Friday, December 13, 2013

Ji-Ja-Je-! Jack Attack. But not that Jack.

My Jack. The one I picked up recently. The little kid that's been living in my loop and following Duckie around like a lost Duckling. 

And yes, that's right. This is another fluff piece. I still have nothing from the Black Lake incident that would be safe to declassify and divulge...  yet at least. 

I've also no news on how the hunt for Picasso and Moth is going. I made a few calls to check in on my 'Finest', my personal kill squad of fire cultists, but their response boils down to "We're working on it.".

Unboiled, their exact words were, "God fucking damn it Fracture, for the 5th fucking time, we're looking. If we encounter anything interesting, you'll be the first to fucking know it. Fuck off."

The new Firecracker is such a peach isn't she? There's certainly something black, hard, and disgusting at the core of that one.

So yeah. This is a fluffy piece, on Ji-Je-'Jack'.

I'm certainly now that Jack was a hollow before Hollow's Eve. We have his face on file as such. I can not say, however, that Hollow's Eve had anything to do with him waking up. Jack is, after all, a child. Children, with their young minds, may very well be more capable of coming out of a hollowing on their own if given the right, or a strong enough, stimuli. Although killing several people in-front of a young hollow and then running at that hollow with a knife is hardly something I can retest. That circumstance is rather extreme.

Its also evident that Father adores children. The realization that he was about to lose a child may have caused him to unhollow Jack in hopes that Jack would be better able to defend himself in his awakened state. To those questioning why he wouldn't just show up and defend Jack himself if children are so precious to him, the answer is simple. Duckie was in the room. Father still very much hates Duckie and still refuses to appear anywhere near Duckie. So given the unique circumstances, its not unreasonable to think he would have just let his hold on Jack go in an effort to save Jack.

Furthermore, as Duckie was in the room, its not unreasonable to think that somehow Duckie did this. Especially if Picasso's theory that Duckie destabilized the loop and caused the Hollow's Eve incident is true. Duckie's own soft spot for children, combined with the violent backlash he seems to induce in slender related things, and the sight of a child about to be cut open may very well have resulted in him lashing out in more than just a physical way... this theory, if true, could be cause for great concern. If true... it would certainly explain why Father still hates Duckie so much...

I personally, remain convinced that the magic of Hollow's Eve did this but as a scientist I will continue to explore all explanations until all possibilities are thoroughly exhausted. Hopefully by that point, a true answer will be found.





Here is what we do know about Jack. He was labeled under our 'special finds' classification of hollow. We actually have quite a few of those.

See, we collect a lot of hollow's off the streets. We can't have homeless vagrants wandering around and drawing operator signs on everything, it draws a lot of attention after a while. So once informed of such an individual, we steal them and keep them in a loop. Its much either to look after, sort, and maintain them that way. It also gives us a sizable ever present force that we can call upon in extreme situations. But that's neither here nor there.

We found Jack in an abandoned loop. Which is not extremely uncommon. Every now an then I find an abandoned treasure trove left behind by some poor proxy, or on occasion runner, that was storing all his goodies in a personal loop and didn't have the foresight to pass on the knowledge of the loop before they bit the bullet. Or worse, somehow got stuck in that loop.

Now if you have a loop, its a great place to keep your hollows. You never have to feed them and they'll always have fresh wall to draw on. Similarly, someone left abandoned in a loop or who accidentally trapped themselves in their own loop, tends to eventually hollow. Constant exposure to Father from the loop, combined with an eternity of potentially dilated time, usually sees to that. So its rather common to find, if nothing else, a hollow in an abandoned loop.

Looking back over the file explaining where we found Jack, formerly H-88/Inmate 132, he was locked in cell in a loop made to resemble an asylum. Specifically cell 132. He was recovered with several other hollows, a collection of medical supplies, and selection of well maintained knives.

Now, an asylum has it's own implications. For a proxy, its synonymous with the word 'prison'. Proxies like to keep runners they aren't done with in asylums. When the Bureaucracy stood, they would lock proxies they couldn't control in asylums. And if a runner is merciful and bested a proxy, there's at least a 1 in 5 chance that that proxy is gonna wake up in an asylum in the the middle of nowhere. There's also some hear say that proxies that get taken in by the government can expect one of three things. Slow death on a dissection table, a life time of being studied in a clear plastic box, or an asylum. That's just a rumor of course. And wishful thinking. If an aware government agency gets you, its almost certain we won't ever be seeing you again. They aren't about to put you in an asylum where we can potentially find you... I wouldn't think.

Now, its hard to say who owned Jack's loop before it became abandoned or what its exact purpose was. Some of what we found inside would imply it was a personal store house. If it was a proxy, the asylum setting could indicate that they thought of the hollow's we found inside as captive. I'm curious of they were hollows before they were abandoned. Makes me wonder if its possible that they were left there with the express purpose of eventually hollowing. One of those hollow's weren't in a cell. Maybe someone over took and locked up their captor only to find they had no way of escaping the loop themselves?

Hmm... now I'm just inventing stories. We can never be sure. We found no written logs inside, not a single little black book. So whoever's loop it was, whatever the loop was intended for, that story is lost to time.

The only hint to the nature of the loop was the clothing of the hollows inside. They were all dressed in clothing reminiscent of the 70s. But that only really serves to time stamp what ultimately amounts to a time capsule of lost souls.

Sadly, that's all we know of poor Jack before he woke up.

There is one new thing we've discovered since he woke up that has proven itself true time and time again. Hes a sassy little shit.

The Lord Guardian Fracture out.

2 comments:

  1. A proxy once trapped me in a loop that simulated normal life, but everyone had Nicolas Cage's face. Holy fuck did he pay for it when I got out....

    Is there any way of finding out who set up a loop? Do they leave any kind of transcendent footprint?

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    1. You sound like a fun soul to torture.

      Moving away from that great conversation starter, technically yes. But in the same manner someone obsessed with a specific cereal killer would be able to tell the real McCoy from a copycat. If I already had a deep understand of the individual in question, I would likely be able to tell if a loop was their's or not. Just the way they think would influence the very structure and physics of the non-existent location. Even if they hadn't crafted it themselves, time spent there would gradually warp it in a similar manner.

      My knowledge of proxies from the 70s is, rather unfortunately, lacking.

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