VOICEMAIL

[siteboss]

Commander Sylvester Terrell Jones












Objective: NOT GIVEN




POD E

This is Commander Jones. Leave a message.

[ End of recording. ]

Comments

[trilluminati]

Q smiles and toys with his dangling shoelaces over the foggy gorge below.

[siteboss]

“I remember a night when my brother and Clipse came home stumbling over one another.” Jones straightens out the front of his jacket. “He...threw my books off of the table. Replaced them with a Colt 45. I still remember the condensation blurring the print of my copy of--”

[trilluminati]

“Uhuru.” Q leans into his hands, staring off the edge.

[siteboss]

Jones finishes his work on the front of his jacket, and then, after a moment, resumes. “We had an old stacking radio. We were the only ones in the neighborhood who had anything like it. I think it only ever played one Otis album before that.”

[trilluminati]

Q snorts.

[siteboss]

“Clipse looked so...foolish.” Jones stares off. “A man ought to not dance like that in the company of--”

[trilluminati]

“Anybody--”

[siteboss]

“Before I knew it, people came pouring in--”

[trilluminati]

Q licks his lips. “Leila, that foreign exchange student from Afghanistan--”

[siteboss]

“Those two from Princeton who insisted without end that I had to meet their friend--”

[trilluminati]

“Scabby Jess made you dance with her to One Love--”

[siteboss]

“Junior and Tisha knocked my ant farm off of my nightstand and the house was covered in insects in the morning--"

[trilluminati]

“Kaya was--” Q smiles. “He was back.”

[siteboss]

“It wasn’t until years later when I found out why you threw that party for him,” Jones says, sharply. “It was the first time I ever felt like I was a part of our family. I spent all of my life chasing a single night. I did not know that we were only together because you had killed his ticket out.”

[trilluminati]

Q stops breathing.

[siteboss]

“If you remind me of any part of Jaden, you remind me of that night.” Jones turns his eyes on Q. “A disappointment.”

[trilluminati]

Q buries his face in his hands.

[siteboss]

“It is the reason why I can’t help but to love you. Jaden raised me religiously. My only god has always been my brother’s creed, and like any good disciple, I am obligated to believe every lie of my doctrine. No one submits to a belief without the crippling fear of that belief eventually betraying them. You could say that true believers are innately addicted to the experience of knowing that at any time, your world can come crashing down around you.” Jones pauses. “I am such a fool.”

[trilluminati]

“I didn’t kill him,” Q has to say.

[siteboss]

“Not personally. Jaden set him up to die.”

[trilluminati]

“Right.” Q sighs.

[siteboss]

“Don’t try to fight his battles for him,” Jones says. “He always hated a white knight.”

[trilluminati]

“Oh that’s what he hated, is it?” Q smiles behind his fingers.

[siteboss]

“I was getting to that. He always hated a white knight. What he hated was tacks in his pockets.”

[trilluminati]

Q arches a brow. “Then I ought to have said, ‘Who does he hate?’”