Near the apartment currently serving as a comfortable, if dull, prison suite for Jaclyn Pierrot and Morgan Freeman, a group of demonstrators has gathered in the four-car parking lot of a corner bodega.
Six penitents have covered themselves with gray sheets, and they undulate in alternating patterns while kneeling in two side by side lines. They hum and whisper indecipherable syllables as they move slightly out of rhythm with one another, but customers give them nary a passing glance as they go about their days.
One observer, a very large man in a ringmaster’s jacket, peers at them from across the street with some bemused curiosity before moving on toward his destination.
Montague ascends the stoop and presses the buzzer, surprised when the door swings open almost immediately. Tank reaches out to grasp him by the shoulder and drag him bodily inside.
Despite the rough invitation, the Showman doesn’t miss the look on the larger man’s face--a mixture of wary annoyance–as he glances toward the bodega.
Inside, Montague brushes himself off while fixing the guard with a haughty expression. For his part, Tank crosses his arms expectantly.
Montague: She’s not with me, I’ve told you.
The Doctor-Professor raises his hands, palms out.
Montague: I haven’t seen her since a couple days after Infinity.
Without a word, Tank dismisses him by resuming his post near the door and twitching the curtain to the side to once again study the be-sheeted congregation. With a sigh, Monty excuses himself to head up to the apartment.
He’s greeted by utter chaos when he enters. Every stick of furniture has been overturned, every drawer removed and dumped. Cabinet doors stand open, propped by their former contents now stacked on the floors before them. Every closet has been emptied of clothing, the walls inside showing the dings and dents of having been roughly poked and prodded.
In the kitchen, Trevor is pulling the refrigerator away from the wall with one arm, leaning around to look behind it. Morgan is on a stepladder, pressing an exploratory hand upward against the ceiling for unseen, moveable panels.
When the owner of the apartment spies Cervantes contemplating him, he huffs and begins to climb down. Morgan pauses on the floor and sits on the bottom step so he can roll up his pant leg and scratch around his ankle monitor.
Morgan: It would be in all of our best interests if you convinced her to come back.
Monty allows his eyes to roll slowly upward.
Montague: I keep telling you that I don’t know where she is. Besides, you’re the one tasked with keeping tabs on her.
Morgan: Right, but you’re the one who keeps coming up with ways for her to defy her court orders.
Montague: Listen, Jacky is the ideas person. I’m just following her lead.
Morgan: Then it follows that you'd at least have some idea what her plans were this week.
Montague acknowledges him with an acquiescent nod.
Montague: And yet, the fact remains. I was not made privy to Jacky's itinerary this week.
Giving up, Morgan slumps.
Morgan: As if the 3 AM light show, the weird dancing ghosts, and the vandalized courtyard weren't enough, now we've misplaced our ward. It's no fun being trapped in your own home when the whole neighborhood is going to hell.
Almost absently, Monty leans over to gaze out of the window over the kitchen sink which has an excellent view of the courtyard. What he sees there in the grass from this height freezes all coherent thought for a full second.
⦽⭄⥀⤯Ỏ
Montague: Morgan, that early morning light show… was it the same night the courtyard was vandalized?
Morgan: Why, yes. How did you know?
The Doctor-Professor spins around with a twirl of his jacket and heads for the door.
Montague: I know where Jacky is.
Montague: Oh, very clever…
It’s intriguing, really. When the AstroCreeps go the distance to reveal how far the scales are tipped in our favor, the establishment feels compelled to remind us of the vulnerabilities they perceive in us.
Who are you trying to convince, really?
This transparent first challenge on my way to Ever Escalating Endangerment couldn’t be more obvious.
Centurion is the celebrated crusader who turned the tables in UGWC and not only deposed the entrenched tyrant Hastings, but repelled a second encounter with UGWC’s greatest embarrassment. Now that the regrettable landscape shaped in the Lord of Pain’s image has been transformed, it should be the beginning of a new era of opportunity and respectability in the company, right?
How unfortunate for the latest World Champion that his first real challenger should be someone who has had his number on more occasions than anyone else in the company. The celebrated veteran thought his crusade was finished when he put Hastings down for good at Infinity. He failed to anticipate his next challenger, someone unorthodox enough to orchestrate turning the Global Challenge inside out. Centurion failed to foresee the Doctor-Professor.
Now the newly-appointed Creative Director must scramble to make sure his term isn’t devastated by the AstroCreeps so early into his tenure. That Tony Savage fellow took the Showman to his absolute limit in a way that Centurion could never dream of doing–yes, let’s toss that wrench into the works and cripple his momentum before the Creeps can Escalate the Endangerment of the coveted stasis any further.
Jet Somers played his ace far too early.
History has proven that on a long enough timeline, fortune favors the Creeps. We don’t panic, we don’t stew, and we don’t stumble for long. Sure, Centurion stacked up a few early, dominating wins over me. As our paths continued to cross over and over throughout the last two years, though, the needle started to slip further and further toward my side of the dial and stayed there.
I’ve only met Tony one on one once, and he managed to scratch and claw his way to victory over me. The more often we find ourselves across the ring from each other, though, the closer we get to the scales tipping in my favor. Centurion, Sebastian Everett-Bryce – pretty much anyone who has the misfortune of drawing my name over and over eventually sees the balance tip in my favor until I become an insurmountable challenge. Keep putting Tony in front of me, and before long I’ll be a thorn in his side as well.
Instead of dropping Tony on me the Synergy before I remind Centurion why he decided I’m not the AstroCreep he prefers to tangle with, I’ve been given weeks to recalculate and recover. As it stands, the defending Chaos Champion is quite possibly the toughest challenge I could have been tasked with, and I’ve been granted the opportunity to deal with it, learn from it, and add the experience to my considerable arsenal nearly a month before I rock the industry by becoming the first AstroCreep to profane your World Championship.
This was a foolish gambit. Even if you put Tony or Centurion before me again on the path to Ever Escalating Endangerment, I’ll be that much wiser thanks to this careless booking. This is a learning opportunity, a chance to bolster my attack strategy.
Perhaps I should be grateful that Jet has unintentionally sealed the fate of this organization by arming the AstroCreeps with all the tools they need to continue rewriting its structure, but honestly we thrive more with adversity. Look at how we dominated the Global Challenge despite accepting huge losses during the eleventh hour.
Stop making it so easy for us…