NCPU#6 Snippets
A few little clips of what I’m working on right now. To kind of get the vibe of it. Obviously these are early edits, so they might change.
They worked out of a ranch house in an old suburban neighborhood that the Foundation had bought from long-dead elderly owners sometime in the 1980s. While some changes and upgrades had been made over the years, the house still retained a lot of its former looks. Charts of demons hung on the wall beside embroidered blessings and a list of old fashioned poisons and their antidotes hung beside a First Communion certificate for someone named Brendon that was dated 1967. Two couches were crammed into the living room, where most of the space was taken by a small bank of terrible computers. Beyond that was a small dining room, taken up entirely by a large table covered in weapons and other supplies. James’s office was off of that, as was the small foyer to the back exit of the house. James looped through these two rooms, dusting and scrubbing as he circled toward the kitchen.
“How’s it going?” he said smoothly, looking at all three of them in turn.
Jessamyn looked at him cooly and the cop looked over at the device in Rosa’s hand. “Can I help you all with something?”
“We’re with the Foundation,” James said.
He’d hoped that would be enough to get them off their case, especially since they’d been sent down here. But the cop just raised an eyebrow. “What Foundation?”
This was new. “They didn’t tell you?” Rosa asked.
The cop shook his head. “We don’t have anything about a Foundation doing work down here today,” he said. “And you know you’re not allowed in those tunnels. Common sense, guys.”
“It’s for work,” James said. “They didn’t contact you at all? Could they have gone to someone else?”
“No,” the cop said, some of the easiness gone from his voice. “Take your…whatever that is, and get on out of here.”
“It’s just a camera,” Rosa somewhat lied.
“Doesn’t matter, you’re making people nervous,” the cop said. “Get moving.”
Was this how it happened with Robin? Maybe he’d had a life and friends and an existence outside of the Foundation at one point. And his solitude hadn’t been a sudden thing. All those things had all been chipped away bit by bit until all that was left was a painfully lonely man who couldn’t connect with other people and was taken advantage of by those above him. And he went along with it because if he didn’t, then who was he?
“Sorry,” James said again, meaning it. “I was being stupid, I guess I thought we were like, friends or something. I really should have known…sorry.”
