Hail, Caesar! We, who are about to die, salute you...[OPEN]

What a fuckin' nightmare...

But it was only a matter of time. In the end, this was always going to be his fate, his place in the world. It was Sasha's dream, not his. He was just an orphan that wanted a place in the world. He didn't want to get involved, didn't want to be a part of a conflict or struggle. He was passive for everything..almost everything. When he first truly stood up for something, he lost his eye. But in reality, he lost more than a physical piece of himself... He was being tortured, and he was brave. Perhaps the first and only time he had ever truly been brave in his previously, uneventful life. That was for her. The bitch of it was, she would never return that feeling...not for him, anyways. Her only passion was resistance...in freedom and change. Sasha was never meant for him, and he should have known it from the moment he met her in the orphanage. He followed her through life, doing wondrous things, and sometimes horrible things...learning and living. He toughened from a sniveling, starving child into a toughened, threatening adult. Sasha never seemed to change though. It seemed like her head in the clouds blocked out the ugliness...or maybe she was just so damned focused on the next step that she never stopped to consider the collateral damage.

But now, sitting in the box seats, Eli knew what he was meant for. There was no happy ending waiting for him at the end of his life. His was destined to be a struggle, just like every other 'different'. His kind's time was almost over now...a new era was on the way. A new, evolved man...too bad they were so fucked. In Eli's eyes, mankind had just degenerated...beginning of a second goddamn apocalypse. It was impossible to reason with 'normals'...the only thing they understood was blood. Black wasn't the first to shed it...no, Harvey had thrown the first punch, and it was just beginning. 'Differents' were going to die, and it was about damn time to do something about it...and that's what he was at the Arena for. The 'first step' as Sasha would call it.

Eli was after a man named Theo...Theo Fletcher. He was familiar with him...seen him around before. Apparently he was a good writer, which is what Eli needed. Elijah Black was a lot of things, but he was no writer, or speaker for that matter. He'd always been better with actions instead of words, but what he needed now were words. Words that might inspire 'differents' into taking action. Theo seemed to be the man for the job, or at least he hoped. Word around town was that Theo was going to be in the Arena...he had no idea why, but it was worth a shot to go and look for him, just in case he happened to be around...
The different leaned forwards in his seat and peered down into the arena.

It was a four-star hangover. There was a heartbeat not pertaining to his actual heart pounding away in his temples and his eyes looked like jumbo blood vessels. Not that anyone could see his eyes as he hid them behind sunglasses in a desperate attempt to thwart the sun's attempts to kill him with brightness. Was it even possible for someone's hair to hurt? Because Theo's did. Every second word out of his mouth was a muttered cuss, his joints were aching, and he was feeling something less than productive. So why, for fuck's sake, was he staggering through the Arena? Remembering felt like being beaten around the head... Theo was scoping the place out for the upcoming fight he'd be in. He wasn't down in the arena, oh dear god no, but rather wandering around the stands. Weaving through the seats and ambling through the box seats to get a feel for what the audience saw.

The world chose that particular moment, near a set next to some bloke with an eye patch, to start ducking and weaving around Theo. Damn fecking world. Such a bitch sometimes. Theo stiffled a moan and flopped into the seat until his inner ear decided to be friends again. If it weren't so painful and vomitastic, Theo would've laughed at himself. Rather, he thought about slapping Corday upside the face for getting him into this current physical predicament. This hangover wouldn't go away until late this afternoon...right around his fight. Damn. Damn Damn Damn.

The man couldn't help but release a dark chuckle. What were the chances Theo would sit right beside him?...Eli always considered himself a particularly lucky individual, but this kind of shit was almost like a sign from god. The ex bartender sat back in his seat and glanced in Theo's direction. He looked a little...unwell. By the looks of the sunglasses, he either got his ass kicked by some guy or some drink...Black was guessing the latter.

"Theo, right?..." he asked, turning to the man as he placed a foot against the balcony railing.
"You uhh...you write those books. Hear you're pretty good. Anyways, I was wonderin' if you take requests..."
Eli scanned around the area for any unwanted ears. When he was satisfied that they were more or less alone in their seating, he smiled slightly.
"Oh, and the name's Eli. I'm what the assholes call a 'different', just like you. I'm a...firm believer in worthy causes, Theo. Gave my eye for one. Guessin' by now you've heard the news...that arrogant lunatic Harvey's in town. I think it'd be a good idea to write some warnings...maybe something else too."

Theo flinched. The guy had a deep growly voice that made his brain want to cry. "I'm all for fighting the machine - but please speak quietly." He put a cold hand to his forehead and silently prayed for either absolution of the pain or death. Theo let his head loll to one side, luckily the side that the man who introduced himself as Eli sat. The fact that Theo was apparently a bit more well known than he'd like was unpleasant. He didn't like being noticed let alone the guy you could pick out in a crowd and yell 'there he is! Get him!'

"What do you have in mind? Just... I don't write shit that'll get my ass handed to me. And I don't work for free."

"Ahh.." Eli exhaled, fishing into his pocket. He turned away from Theo as he lit a cigarillo, puffing on it once before releasing a cloud of flavoured smoke into the air.
"You know...it's gonna to be a real witch hunt soon. It spells trouble for me, you, and every other poor son of a bitch that doesn't do the mind thing...when people start disappearing, there's not exactly going to be an in depth investigation involved...because no one gives a shit. We're a dying breed, and we all know the brainbuddies have it in for us...they wanna drive that last nail in the coffin, and hell... we could let 'em...we could try to keep our heads down, avoid the problem..."

The ex bartender paused, inhaling another breath of smoke as he glanced over his shoulder.
"but that's not gonna work no more. Mark my words, Fletcher, this is gonna get a whole lot worse. What I have in mind involves reaction, that's all. As far as writing goes...you don't even gotta put your name on it. Be all..anonymous-like if it'll help you sleep easy. Bastards don't even read...and we'll post them up in areas you could say belong to us...example bein' the hospital...maybe Harvey'll just hang around for a couple days and have his little tantrums before goin' on his way...maybe not. Maybe we've got a future genocide on our hands..." Eli said, his voice shrinking to a complete whisper by the end. He tilted his head slightly as if it say 'think about it', then stubbed the smoke out on the seat's armrest.

"If you want payment...well, you're speakin' to a broke man. You're broke too, right? Tired of livin' off of scraps yet?..."
He let out a growl of a sigh, cracking his neck.
"Blood is gonna spill, Theo. You can walk away from it now, but not for long. You might think I'm crazy here, speakin' to you about this...saying more than enough to get locked up or worse, if you felt like talkin' to the right people...but I'm not crazy," Eli said with a slow, bitter smirk. "I'm desperate. Desperate to find people like me that can help protect our kind...stand up for the weak and all that shit...get a voice out. 'Cause sometime soon, there might be no voice to shout...consider it."

Virtually the entirety of Theo's life was keeping his head down and avoiding the problem. It was probably in and of itself a problem all of its own, his livestyle, but it seemed to have worked so far and Theo didn't want to tamper with change. Eli was talking about things that Theo had heard about before and had thought about himself before. He knew the way the world was going around was wrong and he didn't like how his sort was treated. But was there much of a chance of righting it? Theo'd given up on that a number of years ago, all he wanted now was to give people a glimpse of what hope and happiness had felt like. That's what his writing was for.

"Man, I'm familiar with the state of our world - intimately familiar with every shade of shit I have to wade through next to countless others. No need to preach it." He looked at Eli as the man lit a cigarillo, "Good idea, that..." Theo slouched into the seat and dug into his pocket for a crumpled half pack of cigarettes. They weren't his normal brand, rather a cheapo pack of weak paper and stale tobacco. It did the same job as any other kind so who was Theo to complain? He lit a match off the side of his shoe, leaving a barely visible line of pale pink residue of sulphur from it. Theo inhaled slowly, letting the smoke kill the nasty mean hangover making base camp in his stomach, before exhaling slowly through the nose. On the first drag he always exhaled through the nose, it was just a small tick he'd picked up years ago.

"It's one thing to write something for the people, another to actually get the bastards to read it. But hell, it's as good a cause as any - what's the message?" He peered at the one-eyed wonder smoking his cigarillo and arched an eyebrow half an inch. "If it's the one that got you turned into a cyclops, I'll have to alter it a touch... I value my three-dimensionally capable eyesight."

Even Theo thought he was odd, one minute he's bitching about having his ass involuntarily put on the line, the next he's mouthing off to someone who'll probably tear his mouth off. He wondered, in his most down and out moments and his most inebriated moments, what ever happened to his spine; who had it now, how much did it cost them and what were they doing to it? Later on he always claimed it was in self preservation... Still, he wondered sometimes about the people he'd left out to dry by doing it.

"If it's worth my while... I can see past charging for it."

Eli couldn't help but scowl, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Worth your fuckin' while....listen..." he began, leaning closer into him, "people will read exactly what they need to read when the time is right. People look for answers when they're too afraid to answer them themselves...I've got one. The answer is a question." The grizzled man laughed for a moment, scratching his chin before continuing. "Question bein'...if we fought for what we believed in, would that make us more human?"

"This," he nearly grunted, displaying the arena, "this is something they understand. Blood. Conflict. They can appreciate fighting for anything, really. If we're submissive, they treat us like dogs. No. They treat us like a fucking disease. But what if we put up some resistance? Show them some spirit..show them that we plan to stay and they better fuckin' deal with it...whatever the outcome, 's no worse than what's already headed our way. Me, personally, I'd rather die with some dignity than to die in some unopposed genocide. You may not..like...this option, Theo...but for fucks sake, it's all any of us really have left. I'd lose my other eye for this message. Hell, I'd give my life...as long as our people listen to it. We might be the minority in this world, but we're about to show them a 'different' point of view...you're either in or you're out. I have certain connections with others like me out of town...it's not just me. I'm not alone. But we need more help if we're ever going to bring change."

The ex bartender stopped speaking as someone came into view. They walked past, visually unaware of the two differents before Eli spoke again.
"I'm not asking for you to sacrifice everything for this. All I'm asking for is your writing...If you think I'd rat you out, think again. I saved someone's life with sealed lips once...I'd do it again," he said, pointing at the eye patch.

He had to admit, the guy had alot of valid points. Theo was loathe, however, to admit that the guy was pretty good at inspiring. Yes, Theo felt a twinge of the old 'get up and go' in the pit of his stomach; he actually felt a slight want to fight back and stand up for himself. Theo kept his face plain, but straightened up in his seat.

"Alright, you got yourself a writer." His brain started to churn up a few base concepts as to how to best present the message and a few ways to distribute them. Theo had contacts afterall, dispite how anti-social he'd prefer his life to be. He figured that just telling the message as-is would be the clearest cut way, but maybe a story thrown in - just short ones - here and there to inspire them would help. It didn't matter if the stories were true or just a yarn, what mattered is how it made them feel. "You want this message pure underground stuff? Think it'd be safer to not let it drop into a Norm's hand right away - buggers can't read more oft than not but they're bound to beat a Diffie til they tell. I know some people, I can get it handed around."

He fairly well insinuated that he wasn't planning to charge people for it - Theo had been hooked into the plan to spread the word whole-hog. He didn't know whether or not to feel ashamed. Last time he really hooked into a cause it didn't turn out all that well, purely in the emotionally broken way - not physical. "I'll do what I can."