Friday, November 1, 2013

Chapter 66: Never Doubt Me


Jillyan buries her face in his pillow, inhaling the last faint traces of his scent that still linger on his rarely used bed. She'd feel closer to him in her own bed, where they'd actually slept together, where they'd  made love, but Fergus said it would take too much of his power to maintain wards on her house as well as this old warehouse, and that if she wasn't going to go back to Drake's Hollow with him and Tasha, she needed to stay at his place.

She doesn't give a crap about her own safety, not while Julian is out there, somewhere, needing her to rescue him, but she promised Fergus, so she waits here, hoping that maybe Julian just had a memory lapse and will wander back home on his own. Or that he'll find some way to contact her, or...Jilly doesn't even know what she's hoping for, but, whatever happens, she just knows she has to be here, ready to move, and not off in Drake's Hollow when whatever is going to happen happens.


She rolls over on her back, pulling her buzzing phone out of her pocket. Her heart leaps in anticipation as she prepares herself to hear Julian's voice, calling for help, telling her what she needs to do rescue him.

"Jilly," Fergus says, dashing her improbable hopes to the ground.

"Have you learned anything?" she asks, not ready to give up hope yet. This might be the call she was waiting for. The call to action so she can stop lying here, helpless, with nothing to do but worry.

"No, not yet," Fergus says, Jilly makes an irritated growl. Why the fuck is he calling her if he has nothing to tell her? "I talked to Moth and Tansy, and they're going to put me in contact with another fairy who might be able to help," he adds.

"Well, that's vague enough," Jilly sighs.

"I'm sorry I don't have more," Fergus says, "I'm doing what I can, but MorcuCorp is huge and near impenetrable. It took my grandfather years before he could find where they were holding my grandmother." 

Jilly groans audibly, "I can't wait fucking years, Fergus. I need to find Julian now."

Fergus says nothing to let, and a long pause follows before he speaks again, "Listen, Jilly, Tasha and I are getting married. There's nothing you can do for Julian there; why don't you come home? I'd like for you to be here for my wedding."

"I can't leave, Fergus. What if Julian were to come back? I need to be here," Jilly insists, "I'm sorry."


Jilly ends the call without congratulating her cousin. It was all she could do to refrain from telling him to go fuck himself. He's supposed to be finding out where Julian is so they can rescue him, not planning a wedding.


Her phone buzzes again; if it's Fergus, she will tell him off, she won't able to hold back...but it's not Fergus, it's a text from an unknown number. The random string of letters looks like a child had been playing with a phone, but Jilly can't dismiss this message as garbage so easily. The text ends with a JL, Julian's initials, and that gives her hope.  The random letters might be a code, she reasons, and this could be the message she was waiting for.

She had noticed a couple of books on cryptography in Julian's collection here in his room, and uses them to decipher the random looking message into what appears to be GPS coordinates. Looking those up online, she finds they point to a horticultural research center on Sunset Island, owned by Landgraab Industries. Bingo.

Jilly considers calling Fergus, but immediately dismisses that idea. He'll worry that it's a trap, or he'll want to wait until after his wedding, or to talk to his fairy contact first. Fergus had never gotten over his suspicions about Julian, and didn't think of him as family the way Jilly does. Fergus would let him rot in a cell while he and Tasha celebrate their wedding, Jilly thinks angrily...well, fuck Fergus. She's going to get her Julian back without him.


The Landgraab Horticultural Research Center on Sunset Island isn't exactly a high security facility.  After hours, they have one security guard working the front door, and electronic surveillance in the corridors. Power to the whole building is controlled through a utility room on the top floor; all Jilly has to do is get up on the roof, get into that room to cut power to the alarms, and she's in.


The cement walls are rough, giving her decent hand and foot holds to scale up to the second floor balcony.



From there, it's another climb up to the flat roof above.


Then, a quick spring across the roof to the third floor balcony to the utility room.


The door has a simple, easily broken lock. They were hardly expecting for anyone to try to get in from the roof, obviously.


Jilly has never seen anything so pristine and sterile in her life. And this is just the utility room.


She'd done her research, so she knows exactly which wires to cut to to kill the alarms, without cutting the power to anything else and raising the suspicion of the sole guard posted by the front door. 

With that done, Jilly drops back down to the second level balcony and breaks the simple lock on the employee access door to get into the building.


Inside, it's pretty much everything you'd expect in a horticultural research lab; white walls, computers...


...weird plant things in tanks. Nothing suspicious at all, nothing to suggest they had any humans locked up here, or were engaging in any experiments not strictly related to plant life.


For a moment, Jilly lets herself get distracted when she discovers how to make bubbles rise in a tank by stepping on a floor plate.


But she isn't here to play games, she's on a mission, so she leaves that lab behind to explore the rest of the building.


Electricity traps were not mentioned at all in the building specs she downloaded...


Undeterred, Jilly disarms the trap. Obviously, she must be getting to where they do their secret, illegal experiments. Because why else would they put up this kind of security?


She was right; the labs following the electricity trap are clearly meant for human subjects.


The operating table in the cell next to the creepy examination chair just feel sinister. This isn't a hospital, after all, and this facility is supposedly about plant research. Whatever research is going on in here is secret, no doubt illegal and probably highly unethical.


What are these people doing to her Julian?


Though MorcuCorp is obviously up to something far more sinister than plant research here, Jilly has so far not seen a single human being or any sign that any prisoners are being kept here. She's investigated every lab on this floor and found no one, and there are no more doors to open. 

All the doors are on the one side of the corridor, Jilly notes, and the exterior dimension of the building would suggest there are more rooms on the other side. Of course, if they are keeping captive subjects, they'd want to hide them.  Jilly taps and pushes at the wall, searching for a hidden door. 


And finds a hidden corridor that conceals rows of doors leading to yet more pristine labs filled with equipment that suggest unnamed horrors, but still no Julian, nor any other living soul.


Eventually the tight, dingy corridor  ends at a staircase leading down to a sub-level not listed on the official building specs.


And leads her to a row of cells, designed like a prison, each with its empty bed. At the end of the row, she finally finds him. She calls out to him, lying on the bed in his cell, but nothing gets past the soundproof walls, and the door is locked electronically.



But that is easily opened with the computer in the observation office.


He rises up from he bed as she open the door, rushing into his arms. 


"I knew you'd come for me," Julian says softly, in a tone that suggests he's not at all surprised by her rescue, like he's been waiting for her arrival.

"Of course I came, as soon as I got your message," she answers, breathless with joy at being reunited with  him at last, even if his reaction seems a bit off. And then a sudden realization intrudes, casting a shadow over her happiness, "Wait, Julian, how did you get a message out to me, being trapped in here?" she asks.


Julian caresses he cheek, brushing his lips over her neck as he whispers close to her ear, "Trust me."


Something stings her, a sharp, quick poke, like a needle. Everything becomes bright, for a second, until it fades to black.


Tourmaline walks in as Jillyan falls unconscious into his arms. "Never doubt me," he says, barely glancing up at the waiting agent.

____________________________________

Credit to Ditway for the Horticultural Research Center tomb lot used in this chapter.




17 comments:

  1. Oh no! Does that mean Geoffrey won the internal battle? *cries*

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  2. No, no no no no. I refuse to believe that Julian is completely gone! That "trust me" before he tranquilizes her says it all. Yeah, Geoffrey looks back, but Julian altered him.
    The hopeless romantic in me refuses to see anything else here. It's all a trick to get the two of them together without making that bitch Tourlamine suspicious.
    :)

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  3. :( Ok. So everything was easy. She even asked the million dollar question. Surely, surely, there's another switchback we're waiting on now. Right? But at least he's not wasting away in the dungeon any longer. I guess. C'mon Julian! Kick those fembot butts!

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  4. Ahh! I knew it was too easy!! Now, what are they going to do with her!? I'm still thinking there's a bit of Julian in there....I'm with mypalsim!

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  5. NONONONOOOO!!!

    BOOOO HIIISSSS!!! We want Julian back! *grabs pitchfork*

    Poor Jilly! So in love... I totally agree with her about Fergus and his wedding. Awful timing! But she should have waited for Fergus before rushing off to save Julian. But love makes us to silly things... ;)

    I LOVE how you managed to work Julians 'rescue' into her career. Haha! :D

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  6. I thought it was a bad idea for her to go solo on that mission, though, a wedding? Really Fergus?

    Interesting comment Julian made, before he put her under. Trust me, hmm, famous last words. But presumably he said it only to Jilly, and low enough that the fembots could not overhear. I wonder what Julian/Geoff is up to, he must have a plan. A Landgraab always has a plan, lol I can't wait to find out what it is!

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  7. is that a ring on Jullian/Geoff's finger?.... okay random blurb done....
    as soon as Jilly got the text warning signals should have been going off If Jullian/Geoff were trapped why would he be able to text her? okay i do believe he's double crossing himself her getting the girl but then running away with her or some other happy ending shit.... but I could be wrong... Life doesn't always have a happy ending so he might be saving her by putting himself at risk.... and since this is a legacy and there is no heir yet.... something tells me you rolled single and one.... hmmmmmm...... Is there some Jilly/Julian/Geoff spawn in the works her Melissa? and thats okay because Geoff is only related to Fergus's side of the family... wait that means Geoff's got two of your protagonists pregnant.... at the same time storywise >.< I think I need to stop drawing circles before everything is full circle...
    Okay bye! see you on the internet!
    Carrie

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  8. Thanks, all of you. I'm going to reply to you all in one message, otherwise I'll be repeating myself, lol.
    Julian/Geoff did whisper that private 'trust me' to Jilly right before drugging her. He does want her to continue trusting him, despite what he's doing. Is it because he's still Julian, or is Geoff playing a deeper game?
    Everything was far too easy, and Jilly really should have been onto this from the get go. But, she was so desperate to be doing something, and she's always been impulsive like her mother. Without Fergus there to talk her down, she jumped right for that bait. And of course, the bait was dangled in front of her at the right time...
    Fergus is really not all that concerned about Julian, sad to say, and rescuing him is not that big of a priority. He's not even sure Julian needs rescuing; he's not entirely convinced that Julian isn't part of MorcuCorp's plans. So, now that he's got Tasha safe in his parent's house, he's taking his time and making wedding plans before he goes off to take on MorcuCorp. I don't think he meant to be in Jilly's face with that, he wasn't really thinking about how that would look from her end.
    Geoff/Julian is wearing a ring...I know it's basically a wedding band, but I almost never bother putting rings on my Sims to signify marriage (I don't think of them as being the same as we are, culturally, so the ring wouldn't mean to them what it does to us) and I sometimes use it as just jewelry. Sometimes I like to think it's made of the metal that inhibits magic, so Geoff would be wearing it as protection. But I've never stated that explicitly. I might at some point, though, thanks for the reminder.
    Yeah, Landgraabs are only related on Fergus' side of the family, through Aouregan. And, no, Jilly is not currently pregnant, though obviously as the heir she'll have to have a baby sometime.
    LOL, Geoff can't take credit for Reinier's baby makings, though they are both cloned off the same Sim, so genetically, they are the same. Reinier might have two babies on the way, tough. Agneta hopes so, anyway.

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    1. The relative thing. Would Pearl not count? Obviously she isn't the same as Reinier/Geoff/Julian, but she is a Landgraab, isn't she? (or, wasn't she...)
      That doesn't matter anymore either. Haha!

      I'm with you on the rings. As almost all the rings are on the wedding finger, I tend to just not use them, but nothing wrong with using them anyway!

      Silly Fergus... I wonder if he'll find out and have to abandon his wedding?

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    2. Pearl was created in MorcuCorp's labs, but I don't think there's any actual Landgraab DNA in her. I did toy with the idea that MlorcuCorp might have used some of Sage Bowman's (Gen 5 heir of the Roman Legacy, and Aymeri's great-granddaughter) DNA while creating Pearl, since MorcuCorp did have captive for awhile...but I decided not to connect everything that deeply.
      If Pearl were a Landgraab, that would have made Peridot's thing with Geoff kind of creepy. Not that it wasn't kind of creepy, anyway...

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  9. Ah, crap.

    Jilly should have known; that was far too easy for her. The things love makes us do...

    Sigh, now to sit and wait to see what team Julian/Geoff is really playing for. No, not that team. Unless of course, he wants to do a scene with Sam (wink wink, nudge nudge.)

    Can't wait for more!

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    1. Jilly didn't want to know. She even decided not to call Fergus because she knew he'd see a trap, and she just did not want it to be a trap. She wanted to believe she was going to rescue Julian and she refused to see anything else.
      Well, we won't see which team Julian/Geoff is playing for until later.
      As for Sam's team, that's not really Julian, but I could totally see Rainier from Stardust doing a scene with him. He's committing himself willingly and happily to a monogamous, heterosexual marriage, but I'm sure he'd love a safe outlet in Sam's fantasy life. And he's physically identical to the Landgraab clones, except with black hair...I'll go ahead an message you on your simblr, anyway.

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  10. Jillyan should have asked herself the 'how did he' before she set off on her impulsive rescue... Now she's really in a bad situation... this is awful :(

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    1. Jilly should have done a lot more thinking before she set off. But she's impulsive and she was so desperate to be doing something, she didn't even want to listen to her own doubts. Which I'm sure MorcuCorp was counting on.

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  11. Just leaving a quick comment on this post as I make my way to catching up with your legacy.

    MANNNN!!!!! I was on the edge of my seat and bugged eyed the whole time while Jilly was searching around that place. I was waiting for something bad to happen. I kept saying over and over..wait for it, wait for it, wait for it...

    When she got to Julian I thought wheww good it's over then BOOM! He got her. Awesome chapter!

    ok I'm on to the next chapter.

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  12. I'm going to stick to the idea that Julian is still there and that he is simply pretending to be Geoffrey. I don't want him to be the bad guy!

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  13. Oh my goodness! I'm catching up on your legacy, and this chapter really got to me. I'm so worried for Jilly, I almost don't want to continue. D:

    (Just kidding, I can't stop reading now! But I am worried)

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