reverielogs | i hear the voices getting louder

Entry tags:

i hear the voices getting louder

» WHO? takeshi kovacs + ota
» WHEN? throughout the weekend and next week
» WHERE? chapel, fitness area, bar, and various others
» WHAT? causing trouble
» WARNINGS? language but nothing else as of yet

001. chapel

[ he's not here to pray.

he's not here to do anything but sit in the quiet and think. it's been a few weeks since the arrival of the backpack (which sits on the bench beside him) and he'd thought, for a few hours, that maybe more things would arrive. maybe a gun or an oni or fuck, he'd take ortega herself showing up. but nothing else familiar arrives.

he's even started seeing less of quell. she's still there when he sleeps but the glimpses of her he used to catch from the corner of his eyes are happening less and less. he's not sure if that means his fragged mind is healing or getting worse.

maybe it seems she's alive somewhere. yeah right, what a fucking miracle that would be. he'd seen her explode and he'd probably walked on the ashes that had been her body as he'd tried to get off harlan's world.

while he's alone, he reads a few of the quotes off the wall and then reaches into the backpack to physically throw garbage at the ones he doesn't like (which is all of them). he knew that some of this shit would come in handy and making a mess was juvenile but he had fuck all else to do.

it wasn't like anyone would notice. this place was a mess anyway. ]

002. fitness area

Well, this is just fucking boring.

[ ever since the new sleeve, he's never really done a lot of solo training. quell's training two sleeves ago had stuck and from then on, a life spent being hunted and taking out those he'd been paid to kill had left him in decent enough shape.

then, there had been the life sentence and over two centuries spent on ice doing absolutely nothing. ryker's death had left a physically capable sleeve behind even if it was a sleeve that she had a fucking attachment to, unbeknownst to him until he'd been wearing the sleeve for awhile.

he drops the backpack on the ground and circles the room, staring down at the pool and making a face. didn't look like any place he wanted to take a swim in. plenty of people had probably pissed in that.

these facilities were a long way from even carnage's shitty little spectacle. at least he'd had a cheering section and some competition. ]

Ain't none of that here.

[ of course he'd think that. of course. ]

003. bar

[ even kovacs could tell the alcohol was running low. he kept expecting to stop in (during one of his daily walks through the station) and see more of it. but, that hadn't happened yet. bottles were half empty, knocked over and collecting dust.

kovacs spends some time behind the bar, remembering the one time he'd had a bartender who made some decent drinks before she'd up and disappeared. lucky fucker. if she wasn't here, she had to be somewhere better.

and yet, he's still here, stuck. one of the bottles he picks up and brings up to sniff is filled with something so strong that it burns the lining of his nose and actually makes him blink. ]

Smells like fuel.

[ which meant it was fucking perfect.

kovacs made his way over to one of the booths and laid down, long legs dangling over the side. the backpack was placed on his stomach and the bottle on the table. he stared up at the ceiling, wondering how plausible it would be to just kick his way out of this place.

answer: not plausible at all.

where was poe and his arsenal when you really needed him? ]

004. wildcard

[ got something else in mind? feel free to make it happen. hit me up at

spoonishly to plot! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Someone's coming. Kovacs doesn't stop what he's doing, listening to the heavy thud of boots on the floor and wondering if whoever's coming is just going to walk right past or if they were going to get curious and step inside, try to engage him in conversation.

As the boots draw closer, it becomes apparent that they've changed direction and are headed his way. Kovacs mutters a curse under his breath and then looks over, eyes falling on the lanky frame of Miller, behatted (that fucking hat) and making himself at home.

Kovacs watches him go through the weird ritual of showing respect for the fucking dead chapel they're sitting in and just manages to hold back a snort of amusement. He doesn't know if it's automatic or if Miller really is some secret prayer junkie but he's not going to be following suit.

"I'm not," Kovacs says, rolling his eyes. "It's all bullshit."

He grunts, once, trying to suss out if that's resentment or if Kovacs is simply an atheist like himself. He supposes it doesn't matter in the end.

"There were lots of Mormons on Ceres. I used to hate when they'd stop me in the street. I thought they were stupid, to believe in something they couldn't see." Before Julie, Miller had never felt something like that. Something that awakened his soul without needing evidence. He just knew that he was on the right path. He thinks that's how it is for the Mormons. He found a respect for them after stealing their spaceship too... Thanks, buddies.

Kovacs scoffs and doesn't answer for awhile, eyes fixated on the wall. Eventually he shifts, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing his arms, almost mirroring Miller's position except his arms were much, much bigger.

"I don't know what the fuck they worshiped but we had a lot of religiously coded people back on Earth," Kovacs says, lips twisting, "which meant when they died, they were gone. Didn't get resleeved into a new body. Ultimate death sentence."

Fucking waste of the tech, if you asked Kovacs. The stacks were there for a reason, fucking use them. "Guess they saw potential immortality as a sin against whatever they put their faith in. But I doubt that fucker cared. He's dead. You dying at the age of sixty instead of two hundred and sixty isn't noble. It's dumb."

"You wanna live forever?" It's flat, but he's genuinely curious. If he didn't know better, Kovacs had sounded bitter about being brought back before, but now he's standing up for the 'meths' who don't want to die. "Sounds miserable to me, but I'm just a suicidal ex-cop from the Belt. What the fuck do I know?" Apparently his respect doesn't extend to swearing and sinning in a house of worship.

"Me? No." Kovacs doesn't mind being alive but living forever sounds fucking horrible. If that's what meths want to do, so bet it, let them have their fun but sooner or rather, someone's going to get a well timed shot off and it's going to obliterate his stack.

"I wasn't even supposed to be brought back this time," he muses, sliding down the bench until legs are splayed and his head is propped up against the back. "But, they needed me and they paid."

Wouldn't you do it, Miller?

"Up until a few weeks ago, I was fucking dead and gone. But, someone decided to pull me up and put a leash on me to get what they wanted. And guess what I did?"

He barked like a lap dog because he wanted that money and he wanted that fucking pardon.

"You asked how high." His lips draw together in a thin line as he looks back away from Kovacs. There's no judgment, and there was a time in his life not so long ago that he absolutely would have done the same thing. Why not? If it kept him in booze for another week. Another week to not splatter his brains against the stupid open layout of his apartment. "Okay, but I gotta ask this: if you were dead anyway, why care about money?" Don't worry, he already has a theory. He just wants to see if Kovacs will confirm it.

"I didn't when I was dead," Kovacs said, shrugging his shoulder. "I didn't care about anything because my stack was in some locked facility and I wasn't aware of anything."

He'd only become aware are they put his stack in Ryker's body and decided to wake him up from his very long sleep. He hadn't been unhappy to get his life sentence commuted until he'd figured out why he'd been pulled out and turned back on.

"But, if I was going to work for some rich prick, he was going to pay me a substantial amount of money," Kovacs says, almost sound lazy, unaffected. "He wanted me for my aura. So, I was going to make it fucking cost him. Money and a pardon. And he did because there's no one else like me and he wanted a toy."

He works his jaw, but still doesn't look Kovacs' way. He could see his own reality ending up the way the man is describing and he doesn't like that he can see the threads; that humanity has this capacity no matter which system you find yourself in. It's only luck and the whims of certain more altruistic people (or people like himself, doing the right things for the wrong reasons-) that ever give them a chance to be as good as they can be. Miller supposes that's what makes human so interesting: their capacity for evil is just as significant as their capacity for good. Scientists have spent millennia researching if people can be born bad, and so far it's still inconclusive.

"You've got all these fancy words. Meths, stacks, sleeves, so- what in goddamn hell is a aura now?"

For a second, Kovacs wonders if Miller's just messing with him but no, that's a serious question. Kovacs looks over and gives Miller a look that clearly says 'you're overthinking this' before he huffs out a rough laugh.

"Aura. Those distinctive qualities about me that make me me," Kovacs patiently (sort of) explains. "Basically, that I am the last fucking Envoy and that made me valuable."

Bancroft was so fucking uppity and special that he had to take someone out of prison and turn them into a detective because he wanted his own murder solved. Bay City PD was right the fuck there but no. Bancroft had to do everything to extremes.

There's a grim sort of smile for the answer, and Miller idly reads the words around the room. One looks more familiar than the rest to him: If healing does not come in mortal life, it will come thereafter. It catches his eye because he's almost sure it's an LDS thing, but also because of their conversation. He draws in a shallow breath and holds it a moment, lost deep in thought.

"So would you rather be here or there?"

"There."

For one, it was as close to a home as he'd get. Harlan's World was a fucking dream but at least Earth was close enough to it that he could imagine himself there when he was on a drug high.

"I haven't solved that fucker's murder yet so I don't have my pardon," Kovacs says, shaking his head, "and I do not want to go back on ice."

He might show a disdain for life and people and everything but he preferred being alive and being able to fully spread his oh so cheery attitude to being a stack tossed onto someone's desk.

"But, I guess I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. I am still alive here. And apparently if I die, I don't have to worry about a new sleeve since you just...come back."

That finally gets the ex-detective to turn his head, and there's something almost wistful in his gaze.

"You got brought back for a murder mystery?" Sounds like a bad Tim Curry movie from the 1990s waiting to happen tbh.

"Wouldn't have been my first choice in jobs either," Kovacs says with a roll of his eyes. "Laurens Bancroft hired me to solve his own goddamn murder."

Try and figure that one out, Miller. You won't because you can't. It's taking even Kovacs time to figure that shit out.

"He's the richest, oldest Meth on Earth so he can do what he wants and what he wanted was to wake me up and turn me into an honorary member of the Bay City PD."

He hadn't even gotten a fucking badge. Fucking ripped off.

He laughs, and once he starts it's like a dam breaks and he can't stop. He has to hold a hand to his chest, pressing hard to abate the pressure from his ribs, still not fully healed. But there's something cleansing about a good laugh, he can't remember when he last had one.

"Sorry, I was trying to picture you as a cop. It was hilarious."

Kovacs doesn't even hesitate to use his long arms to reach over and try and smack Miller right in the side of the head. It's not going to cause him permanent brain damage so Miller should consider himself extremely lucky.

"Believe me, the BCPD didn't like it either," Kovacs says, rolling his eyes. "I had a babysitter and everything."

Fucking Ortega.

"Didn't even get my own gun," Kovacs said. "Luckily, I had plenty of places to get one myself."

Miller flinches back at the blow, covering the spot with his own hand. "Dick," he complains, but there's no heat behind it even as he knocks his shoulder into Kovacs as hard as he can with zero leverage from the side. He's distinctly aware that the man could have killed him if he wanted to, and his shove is akin to a Bulbasaur blowing leafs onto a Charizard. It isn't very effective...

"Maybe I can help. I am a detective, remember?" Like, an actual one??? "What are the facts of the case so far?"

Miller's body is nothing more than duct tape and popsicle sticks but Kovacs indulges him by rocking to the side (okay, it wasn't all indulgence, he'd gotten some good leverage there). Still, he straightens up like the blow had been a minor nuisance (which it had been).

His lips twist while he considers whether or not to let Miller in on the case. What could it fucking hurt since Bancroft wasn't here?

"Laurens Bancroft called me in to investigate his own murder," Kovacs says. "Someone or something killed minutes before his consciousness was backed up, eliminating the memory of the murder. So, he has no idea how he dies but he wants to make sure it's not his fucking wife or son who did it."

That was the gist of it, basically. "Bancroft's a Meth. Richest one on Earth and he definitely acts like it. When he eventually dies, his family gets nothing so they benefit in no way from killing him. But, guy like that has a lot of enemies."

"How was he killed?" The family is always the first to look at, but if they have no motive... Miller closes his eyes as if he could see the scene though he's never walked it. This is all unscientific conjecture. Which of course is exactly what all good detective work is. "Did you see his body - er, sleeve before it was put on ice or whatever it is you guys... do."

"Gun. Blew his brains out and would have destroyed his stack if he hadn't been backed up and downloaded into another sleeve," Kovacs says, jaw working back and forth. He didn't think the family had anything to do with it. Bancroft's wife was definitely capable but she seems to enjoy hurting her husband in other ways.

(Like fucking the guy who investigating your husband's murder, oops.)

And his son was just -- Isaac had some real reason to want to kill his father but he didn't seem the type.

"Didn't see the body. Everything was cleaned up by the time I got there except the bloodstain. I think he's keeping it to have a story to tell."

"If you didn't see the wound it'll be hard to prove he didn't shoot himself. You think he ever would?" A beat. "Maybe to rope you into playing out a weird, fetishy game of Clue for his own ego trip?"

It's as good a theory as any without knowing any of these people or the situation, he figures. For Miller, he just likes having something simple to think about, like a murder/suicide/whatever.

"I go back and forth on that," Kovacs admits, frowning. "Sometimes, it's the most obvious solution but other times, I can't see someone as ego fucking maniacal as him deciding to off himself."

If Miller thinks Kovacs is full of himself, he would shit himself if he ever got to meet Laurens Bancroft. He was insufferable in ways that made you want to kill him slowly.

"He was rich. Had a lot of money and acted like he was a god. Puts the pool of suspects pretty fucking high."

"Sounds fun. Wanna trade places?" Kovacs can go on Miller's suicide mission and Miller can solve the case of the dead Meth. Win-win. Except he would never trade his own life now that he knows he talks to Julie. He's desperate to get back there more and more with each passing day.

"Trade places?" Kovacs doesn't try to hide his dubious tone. He knows what happened to you Miller and he's not looking to fly anything into a big rock to save a planet full of people he'd probably hate.

"I'll pass," he decides with a shake of his head. "Your life just sounds too exciting to me. I'm old, my heart can't take the excitement that fills your life. Also, if trading meant I'd have to wear the hat, then fuck that."

He snorts, humorless and dry as ever. "Nah, I left this hat on Ceres-" Miller picks it up off the kiddie backpack and turns it in his hand idly, touching the inside pocket to make sure Julie's picture is still in there. "Dick move, too. Should've given it back to that friend I told you about, he probably would've wanted to be buried in it. Or, you know, maybe not get shot by Amos in the first place."

Yeah that's right, his 'beratna' on board murdered his bestie. This is normal?????

"Amos? The same Amos who hulks around the station like a an angry bear?" Kovacs hasn't actually met Amos in person but he thinks he's learned enough to be able to call him that confidently.

"So, this guy shot your friend and you and he are...what? Friends? Acquaintances? Because I haven't heard any stories of you going after him and him breaking you into pieces so you must have some kind of relationship with him.

001. chapel

002. fitness area

003. bar

004. wildcard

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