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thejusticelounge2012-08-06 11:09 am
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2012-08-06 11:09 am
au meme (kate)
“You ever seen Escape from LA?” Kyle asks Kate. They’re perched on the roof of Warriors; out past the moat (hey, green light bulldozer) they dug weeks ago, the undead are making the usual moaning and scratching noises. It’s something that, surprisingly, you learn to tune out. She picks one off with her staff, as it tries to float across the moat, and Kyle constructs a giant pooper scooper to dump it in the ocean. “This is so Escape from LA.”
“No,” says Kate, her tone implying a roll of the eyes that isn’t visible behind her mask. “But even so, that wasn’t zombies, ese. That was…I don’t know, mutants or whatever shit John Carpenter could dig out of his brain for a sequel.”
This is really where their conversation has ended up, these days, in banal pop culture references barely worthy of a mediocre podcast. It’s easier than talking about what’s really happening, because Kyle withdraws and then Kate’s pretty sure she’ll snap.
She’s hoping to get to Star City soon (Ollie, much to Mia’s chagrin, has mastered the art of taming messenger pigeons), once Obsidian comes through on the armored car deal, but she can’t bring herself to leave Kyle by himself. There are pockets of other survivors in LA, yeah—most of them capes or watched over by them, some just really fucking resourceful—but she knows what Kyle will end up doing.
He’s waiting for Hal. Never mind that Hal might show up in Star City any day now, and Ollie would totally send his fastest pigeon (Kate has been trying not to mentally die at this image for a while now). Doesn’t matter.
“No, hermana, that was Total Recall,” Kyle says, with ‘duh’ entirely audible in his tone. “This is totally like it, with the city cut off from the re…”
He pauses and looks down at his ring, then back up at the sky. After a moment or two of trying to get words out of him, Kate can finally see what he’s freaking out about—a bright green light in the upper atmosphere. As it comes closer, plummeting to Earth, she can make out that it’s the shape of…a lantern, just before it lands in the ocean a hundred or so yards away. The impact causes a wave that floods most of the beach outside, washing the zombies out to the ocean.
Kate stares as a crowd of Green Lanterns (Guy she recognizes, and a few from pictures and stories, but the rest…) follow the remaining trail of light to ground.
“Hi sweetheart,” Hal Jordan says to Kyle. “Hi, Kate. I brought the cavalry.”
Kyle basically gibbers. Kate, though she can see where he’s coming from—hell, all her mind can say is bueno, eso pasó—breaks into a grin, just as Guy asks, “Kyle, what did you DO to the place?
“Though you know,” he adds, looking at the zombies, now waterlogged and dragging outside the flooded garden, “I kinda like the landscaping.”
Kate Spencer had headed north from her home outside the ruins of Los Angeles because she couldn’t take it anymore. Pretty much the sad tale of thousands of mid-life crises, though only some of those were after the end of the world.
The solitary life, being the suburbs’ supplier of material goodies, the only person in the area who had the cojones to venture into Beverly Hills, into downtown these days. It was no life for someone who’d spent her days fighting very different battles, and now, well. This time, the gangs (did it matter which one?) caught Dylan for trespassing, did the usual thing—cut his hamstrings, stabbed him and left him to bleed out for the vultures, knowing Kate couldn’t carry him back and move fast enough.
What good were clothes, were bottles of wine, were musical instruments, all the things that couldn’t be made anymore, no matter how long people’d make them last? Were they worth a friend, a talented assistant?
It was Kate believing that her services were worth more than that that had led Peter to leave her over a year before. He’d taken Ramsey north somewhere (god knew where, and it wasn’t like she could call them or track them via GPS; though maybe the satellites still worked, maybe there were still people or skeletons on the ISS). It was a sign of how strong she wasn’t, she thought, the fact that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to leave LA.
She wanted to see Ramsey again, she realized. Even though he could have been dead (wouldn’t she have felt it, her little boy?), could be anywhere on the planet that was accessible without a motor, and the chances of her finding him were remote at best. The odds were better out in the world, though, than in the still shattered remains of Los Angeles. Peter was never coming back.
She’d started on a bicycle, then found that she couldn’t move fast enough on it for the amount of energy she was expending, and then the chain broke anyway, in the middle of nowhere. Going on foot was an option, for a while, until she’d run into some unfortunate bastards who thought a woman on her own was an easy target, especially when justice was allegedly a thing of the past. Little did they know.
She followed Highway 99 until she found some loose horses, now half-wild, between Bakersfield and Fresno. A city girl, she’d never learned to ride, never thought she could break a fucking horse, for fuck’s sake. But she was determined, she was strong, and she knew how to read a goddamn book, and these small-town libraries still had loads, thankfully hadn’t fully gone to the land of Kindles before the crash, likely because of money.
What she couldn’t steal, she traded for, and she knew how to fall without hurting herself too badly. It really was only a matter of time.
Like it was only a matter of time before she heard stories of the ranch outside Star City. As close as you got to good, these days, they said, because apparently old money still talked, if that old money had been pretty well invested just as things were going to shit. Arrow Farm—according to her sources, which were as reliable as you got these days—would happily trade left and right with decent people, grew crops of everything from carrots to Chardonnay to cannabis, and, true to name, was guarded by an army of elite archers. They took no shit from anyone who was playing at exploitation, at the variety of violent and disgusting things that passed for some of humanity now that the veneer of civilization was worn off.
Kate didn’t give a shit about veggies or wine or pot, but ranged weaponry? That was a skill she could use, and she was willing to put in hard work for her keep, more than that.
By the time she made it north of the Bay, had seen what the road had to offer a brown woman on her own…maybe, maybe, she needed a break. For a season or two. Maybe.
She hadn’t really anticipated Oliver Queen. But, to Kate’s credit, he wasn’t exactly the kind of person for whom one ever could.
“No,” says Kate, her tone implying a roll of the eyes that isn’t visible behind her mask. “But even so, that wasn’t zombies, ese. That was…I don’t know, mutants or whatever shit John Carpenter could dig out of his brain for a sequel.”
This is really where their conversation has ended up, these days, in banal pop culture references barely worthy of a mediocre podcast. It’s easier than talking about what’s really happening, because Kyle withdraws and then Kate’s pretty sure she’ll snap.
She’s hoping to get to Star City soon (Ollie, much to Mia’s chagrin, has mastered the art of taming messenger pigeons), once Obsidian comes through on the armored car deal, but she can’t bring herself to leave Kyle by himself. There are pockets of other survivors in LA, yeah—most of them capes or watched over by them, some just really fucking resourceful—but she knows what Kyle will end up doing.
He’s waiting for Hal. Never mind that Hal might show up in Star City any day now, and Ollie would totally send his fastest pigeon (Kate has been trying not to mentally die at this image for a while now). Doesn’t matter.
“No, hermana, that was Total Recall,” Kyle says, with ‘duh’ entirely audible in his tone. “This is totally like it, with the city cut off from the re…”
He pauses and looks down at his ring, then back up at the sky. After a moment or two of trying to get words out of him, Kate can finally see what he’s freaking out about—a bright green light in the upper atmosphere. As it comes closer, plummeting to Earth, she can make out that it’s the shape of…a lantern, just before it lands in the ocean a hundred or so yards away. The impact causes a wave that floods most of the beach outside, washing the zombies out to the ocean.
Kate stares as a crowd of Green Lanterns (Guy she recognizes, and a few from pictures and stories, but the rest…) follow the remaining trail of light to ground.
“Hi sweetheart,” Hal Jordan says to Kyle. “Hi, Kate. I brought the cavalry.”
Kyle basically gibbers. Kate, though she can see where he’s coming from—hell, all her mind can say is bueno, eso pasó—breaks into a grin, just as Guy asks, “Kyle, what did you DO to the place?
“Though you know,” he adds, looking at the zombies, now waterlogged and dragging outside the flooded garden, “I kinda like the landscaping.”
Kate Spencer had headed north from her home outside the ruins of Los Angeles because she couldn’t take it anymore. Pretty much the sad tale of thousands of mid-life crises, though only some of those were after the end of the world.
The solitary life, being the suburbs’ supplier of material goodies, the only person in the area who had the cojones to venture into Beverly Hills, into downtown these days. It was no life for someone who’d spent her days fighting very different battles, and now, well. This time, the gangs (did it matter which one?) caught Dylan for trespassing, did the usual thing—cut his hamstrings, stabbed him and left him to bleed out for the vultures, knowing Kate couldn’t carry him back and move fast enough.
What good were clothes, were bottles of wine, were musical instruments, all the things that couldn’t be made anymore, no matter how long people’d make them last? Were they worth a friend, a talented assistant?
It was Kate believing that her services were worth more than that that had led Peter to leave her over a year before. He’d taken Ramsey north somewhere (god knew where, and it wasn’t like she could call them or track them via GPS; though maybe the satellites still worked, maybe there were still people or skeletons on the ISS). It was a sign of how strong she wasn’t, she thought, the fact that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to leave LA.
She wanted to see Ramsey again, she realized. Even though he could have been dead (wouldn’t she have felt it, her little boy?), could be anywhere on the planet that was accessible without a motor, and the chances of her finding him were remote at best. The odds were better out in the world, though, than in the still shattered remains of Los Angeles. Peter was never coming back.
She’d started on a bicycle, then found that she couldn’t move fast enough on it for the amount of energy she was expending, and then the chain broke anyway, in the middle of nowhere. Going on foot was an option, for a while, until she’d run into some unfortunate bastards who thought a woman on her own was an easy target, especially when justice was allegedly a thing of the past. Little did they know.
She followed Highway 99 until she found some loose horses, now half-wild, between Bakersfield and Fresno. A city girl, she’d never learned to ride, never thought she could break a fucking horse, for fuck’s sake. But she was determined, she was strong, and she knew how to read a goddamn book, and these small-town libraries still had loads, thankfully hadn’t fully gone to the land of Kindles before the crash, likely because of money.
What she couldn’t steal, she traded for, and she knew how to fall without hurting herself too badly. It really was only a matter of time.
Like it was only a matter of time before she heard stories of the ranch outside Star City. As close as you got to good, these days, they said, because apparently old money still talked, if that old money had been pretty well invested just as things were going to shit. Arrow Farm—according to her sources, which were as reliable as you got these days—would happily trade left and right with decent people, grew crops of everything from carrots to Chardonnay to cannabis, and, true to name, was guarded by an army of elite archers. They took no shit from anyone who was playing at exploitation, at the variety of violent and disgusting things that passed for some of humanity now that the veneer of civilization was worn off.
Kate didn’t give a shit about veggies or wine or pot, but ranged weaponry? That was a skill she could use, and she was willing to put in hard work for her keep, more than that.
By the time she made it north of the Bay, had seen what the road had to offer a brown woman on her own…maybe, maybe, she needed a break. For a season or two. Maybe.
She hadn’t really anticipated Oliver Queen. But, to Kate’s credit, he wasn’t exactly the kind of person for whom one ever could.