Need Will in a Haystack

[Samantha McManus]

Sam makes her way through the corridors of the point, only mildly spooked by the fact that this time she doesn't have to sneak around. She makes her way into the Cerebra chamber in her uniform.

[Narrator]

The room was, in fact, still there -- as ominous and spooky as ever.

They probably should put in a window or something. A nice floral arrangement. A chaise lounge.

[Samantha McManus]

Arriving, it struck Samantha that she'd never actually initiated the thing before. The last time she got caught, and the headmistress started it for her.

While she certainly could wait for the Headmistress, urgency and curiosity formed a most unfortunate cocktail and resulted in her trying to make heads or tails of the console.

[Narrator]

While Cerebra definitely had some of the most complex algorithms and technology behind it, the console itself was pretty user-friendly. After all, the last time she had been down here, she had just walked right into the machine and it had started up, automatically.

Probably designed that way so there wasn't a lot of fidgiting and worrying in a crisis situation, with entering the room itself being the main security checkpoint.

[Samantha McManus]

"...nothing to it but to get in the tank," she sighs, heading over to take her seat.

[Narrator]

Again, the tank began filling up with the same, familiar liquid from before. Knowing what was coming probably helped, but the concept of being entirely submerged with no air was enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies.

Around the room, panels started to light up and whir into action, as Cerebra began to fire into high gear...

[Samantha McManus]

As this was only the second time she'd done it, Sam still couldn't quite shake a moment of near-panic before letting out her last breath and submerging herself, letting her mind reach out.

[Narrator]

The voices. So many voices. Maldon, especially, was brimming with minds. Dozens of them...no, hundreds, all swimming and active. The last time Sam had been down here, it had been nighttime, and the minds felt so different in the active light of day.

And then she was spreading out, and her field of vision grew wider and wider. It wasn't just the university, it was Maldon, and Essex, and England, and Great Britain and more and more and somanyandloudandamillionvoicesallyammeringinherheadatonce...

[Samantha McManus]

N-not again...

I can't let this beat us... no. Me. I can't let this beat me.

Will. Focus on Will. You know how Will feels. You know what Will's done for you. Focus on that.

[Narrator]

Sam's mind spread out, looking for something somewhat familiar. Will's particular brand of mental instability was as distinctive as a fingerprint, so if she could just...cut through the noise, somehow...

There was a heck of a lot of noise, though. It wasn't like looking for a needle in a haystack, it was like looking for a particular needle in a stack of needles.

[Samantha McManus]

In the tank her hair goes dark as she convulses slightly, starting to fitfully filter through what she can sense.

[Narrator]

The world opened up before her.

A bar fight in the alley behind a pub in Maldon. Two kids playing hooky from school out in Tillingham. Someone falling asleep in history class in a high school in Great Wigborough. A man having a heart attack in Thaxted. Two lovers in Dover. A divorce in Corby. A perfectly-aimed header on a pitch in Bristol. A sudoku solved in Durham.

Despair in Brighton. Hatred in Calais. A murder in Bruges. Bliss in Leeds. Serenity in Glasgow. A proposal in Gothenburg.

Shame. Satisfaction. Disgust. Submission. Remorse. Joy.

All the little lives and their own, unique stories flooding her thoughts, practically clambering over themselves to make themselves heard. Friends and family, both new and long-forgotten, standing out like crests on a wave, before plunging back into the chaos. Tereza getting checked out by Dr. McCoy. Nailah showing off in the gym. Kat, out for a drive. All flashed to the top of the pile, and Sam could almost hold them there, tantalizingly close to the surface, before they spun out back into the chaos below.

And still she looked, and still she sorted, and still her prey eluded her.

[Samantha McManus]

No, not... not there. Not them. Close, but...

Locks of white flit through her hair as she senses people she cares about, only to be swallowed by the black again as she re-centers.

[Narrator]

Then, little by little, things begin to stick to the surface. None of them Will, but all of them feeling familiar somehow. Disturbingly so as she's drawn to the impressions that are full of blood and sweat. Desperate determination, anger and fear channeled into violence. The small flashes, like a spurned lover lashing out, catch fire like a tiny ember on a tapestry, spreading out. Hooligans clashing in Edinborough, a demonstration turned violent in Paris, a Warlord riling up his men in Uganda. Little by little the world of overwhelming chaos crystallizes into war-torn focus. Huge islands of metal pushing through the Atlantic, carrying hundreds of minds and a slumbering purpose of war, waiting to be called on. And every once in a while, here and there, the flames surge as minds call out as if they're responding to the invisible presence sweeping over them. Calls for help, pleas for mercy, conviction and resilience, all driven by the same little spark at the core of it. Some misguided, some clouded by hate, others more noble but struggling to reconcile the polarity of compassion and martial force. All of them driven, reaching out to something they don't even know is missing. Yearning. Calling out for something. For guidance. For a greater purpose. For Her.

[Samantha McManus]

But I can't... I'm not...

...but I could be...

Not now...

The British Isles. He couldn't have gotten further than that...

[Narrator]

It's hard to focus on just the Isles. They're faint, so much quieter than other places that tear at the edge of her perception, begging for attention, demanding it. The battles here are so subdued in comparison, so far from their pure essence. Pale shadows of what they could be. Grey on grey while other places at least smolder with the occasional streak of color.

[Samantha McManus]

She grits her teeth at the distraction that's hard to ignore.

I could be more to them...

He needs me. He could be in trouble.

He didn't ask for help...

...he didn't need to.

[Ashlie Minamida]

The voices are getting louder, more insistent. They're calling out for something they cannot place into words, a yearning for meaning, a purpose, a sense to the violence and bloodshed. Demanding it. Demanding an answer from the ineffable presence being amplified by circuits and machines that broadcast it into the void.

Inside the domed chamber Ashlie is standing, a frown on her face as she watches the readouts on the console slowly oscillate from green, to orange, to red as warnings begin scrolling down on the screen. She rapidly taps a series of commands, adjusting shielding and diverting power into circuits and buffers. Mental feedback, psi-wave integrity, amplification levels. She can micromanage the machine, make sure it runs as efficiently as possible, but there's little she can do to actually help Sam short of shutting it down and put Sam's mental well-being at risk from the sudden disconnect. Any machine would have forced itself to stop before this point, but in the end the center of this machine is the red-head barely visible floating in the conductive liquid. As she watches, feathers sprout from her shape as it's slowly losing definition and despite all the data running through the machine cradling Sam, Ashlie is not one step closer to understanding what is going on at it's core. A black box that somehow always seems to defy it's own limits and specifications.

[Samantha McManus]

"You're seen. You're heard. I witness you..." echoes out from her as her hair goes stark white for a moment before being swallowed by the red again.

...but I need...

...my champion.

[Narrator]

A champion may have been needed, but none were readily available. Samantha didn't have a champion, did she? Nothing quite like that, anyway...


...That being said, there were some....strong signals out there. Something that separated them from the rest. Something that seemed almost familiar, in some tantalizing way in the back of her head--like a sense of deja vu.

One such example -- perhaps the strongest -- was in downtown London.

[Samantha McManus]

She rushed along, many people in London getting a distinct impression of ravens descending where they could see none. She manifested strongest at the Tower of London. A place of power for her, for where else would ravens reside? The murder descending from the heights, blasting through streets and alleys for downtown.

[Narrator]

Through the trendy shops, down windy 18th century roads, past buildings as old as time itself, Sam's astral presence flew, homing in on the signal like a moth drawn to a flame.

It seemed to be coming mostly from an unassuming butcher's shop, where a smiling older man behind the counter was wrapping up cuts and joints for his local clientele. His long blond hair was done up in a ponytail, presumably to keep it out of the way of things, and he joked and needled with a kindly old lady as they picked out the trimmings for a fine feast.

The man was just heaping with muscle, threatening the structural integrity of his clean white shirt and apron. He also, to those who could sense it, radiated ~power~, very much in contrast to his outward, smiling appearance.

[Samantha McManus]

The flock makes broad circles of the butcher shop and the man, puzzling over what seems to make him so special.

[Narrator]

It was hard to put a finger on it, specifically. It wasn't really a sensation Sam had experience with, per se, but...she couldn't shake the feeling that this one was marked. And, strangely, the oddest sensation that he was marked not for Her -- sort of the opposite feeling she had gotten from the box in Will's head.

It would be quite unsettling, especially compared to his jovial exterior.

[Samantha McManus]

It's like picking at a scab. Something is wrong with this man and Sam can't quite ignore it. The flock crowds around him closer, and even if he isn't particularly psychically sensitive he might notice when a few actual crows and ravens in the area get caught up in the moment and start to perch outside his shop.

[Narrator]

The man looked up, and gave an almost unnoticeable half-frown, before returning to talk to his customers. It would have slipped by most people without them noticing.

Of course, from a raven's-eye-view, it felt more like a stare down. Most people don't look ravens straight in the eye! Especially with not a thinly-veiled veneer of disgust, even for a moment.

[Samantha McManus]

There's something in Sam that doesn't want to back down from a challenge, even if this man might know nothing about Will.

The ravens and crows, real and imagined, aren't going anywhere.

[Narrator]

The man sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Excuse me for just a moment," he said, taking a broom and heading for the door.

He swung it at the real crows -- the metaphysical ones less likely to be effected by the bristles.

"Scram! No scraps for you, you thieving magpies. Go peck out someone's eyeballs, why don't you."

He was...surprisingly good at swinging that broom around.

[Samantha McManus]

Swatting the real crows seems to snap them out of the cosmic peer pressure they're experiencing, and they depart for safer areas.

The less physical ones are less deterred.

"Who are you?" a voice that isn't really there demands, seeming to come from all sides.

[Roland Sackville]

The man looked around again, frowning.

"Whoever you are, wherever you are, you are not welcome here," he said, sotto voice. "Leave in peace."

[Samantha McManus]

"I can't leave until I find him. I was drawn here. why?"

[Roland Sackville]

"Best meats in town, but you'll get no offerings from me. Leave us be."

[Samantha McManus]

From what the Headmistress can tell, Sam has focused the machine rather intently on a butcher's shop in downtown London.

Which is an odd thing to fixate on, to say the least. Though London being London, it's probably not hard for her to get an 'eye' on it, so to speak.

"I don't want offerings, I just want him. You're not answering me..."

[Roland Sackville]

"Nor do I intend to. Good day," the man said, turning around to walk back indoors.

[Ashlie Minamida]

With the readings calming down a little bit Ashlie spares some processing time to look into what Sam is doing specifically. Cerebra being what is is doesn't provide specific coordinates, but it does offer areas of increased activity and with every moment Sam focuses it narrows down from neighborhood to several city blocks to a couple of streets, at which point Ashlie once again tries to gain access to London's extensive security camera net, facial recognition algorithm at the ready to comb through live footage from the numerous cameras.

[Narrator]

Hacking into the security camera grid is, of course, second nature for Ashlie.

The face of the crazyman chasing away the birds in front of his butcher's shop wasn't too hard to find, and he had a driver's license, making it that much easier -- it was a Roland Sackville, third-generation owner of the Hole in the Wall butcher's shop -- a trusted and respected local business, with a five-star rating on Yelp!

[Ashlie Minamida]

With a confirmed ID, the next step was significantly easier, even if she's not sure why Sam is focusing on the man. She runs him through any database she can find. Criminal background, ancestry, bank accounts, Facebook. The full digital footprint of the 21st century.

[Narrator]

The man had no social media presence -- how was he supposed to help his business grow without a social media presence? Madness.

Sackville's history was clean, and fairly well documented. No criminal background, a passport, personal and corporate accounts. Too clean, really -- records usually went missing somewhere along the line, or paperwork snafus delayed things or things of that nature. There weren't any irregularities here, though, which is almost an irregularity in and of itself.

[Samantha McManus]

"Damn it, don't you walk away from me! You're not nobody."

"Someone who's nobody wouldn't talk to... talk to..."

"...the girl who isn't there."

[Roland Sackville]

"We're all somebody. That's what you lot never understood. And that is why you lose," the man said, returning to the interior of his shop.

"Bloody crows will be the death of us," he joked to his customers.