Monday, September 12, 2011

He... ran?

In a million, billion years, I never would have expected Inquisitor to run. He never struck me as sentimental. Either Mr Creepy had his hooks in his brain all along, or Inquisitor was up to more than just feeding us to his former brother.

Inquisitor was the leader of our little group. He relayed orders to us from his own superiors, sent people on missions, and generally just kept us operating smoothly. A real micromanager.

After our little confrontation, I wasn't too surprised when I didn't see him early yesterday, but I wasn't exactly going out of my way to look for him. In fact, I hadn't planned on leaving the apartment at all, except...

Jet came knocking at my door around noon, giggling like a maniac. When he finally calmed down, he said, "Inquisitor did a runnner."

For a few seconds, I thought he meant that Inquisitor killed one and was baffled by his amusement. I mean, it happens. Inquisitor's not the sort to do it in a particularly amusing way, not like some who see death as the ultimate joke and go out of their way to make it ironic.

But then he explained how one of Inquisitor's toadies (Cassia) worked up the courage to knock on his door to get her daily to-do list at sunup. Usually he's already slipped it under her door by the time the sun rises, but he hadn't that morning. Inquisitor didn't answer, but the door popped open. He must not have closed it right when he left. She was curious I guess and poked her head in since he never let anyone in his apartments. There was no sign of him, but the place was trashed like he had a tantrum (which I can believe.) I guess she was a little alarmed because she went in and looked around. There was no sign of him, just the mess.

Well, since no one is ever allowed into his rooms, Cassia had no way of knowing if that's how they normally were. So she went downstairs and saw the darkling was gone too. The real clincher though was when she went down to his workshop and all his tools were gone.

So she went haring up the stairs to tell everyone Inquisitor had gone rogue. Inquisitor's former lackeys all got together to figure out who should be in charge in his absence, and from there, things fell apart pretty quickly because they ALL wanted to be in charge. At which point, everyone but a few of the less politically minded Anunnaki knew Inquisitor was gone. So Jet came looking for me, since he figured I didn't know and wanted to share a good joke.

If Jet expected me to laugh, he was REALLY disappointed, because whatever anyone else might think, Inquisitor running off is not good. It makes us all look bad because he was in charge of us, and the in-fighting among his former suck-ups made us look even worse. So the sooner we got ourselves back onto track, the better. Well, I'd planned on talking to Mercury about Melissa anyway. It seemed like the best time to go look for him.

Mercury is.... difficult. He's old and irritable at the best of times, looking a bit like Franklin Douglas but with piercing eyes so pale brown they're practically orange. His mask has black smears on either side of the mouth that make it look as if he's always scowling, and the smears under his eyes and across the forehead only enhance that. He doesn't speak, least not with his mouth. We didn't always communicate with sound, he says, so he refuses to use our "slave language." Considering he WAS a slave prior to the Civil War, he's got more reason to be outraged than most.

He's got a really strong mental voice, which is why I had planned to talk to him about Melissa. She's going to need him to teach her how to speak so others will hear her. Least that's why her sister and her were brought in, telepathy; so she had that in her favor.

I figured no one told Mercury what was going on either, since everyone tends to avoid him because they're not comfortable with his voice in their heads. Which means they resist hearing him so he has to shout. Meh, I can see where he's coming from, and it's not like Father makes noises like an animal either. So I went looking for him, hoping Inquisitor hadn't sent him away on a mission like Liger. If Liger had been home, all the squabbling would have been over in a second. He would have smacked some heads together, assigned someone to be in charge, and that would have been the end of it.

Turns out I didn't have to tell him what was going on, and I should have realized he would just know. Unless it's shielded, he hears every stray thought within a couple blocks of the building. His gut reaction was to let the "children" fight, but he conceded my point about how it would make us look if Father came or he had to send someone to restore order. So he shouted for everyone to "shut the hell up" and told them he was in charge until further notice. Then he assigned everyone duties, more or less what they had been before Inquisitor bailed on us except he told Inquisitor's old lackeys to clean up his apartment. Then he told everyone I was the new Interrogator, second to him in terms of leadership, and that was that.

I am not comfortable with this change. I don't feel qualified, and there's lots of siblings who are going to resent me because I'm not an elder and haven't remembered any of my past lives. I hope when Mercury gets in touch with his superiors, they send someone better qualified than me.

16 comments:

  1. Do you think he was trying to save his brother?

    If he's gone rogue where do you think he'd go.

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  2. That is the million dollar questions, isn't it? Why would he run and what would he gain by running but a few hours or days until Father finds him and decides his fate?

    I still think that darkling was manipulating him, probably worse than it did with me. Maybe it took him for a snack.

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  3. While I do not expect someone like the inquisitor to have much love left in him, is it that unbelievable he still cares about his brother?

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  4. It seems to me like you've been an attentive student, even when bored. You also have a strong drive to help people. Both of these factors suggest that you are better qualified than you give yourself credit for... Just be careful

    Also, I agree with Opal that it seem like he was acting out of care for his brother... It may seem irrational to run, but he was probably panicking and figured it was worth the risk

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  5. But it's not his brother. It can't be. They look to be the same age, and Inquisitor has been in the Family for over a hundred years. So that means the darkling in his brother would have been chewing on his soul for at least a century. There can't be much left of it if anything. Maybe it's convinced Inquisitor otherwise, but I can't see him being that stupid.

    I know this much about darklings... I asked Mercury. They're pure spirit and they only possess bodies to get at other spirits through violence. All the stories about vampires and were-things over the century, all the Brother's Grimm stories about witches who eat children, those are all based on darklings.

    And... and I can't help but be suspicious now of how he made me deal with Lisa, them being twins too. The whole cannibalism thing is very darkling, very Hansel and Gretel. I mean I have no doubt Lisa was Igigi, especially the things she did to Melissa as they were growing up, but there were other ways of dealing with her.

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  6. Well I don't know about all this Igigi, Darkling, stuff but if he was one I'm sure Kittykins would have noticed by now.

    If I was in his situation, and it was my brother, I definitely would have tried to save him, not even taking love into account.

    If the guy does have mind control it shouldn't have been that hard to manipulate inquisitors emotions.

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  7. Inquisitor's not the darkling, but that doesn't mean he's not being influenced by him. And like I said, he's not exactly sentimental. I'd sooner believe the darkling was an experiment than that he had any feelings for it or his brother.

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  8. You never know.

    I find it odd I'm the one standing up for the bastard. Risking your life for an experiment just doesn't make any sense to me though, even if you are a crazy psychopath. Plus he's had for a month now, so what exactly was going on all that time.

    I feel like there's a lot more to it than you expect. Of course maybe that's just cause I'm a paranoid little rabbit. Ha. Ha. I made a rabbit joke.

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  9. Well.... I wasn't going to say anything since we're getting along so well now, but yeah, I thought you standing up for him was kind odd too. lol And a rabbit joke? Are you really Opal, or is this one of her friends?

    I just don't know about Inquisitor. So much of this is just... off. It doesn't make any sense at all. That's why I figure the darkling was controlling him, and he wasn't even responsible for running. Chances are, I'll never know what's become of him and the darkling. If Father tracks him down, well, there's no reason for him to say. If he has someone else do it, rumors might get back to us, but that's about it.

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  10. Just because I don't agree with you and the people you associate with doesn't mean I shouldn't show concern and interest when two hellspawns are on the loose.

    Besides I don't like arguing, a debate on beliefs, sure, but your post about Melissa and Lisa had me seeing red. I don't even think you realize how horrifying it was to read. (but I digress)

    If he is under influence or something I'd watch your back. Didn't sound like he was very happy with you in the last post, he could come after you and it wouldn't be the first time now would it?

    I hope he did it to save his brother, because maybe he still has some humanity to him afterall.

    (I don't have anything against rabbits, it's just weird how I'm always getting compared to them. We really don't have anything in common...that and I dislike pet names.)

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  12. Crap I posted that twice. Ignore that.

    This is why I fail at seeming even mildly capable.

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  13. Duly ignored. lol It's ok. You're not the first; you won't be the last. Everyone's done it at some point.

    Well, rabbits are cute with their little bunny noses, but I prefer hedgehogs and Echidna if we're talking small mammals (or marsupials). hehe

    I don't know... if he just hadn't run. Father might have punished him, sure, but now I don't think he can expect anything but death, no matter WHY he ran.

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  14. Really? Call me crazy but I always pictured you as more of a tiger cub person.

    Well sure, death awaits every single person on earth. The question is, how far do we get before we die.

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  15. haha, well tigers are Big mammals, rabbits and hedgehogs are small. So far as big mammals go, it's tigers for me. :D

    Oh you can go pretty far when you've nothing to lose. Some people live more in a handful of months or years, knowing that the end is near, than others do in 80 years of life. It's not really a matter of living or dying. It's motivation that's important.

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  16. Well, until he's been disarmed, or killed, or whatever, watch your back.

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