(Message) A Sign in the Crowd

[Yumyumcrow]

Augury is a funny thing. For some, its about charts and complex calculations; for others its understanding nature: the flight of birds and the cycle of the seasons; for the Acanthus, it is simply knowing. Its visceral. Its bodily. Tuesday knows in her gut, in her very bones that the mystery man is no threat. That he should be left alone, to find his own way in the world.

He vanishes at last into the crowd. Avis' voice, carefully neutral, calls the Acanthus from her reveries.

[Star]

"Mmmmmmmm."

Bluish eyes watched the Weirdo wander off. Not liking it. At all. The Knowing. Mostly? Who they were. Who vetted this guy? It's a loose end, and Smiley's People don't like loose ends. But that was then and this is now and maybe it's just really not liking someone running up on his girls without Shields.

"Okay."

One more glance at the thumb drive, and back to the van.

...

Even thought it's been a couple of years, it's still nice to pull up to the theatre and find out it hasn't been broken into. It's a short drive, but he manages to let a handful of words like angels and folders and avstar and shopping slip out under his breath.

Jack's got a laptop. He uploads pictures for work to it, and sometimes slaps a snazzy digital filter on the image. Right before he yells about Photoshop and re-uploads the originals again and swears he'll never play with digital filters again. Beginner that he is? It's got enough factory bloatware still installed to take a few minutes to boot. Minutes, yo.

But he knows how to turn off the WiFi.

"I'm gonna be mad if it's just that guy's selfies with pigeons and statues."

Proclamation made, he pops the drive in for a look-see.

[Tuesday]

Hazels watch the mystery dude disappear into the crowd, a bone deep certainty kept her from calling out to the man. Glancing at her Cabal mates she nods, and follows along after them back into the van. Shopping could be done anytime.

The drive home had been weird. Since. Well. Yeah. Apparently, from her sleuthing. Consisting of Star's mumbles, he didn't know him and Avis were couple ship named. Which was weird. Since every couple seemed to be named mashed together now-a-days. But the real question was why the hell did any of this have to do with folders?

Waiting for Star to get his laptop, then waiting for it to, you know, do it's thang made Tuesday remember that they hadn't gotten Greek. Which sucked. Since yummy. After they figure out what the hell the thumb drive was about, they totally needed to get Greek. Since, you know, yummy.

"You know what? I got a feeling that it'll be way more interesting then selfies."

[Avis]

"I want to meet this Angel," Avis added, wrapping an arm around each of her Cabal mate's shoulders as they crowded around the computer.

"Who knows, maybe we're about to meet Ermac's soulmate."

It was a lame joke, but she hoped it'd get Star to crack a smile. She didn't like seeing him with all the cheer suctioned out and an injection of anxiety infused frustration added in its place.

[Yumyumcrow]

The USB is almost empty.

There was a suspicious audio file, its name a long string of code and gibberish.

There were two pictures: the first was of the Stirling Hotel in downtown; the second was of a plush looking bar, all brass and dark wood and red leather. Hanging behind the posed barman was an ornamental shield with a prominently displayed axe - the object looked out of place, yet managed to gel with the overall theme of the bar. Next to the shield was a framed picture of Old Faithful.

I'll give you a chance to respond, the creative juices are not up to scratch tonight

[Star]

"Ermac."

Avis wins. A smile slips out. Soul mate? That was the guy one hundred percent oblivious to Nous dialing down her blouse buttons to get his attention. And, wow, unbuttoning blouses and peek-a-boo cleavage wasn't what the hamster wheel needed.

"I'd totally have paid good money to see him and Emrys punch it out."

Emrys. Yep. There you go. Better than a cold shower.

"Soooo... I guess that's the bar at Sterling?" He shifted, settling into their... three-way... hug crowding... thing. "Bartender, coat-of-arms? And a geyser. Is this who sent him? Or something else. I wonder if the Sterling has a crest."

Random words are random, just thinking out loud.

"Okay and so this gobbledygook looks like an MP3. Maybe this is our Mission message?"

A long finger slid over the trackpad, sliding the icon over the file and double-clicking to play it.

[Yumyumcrow]

The audio file plays:

At first, silence. Then static. Then the sound of wind and rain pounding and howling and gargling through a poor quality mic. On an open hillside. Maybe theres a storm for surely there is a crack of thunder in the background.

"The Breastplate of the Right Eye must not fall to the Hand of Yul." Now was that a child speaking, their high pitched voice accentuated over the recording mic, or was it a young woman. A woman's laughter, surely.

"The Hand reaches out to the gift freely given." Was the speaker a native English speaker? The words were too precise, each word a separate entity strung together with no inflection. Or was that editing.

"<<Date / Time>>" Now that was a rip from an emotionless automated system. Ding dong. There was even a bell sound to accompany it.

Then back to the stormy hillside.

"Deny the Hand. Change the wingbeat of the butterfly." Now, was that a chant. Definitely a choir or a group, singing. In Atlantean.*

Silence.

The audio file ends with a poor quality copy of Still by Alanis Morissette.^

*Tuesday is an Apostate. Unless she possesses the requisite merits, all she hears of that section is very beautiful glossolalia

^I'm not kidding. Its a terrible copy.

And the date is sometime at the end of January. The time given is midnight.

[Tuesday]

"Ermac?" Contrary to how Star utters the name, Tuesday's rasp is full of confusion. Since the unicorn didn't know that name.

The pics get a raised eyebrow. "Are these better or worse then selfies?"

And Star gets a wry smirk and "As long as it doesn't explode when we finish listening to it."

The sound file get s shaken head, since. Still Not Making Sense.

"Least someone can enunciate." She tries to shrug under Avis' arms, "And you know. That date that's in here. Having a date when dealing with mysterious angel flash drives is waaay better then dealing with it without one."

Then, "Oh. That's." looking between her cabal mates, "Something. How many voices is that?" How many Awakened are we gonna be dealing with?

"Um." when the poor copy of Still gets going. "Is that supposed to be a song?"

Tuesday does have High Speech

[Avis]

Avis took a moment to glance at Tuesday, a small smirk on her lips.

"What, you haven't bought into the messiah of the 90s?" she asked, unable to avoid poking fun at the music icon.

"Either way, though," she continued, deciding to get things back on track, "I'm pretty fucking confused about all this. Some chick finds an impressionable guy and makes him hallucinate shit just so he'll deliver this to us. Specifically to us, as this chick randomly knows things about us that, like, only 5 other people might know. Then, to top it off, the message is a recording of some cult shit. Maybe seers, maybe not, but either way it's clearly some sort of cult. What the fuck do you think there game plan is? Use us as a monkey wrench to throw into some ritual?"

[Star]

"Yeah, ummm. Ermac was this Eff Cee guy. Kinda like, you know. Typical computers and robots stuff. Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto. But nice. Personable."

Just to clarify. Because, you know. Some of Those People aren't. Personable. Those People as in Robot people, not Eff Cee people. Although, really...

Alanis.

"Reminds me of one of those, you know. Publicity things. Like a flash-mob. Or 'found footage' cinema. Which is, ewww. I mean. Maybe it's not all bad but ever since Blair Witch with that chick constantly crying and snot running down her whole face..."

Snot, yo. Snot. A snicker slips out when Avis starts. Some chick finds an impressionable guy and makes him hallucinate shit... Sounds like a Mastigos romance.

A Soul to dig the hole much deeper.

"Yeah. So. I'm not wild about this either. Ditto on the mysterious and personal info." Fingers spun the mouse over to the file to see if there was any File Creation info on it. "But, okay. Let's say maybe it's an ex-caballero reaching out? We've had a few bounce. So, yeah. Really, it's a question of, are we gonna."

Vee Tee can be a pretty good monkey wrench. Unless you're a Banisher fraternity conspiracy.

And were you thinking of me when you fucked her?

"Tuuuuueeeesday." The mop turns to the Acanthus. "Any way to do some, uh, Fate stuff? See if, like, if we do this, if it helps lions or tigers or bears? Or if it helps the Consilium or Pentacle?"