. Even though she was reacting rather well to all of it, he still felt that being calm and un-clinical would be a better idea. There was no reason to alienate her.

Her blase air suited him just fine. He was very bad at dealing with hysterical women - he'd always shoved things like that off on Godley.

Abberline quirked an eyebrow at her. Interesting, if she was from the far future, that she's pick up on something like that from him.

"Both, sometimes," he said mildly. "Inspector Frederick Abberline." He hesitated, and then decided... the hell with it. "I lived almost a century before you, I died in the nineteen twenties, I'm from London. You've arrived in a place known only as 'The City'. People from all times and places, dead and alive, are brought here for a large and nefarious purpose that none of us seem to be able to stop. Currently we are being tormented by a rather vicious snow storm, as you might have noticed. Welcome."

Since he had been so honest about his profession, Alice had committed to reciprocate the honest tic for tat. "The best cops always are," nonchalantly remarks but there was some admiration in that simple statement. But a small amused smile tugged at the corners of her lip, as she confessed, "Your tin," a slender finger gestured towards the fold of his vest as the observable copper peaking threw the hem, "is showing, Inspector Abberline."

She knew she had heard that name somewhere...

At this she sat back on the sofa, leaving a damp spot and indentation where her body rested. He had shoved the proverbial landmine underfoot, and Alice was more than a little hesitant to step upon it. Then cocking an eyebrow, deciding upon something unspoken, perhaps whether or not to play the hero and throw herself on this most recent landmine, Alice spoke. "Well then, Inspector Abberline-"

Martyr.

She took it in stride; accepting the farfetched until she could prove or disprove it, but rubbing her arms to restore feeling to them when- the intense sensation of blinding pain knocked the words from her tightened lips. She gasped, eyes widened, doubling over and bracing herself. It felt like something was crawling under her skin.

He couldn't help but look down - he hadn't worn a badge there, ever. He didn't think he HAD a badge when he came to the City. He lifted it with a vague expression of interest - it was the one he wore during the Ripper case. He'd thrown it into a drawer when he got promoted and never looked at it again. Odd, the things the City did.

Abberline was about to comment on it when Alice began to convulse. "Alice. Alice!" he took her by the shoulders, badge dropped to the floor, and tried to calm her. His first thought that she was having a reaction to the cold, but there was nothing he could do about that besides throw her into a tub of warm water, which he did not have.

But the more he looked at her, the more concerned he became for health in general. He hadn't even thought twice about her hair, because if she was from the future, who knew what styles were in season - Faye had purple hair, after all - but this close to her, he could see the needlemarks in her scalp.. and arms. What the hell happened to his woman?

Her face contorted as the white-hot pain behind her eyes pulsed. Panicked hand fling off the coat, and frantically tearing the wet clothing. If possible she went paler, her tortured face evolving into the phantasmal image a statuesque marble. Visibly budging under her flesh like a living thing, coiling, writhing, forcing its way between clamped fingers, and through her veins before disappearing from view.

Chest rising and falling, heart hammering like a war drum that threatened to rebel and rupture; Alice’s eyes clamped shut, her body shuttered, absorbing the blinding pain and seemingly neutralizing it, as an eerie but undefined difference.

As her body and pulse slowly stablized and unfurled, the frightened pained panic replaced by a fathomless confidence that took rein behind those preditory blue-green orbs.

He held her, slightly horrified but not showing it, at the sight of unseen things crawling about within her skin. He had a small moment of internal panic, but kept it within him -- then -- Fuck, not now -- His vision blurred and turned green, and --

Doctors labs monsters PAIN PAIN PAIN DEATH

He starts just slightly as his sight returns to normal, the woman in his arms now still. He looks down into her eyes, but instead of being afraid, he's just ... calm.

"Alice?"

Head down, hands balled, mouth parted ever so slightly, breathing becoming acutely focused on the embracing shoulder holding her like a child. When summoned, her ice green eyes snapped, piercing his blanched expression with a distant stare. If only for a moment, a complete lack of recognition defined her attitude towards man before her. But in the moment, it had sparked a domino effect:

Too close.

Her eyes trailed to the tender grip the man had on her arm. The firm hold had been difficult to suppress the knee-jerk inner defense mechanism, that preserved the elite-trained Alice throughout countless trials and tribulations, to break the pulling hold the millisecond she saw it. When an unconscious squeeze tightened around her body, Alice had decidedly had enough.

Earlier her intuition had been on high alert since waking in this strange place. Cold, and in pain, she felt all too vulnerable to perceive dangers all around her. Alice instinctively trusted her intuition- that danger detection sense that gave warning upon her when such hidden hazards. Without admonition or hesitation Alice’s hand snapped out, reflexively taking Abberline’s wrist and shoulder, and in an effortless blur of movement, had immobilize the officer of the law into a clean, efficient military lock putting face to floorboard. Kneeling down on the floor besides the Englishman, she used a combination of pressure points, leverage, and hand placement, to maintain the solid pin stomach-first to the wooden floorboards.

The revelation of his vision was unshared. No revelation, no connection, no flicker of memory surfaced in her eyes, only a smug matter-of-fact expression, hinted by a superior mirth that she knew something unspeakable.

But if only for a moment, before forgotten humanity was remembered and steel eyes and grip softened. She stepped back, "I’m sorry, Inspector," and sincerely meaning every anxiety-edged word of it. This time it was her turn to help him to his feet, but as she lended him a uncertain hand- almost afraid the appendage had a will of its own and damage him again- where that or, looking at her hands, -that- come from?

Abberline wasn't happy. He struggled for a half-moment and then just went limp until she released him. He rolled away and got to his feet, giving her a wary look. He remained standing a good meter and a half away from her. Not all human, then. Great. They all can't be friendly bounty hunters, he thought wryly.

"I'm sure," he said dryly. "You seem up and about all right." He didn't continue - it was obvious that his initial suspicion-less goodwill was going to be gone, now. He was normally a vaguely paranoid man, but being in the City had increased it tenfold.

After witnessing his hasty emotional 180 and clear her proximal radius, Alice seemed uncertain how to precede. As if feeling the chill in the air trapped between their gaze; frozen in the moment, the ice-covered locks had ceased their thaw. While apologetic for the injury, she would not back down from her actions. What good would it do to second-guess prior actions? What was done was done- an ice sickle sloughed, striking the floor besides her pinkening feet- the blonde felt justified exercising such an acute immobilizing maneuver against a trained peace officer, but decidedly chose to remain covertly on-guard in this uneasy stare down.

It was this place- this nameless ‘City’- had to be.

“The noise,” she began in a clear matter-of-fact voice leaving her gaze onto the only person that seemed certain. Slowly she turned, a hand parting and pulling back a corner of the curtain to gaze outside. "It stopped."

It went unsaid that there were far more pressing matters than some strange little reoccurring ticking, but for the moment, that strange noise was a tangible lifeline for the drifting woman to latch onto before the more abstract menace that sprung up around them swept her away. Her eyes traced the white snow-blighted environment lit by sparse lonely streetlamps. As she suspected it was a multileveled apartment complex with an opened view towards the city at large. But what was beyond that Alice couldn’t see.

Alice let the curtain sway back into its covering, spoke calmly and unthreatening fashion him. She wanted information and spooking the only person who could more than likely give it to you would be further detrimental to her current situation: the man with Victorian smile.

"It's the clock," he said bluntly. "The City is built on a massive clock, a countdown to the end of days. You only hear the ticking when you're alone." He was still watching her carefully. As much as he tried to help people here and there, he either failed or they didn't want his help at all, so Abberline had, over the years, come to find his sense of duty rather numb and dull. He'd gone out for one purpose, and he'd come back empty handed.

"You're in building seven right now," he said. "There are twelve buildings, at the stations of a clock. If you find an emptry room, it's yours, there's no rent. Usually the City will manifest clothes and things for you. I've got to go, I need to get word back to a friend."

Alice dutifully nods towards the peace officer, "Thank you, again," the words were so simple attempt to convey such a profound gratitude. The truth was invaluable. Clutching the jacket tighter around her throat, mentally preparing to brave the shock of cold air that she would meet. The blonde straightened with resolve, the cold did not bother her as badly as before, sets off into the snow-blanketed world. She squares her shoulders, shifting her body into perfect symmetry, easing the arduous trek across treacherous terrain. In quiet awe, Alice eagerly observed the blur of buildings, the colorful motley mix of locals and locations, each piece lending itself to sculpt the City at large, until nearly dizzy from exhaustion and frostbite, the blonde found a building that had the right feel to it.

The room had an eloquent lived-in touch that gives Alice pause to marvel. Customary hotel accommodations were nice: a little bar of soap, some shampoo, a few pressed towels, but not this. Not all this… for no charge? No matter which way she looked at it, Alice couldn’t make two and two equal five. Something was wrong here. There was a catch. Nothing was without a price.

In a neat pile, there upon the bed, sat a pair of combat boots, pants, and a brilliant red dress graciously spread across the bedspread. Her hand fondly caressed the vermilion dress, the smooth fabric passing like liquid silk beneath fingertips. Fleetingly wondering if it would fit? But then she glanced back over shoulder. Despite Inspector Abberline’s reassurances, surely this wasn’t meant for her. Atop it a crisp paper, elegantly written and folded by patience hand.

"May all your dreams come true."

Alice blinked, but couldn’t shake the resonance of déjà vu streaked up her spine and curling around brain. Compelled eyes poured over the letter, and then turns the paper over in hand. That’s it? There had to be more. But the back proved as taunting empty as the simple statement inscribed in an eloquent hand held neatly together with a menacing little bow.

It was as if someone had been expecting her. She glanced back at the open door. The thought compelled swift and decisive action; suspicions only quelled after a thorough search of the room had been conducted. A clean sweep of closets, beds, cabinets, curtains, and other hiding places turned up no intruders, bugs, and/or anything out of the ordinary. Location secured; satisfying present security concerns.

Yet, she was a stranger in a strange land, and while she didn’t trust these seemingly innocent gifts- this room, these clothing- etherized she sank deeper into the comforter- Alice knew, she didn’t have much of a choice.

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Log; Closed.

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