leave no stone unturned to make it a reality

[swingatshadows]

Cindy was pretty sure that this was the most excited she'd ever been in the city of Darrow. And that included the first time she managed to get laid. (Ten years and change later, she was still totally a nerd at heart, no matter how much she tried to tell herself otherwise.)

The excursion up to Kagura hadn't magically answered all of the questions that Cindy had about the city. If anything, the results of the search were frustratingly vague — some indications that perhaps the yeti hadn't just appeared and disappeared for the night of the party, and an eerie quietness to the place that Cindy couldn't imagine was normal for a regular business. Ski lodges closed off-season all the time, but generally some amount of security detail would remain to make sure nothing was damaged or vandalized in those several months.

But at Kagura, two young women could traverse across the grounds openly without setting off any alarms.

It was enough information to encourage intrigue, Cindy thought, especially when combined with the other topics that were covered between herself, Karen, and Lois. People sustained blogs on less. And if not a single person picked up the physical copies that Cindy insisted on printing, well, that was a cost she was willing to sink.

When the doorbell rang, Cindy rushed to let Karen in with a huge grin on her face.

"Karen," she said, briefly shaking her head with a grin. "I know that no one our age reads print anymore, but you just have to see them. The cover we commissioned looks so $#@&ing good."

Comments

[itsdarkcorners]

All of this is, Karen has to admit, more than a little exciting. Back home, she'd gotten caught up in this sort of thing easily, but it had been out of necessity and she'd had a single-minded focus, intent on trying to get only one specific thing done. (That she hadn't managed it isn't something she wants to think about now. She'd tried. She thinks sometimes that it's possible that no one could ever have gotten through to Frank Castle.) Here, she'd taken up the same line of work because it made sense to, because it was the best way she had to try to make a difference. This is something entirely different — something they've put together themselves, telling the stories and looking into the things that they choose, starting entirely from scratch. Maybe it won't go anywhere, but maybe it will, and they won't know until they try.

They have a good starting point, too, she thinks. She's heard people wonder about Kagura since she first heard of the place itself. It's got to at least prompt some level of interest. And from there, who knows?

"I cannot wait," she says, grinning broadly at Cindy once she's stepped inside. "I can barely believe it's finally ready."

[swingatshadows]

Unable to contain a noise of delight, Cindy closed the door behind them and swept further into the apartment. It was probably in the biggest state of disarray that it had been in since... well, since Cindy moved in. She was usually a minimalist by nature, save for the complex network of research that she kept hidden on the back wall of her closet. (Mostly in the event that anyone was observant enough to tie together the fact that what Cindy Moon researched was also what Silk went after.)

But now, there were papers strewn around the place, many of which were different drafts of commissioned art, and some other copies of the magazine that had been cropped in the wrong way. A lot of trial and error had been required to get them to where they are, without breaking their bank accounts in the process.

"Look," she said, waving Karen over to a neater pile at the side of the coffee table. The cover image was of the Kagura ski lodge and a towering yeti in the background, the style taking after modern pop art. Small white dots in the skyline might have been mistaken for stars at first, but upon closer glance were the monkey-bats which terrified so many the last year around. At the top of the image was printed the word: The Curiosity..

Inspiration taken from The Stranger, back home.

"Doesn't it look so good?" Cindy asked, practically vibrating with excitement.

[itsdarkcorners]

"Oh, my God, it looks amazing," Karen says brightly, her smile unwavering as she takes in the final version of the cover artwork. It looks professional, really, is what she thinks, the sort of thing likely to get attention, and, well, that's the point of all this, isn't it? She would want to look into all of it for her own purposes anyway, hardly content just to accept what she's told at face value and leave it at that, untouched, but other people ought to get to find out the truth, too, or as close to it as they can get. They've done good work here, or so her limited experience would lead her to believe. It's worth being shared.

As for the mess, she doesn't blink at it; her own apartment tends to look the same, scattered with various papers and files and notes. She ought to come up with a better system of organization, probably, but it hasn't caused her any problems so far. When it comes to something like this, it seems practically called for, anyway.

"I love it. I think other people are going to love it, too."

[swingatshadows]

"I hope so. At least, I hope they love it enough to keep us afloat," Cindy mused, pursing her lips. She generally was the type of person who kept expectations low. It made it easier to avoid being disappointed, and sometimes it even made it easier to motivate herself, knowing that there was so little she stood to lose. The magazine was a good example of that. They had both done their research and due diligence in balancing their budgets, making sure printing wouldn't put either of them out of the bank.

"But even if they don't, it's kind of nice to get an issue out of the door. I never... I never really had any work that was my own like this is before," she remarked with a smile. "This is way more exciting than getting my first article published, though that gave me a big kick too. But this is, you know. Getting to write about something you choose, not having to filter yourself to fit what the employer wants. It's nice."

She lifted a brow. "And as much as I hate that it even exists, at least we'll have enough material to look into for the next issue. Because I'm dying to figure out what the roots of the Purge are."

[itsdarkcorners]

"Yeah, it's... It's different, I think, when you're really starting from scratch," Karen replies, still hardly able to sound anything but pleased. She'd been lucky, stumbling into her job the way she did, Ellison giving her a platform for what she wanted to say rather than trying to dictate it. Maybe if she were still there, that wouldn't have held true — she couldn't expect just to be given free rein to choose anything she wanted and write about it — but it's really only since showing up in Darrow that she's felt restricted at all. It's also all the more reason why she wants to do something without that filter. There's too much here that doesn't make sense, and that people should be made aware of, inasmuch as there's anything to learn at all. Maybe there aren't answers to be found, but if there are, there ought to be a platform for them.

To the rest of what Cindy says, she nods in unquestioning agreement. "I've already started trying to find out," she says. "And gotten nowhere, of course, but still."

[swingatshadows]

It really is different, Cindy thought to herself, wondering if she felt comfortable enough to admit just how much this whole venture meant to her. How it felt to be working with Karen towards something that felt greater than both of them, but somehow they were fortunate enough to steer and direct. It was daunting, in some ways, to think that their publication could eventually be responsible for people learning more, thinking more, and peering through the smoke and mirrors of the city.

But it was also exhilarating at the same time.

"Yeah, I can't say that I've gotten really far either," sighed Cindy. "It just seems so convenient that the last time the Purge happened was before any of the more trustworthy records of the city. It's hard to believe the city's just been operating like this when there still isn't any reference anywhere to that empty state of the city a few years ago."

[itsdarkcorners]

"Right?" Karen agrees, brow raising slightly as she speaks. "It's like the only people who actually think that was the case are the people who showed up then, and... Honestly, I'm more inclined to believe them than I am to believe the people from here." It isn't that she thinks they're dishonest on purpose, necessarily, or even that she doesn't like them. There's something bigger than that at hand here. At least, there has been up until now. Whether or not that's true of the Purge, she doesn't know, but she would damn well like to find out. "But by what they say, there shouldn't have been anyone here seven years ago, so... Like you said, kind of hard to buy."

For all she knows, they really do believe it. The same thing happened when Kagura appeared, after all. But there's a big difference between a ski lodge and crime being legalized for twelve hours, one infinitely more dangerous than the other.

[swingatshadows]

"So am I, and it's not even like I dislike Darrow natives or anything," Cindy said, quickly shaking her head at the thought, even if she knew Karen wouldn't accuse her of such. "But it always feels like there's so much that they let slide that, I don't know. It almost feels like there's something else constantly controlling their minds. Like what happened with all that dremblydrop craziness — if you remember that — but on an even broader scale. Something that pulled them out of the city for that time when outsiders were here on their own."

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and imagining the vacant, abandoned streets. It was unnerving to even consider.

"Even weirder would be if there's something powerful enough to make them materialize out of nowhere. I haven't let my brain think about that possibility for too long, just because the idea of that level of control is terrifying."

[itsdarkcorners]

"Yeah, it's — I can't even say I blame them, you know? Whatever's going on here, I think it runs deeper than that," Karen says, frowning slightly as she speaks. She's seen coverups that run deep, corruption that's far more all-encompassing than it might seem from the outside, but this is something else entirely. There's no way a whole city could be in on something of this magnitude, not without someone misstepping somewhere, and she knows that she and Cindy aren't the only people interested in trying to figure out what's going on here. If that happened, someone would have heard, caught on, spread the word. The Darrow natives are probably as misled as the rest of them. That doesn't mean they aren't still wrong. "They, or most of them, anyway, probably don't know any more about it than we do. But it's... You know, when you have most people just so convinced of one thing, and then people you know you can trust telling you another, it gets pretty weird."

[swingatshadows]

"Yeah. Though I wonder... do you think anyone's ever done a real, full-length expose about it?" mused Cindy, tapping her lower lip and frowning in thought. "I mean, there have to be records of what the city looked like in those months, because from what I've heard, all the stores were fully stocked. Apartments were fully furnished. No one really questioned where non-natives took up residence when all the natives suddenly reappeared, so maybe in rental records, deeds, maybe there's something that we can show as being off. Dig around, try to find all the supposed news archives from that time and do a little bit of comparison. I mean."

She sighed, flopping back against the sofa and immediately jiggling her foot.

"Even if some people might be convinced that anything we pull together is just Photoshop, it's a hell of a lot of Photoshop for people to have coordinated together. And if even just a few natives start to believe, maybe that'll change something. Shift the paradigm of this whole place. You never know."

[itsdarkcorners]

"You know, I'm not sure anyone has," Karen says thoughtfully, shaking her head. "I mean, no one would have had a chance to, right? Every publication has people working here who think they've been here all along, there'd be no way to get it through. Us, on the other hand..." It wouldn't be too hard, rounding up people who've been around since the city was apparently empty, seeing what information or even pictures they might have. Hell, there might even be some sort of public record of who showed up when, and that would be easy enough to mine. Surely they'd be able to find at least a couple people who could contribute, who'd be willing to help them out.

"All we'd need is a few sources, right? They could corroborate each other's stories, give us the information that most people here apparently don't want us to know, or don't know at all... It'd be something new. Something that would get attention."

[swingatshadows]

"It would definitely be something new. There's no other news source that would have reported on this, given that they're all owned and edited by Darrow natives, right?" Cindy thought aloud, her tone gaining excitement with every new thought. "And you're right, we'd just need a few sources. A few sources that we can interview separately. We could even do it podcast-style, record it, stream it so that people don't think we've just planted crazy stories in people's minds. I mean, I'm sure some people will wave it off as that regardless, but if there's even one native that we can convince..."

She sighed, grinning as she leaned back into the couch.

"God, I love this. I love having a canvas all to ourselves, I love feeling like we can really venture to write whatever story we want. If we have to be stuck here, we should at least feel like we have the freedom to speak our minds and be heard."

[itsdarkcorners]

"It makes so much difference," Karen says, not bothering to try to hide the enthusiasm in her own voice. "I mean, even being pretty new to all of this, it's... not having to deal with any red tape, not having any stories get pulled because they might piss the wrong person off, it's... We can actually get something done. Maybe we won't figure out what's behind this place or why any of it happens, but at least we can try, and at least we can tell people what we find out."

That's why she got into this line of work in the first place, after all — wanting to bring the truth to light. There's no better way to do that than the two of them having full control over what they're doing.

[swingatshadows]

It had been a while since Cindy had heard such hope and felt convinced by it. Back home, Peter Parker had been a source of optimism in his life, but even he was jaded, not always convinced by the prospect of change and the good it could yield. But here in Darrow, in a place that stacked all odds against them, Cindy was finding solace in at least trying to change the course of events with Karen at her side. All it took was some investigation. Some transparency.

After years in the news industry and months working for S.H.I.E.L.D., such a straightforward method of approach was refreshing, to say the least.

"Ugh, I'm so glad that you're in this with me," Cindy squealed, leaning over to give Karen a tight hug. "I'm so glad that we met. This is the kind of thing most people can only dream of doing with their BFF."

[itsdarkcorners]

Karen isn't entirely used to this level of enthusiasm, at least not coming from anyone other than herself. At least the past while in New York, once she started doing work that counted, she was usually the one to start getting carried away, caught up in whatever case was on the table, determined to make a difference and trying to talk the others into doing the same. She hadn't even had much in the way of friends aside from Matt and Foggy. Granted, she hadn't minded that, but both came with their own set of complications. Having someone who's passionate about the same things she is, with whom she can just as easily do good work as she can relax and have fun, is a goddamn welcome change of pace.

"Right?" she agrees, returning Cindy's hug without hesitation. "I seriously cannot think of anyone I would rather be doing this with, on any level."