i'm just one man with no face and no friends TOPH!

[ALPHA !]

i can't define myself through irony and self deprecation
i can't deny myself being alive through my alienation

Hidden. That's where he was--where he always was. Mind whirring, heart still the same old tick-tock rhythm. Nothing seemed to get it started anymore. The chugga-chugga of the train rolling in on an innocent victim on the tracks never came to him anymore. His heart was an ocean, dull, full of fine grains of sand so that even when the waves lapped, the rocks on the sea floor didn't grind against each other. His hands tangled in the soft flannels of the plaid Oxfords next to him, and he tugged one from its hanger, shrugged it on over the dark grey shirt he wore. But the vibrant splash of orange and red did not amaze the eyes that had seen forty-eight different lives. The colors did not awaken in him a joy for life or passion, they were, to put it simply, there. No different than any other day, any other colors. They had been a convenient choice. He had reached up, without having to get up, and tugged them lightly from their hangers without causing a fuss. A job well done as far as he was concerned. It had been a long time since he had been in this room, though now he couldn't remember why. The claustrophobic feeling was numbing, if nothing else. Here he could rest, converse with the few people he could without stirring up a fuss, and he would never be found. For while Ms. Dewitt liked to think that her Dollhouse was neat and organized, the heaps of clothing hidden behind the dozens of racks in the back of the room claimed otherwise.

Now, however, it was getting late, and Alpha's eyes drooped. He had been promised sugars, candies, and still his offering had not been brought to him. Any woman would have asked for chocolate, lamented the sad day that was December twenty-seventh of the year 2017, but Alpha was not a woman, and he saw no need to make such an ordeal out of a simple celebration. After all a birthday was only a most precious date when you only had one birthday to keep track of. Now, add another forty-seven into the mix, and the celebration isn't such a 'big deal' anymore. However, Alpha did like sweets, especially when, for the last month, he had been living off of peanut butter sandwiches and a jar of pickles. There were only rare occasions upon which he could slip into the Dollhouse unnoticed, and even rarer occasions when he was able to get ahold of one of his 'helpers.' Of course, he had not yet breached the subject of Rossum's takeover with any of them, least of all his good friend, Topher, but today, Alpha hoped that he could discuss the topic without arousing too much of a fuss from the genius-boy. He would speak of it gently, perhaps coax Topher into bringing him to the imprinting room, being careful to keep either one of them from being put in the chair. (That would prove trickier than it sounded, he was sure, for with forty-seven personalities battling each other, he was sure to have a moment where the serial killer would be in charge, and there would be no help from Topher after that.) But he had to take it slow. Patiently. That was the only way to go about getting anything done, especially when it concerned the Dollhouse. Of course, time was difficult to come by these days. Alpha had lost his last wristwatch three days prior; the battery had died, and now, lacking the important skill of telling time by the sun, he was unsure of what day, or even hour it was. There was only night and day.

And off his mind had gone again, drawing parallels from who knew where. Rossum. That was the reason there was no time. Their army drew nearer every day and soon a butcher would find its way into the Dollhouse just as he had. Maybe, and he shuddered to think of it, maybe that butcher would follow him and dispose of him once he was inside the Dollhouse. No, Alpha considered himself smart enough to realize if a man was following him, even a highly trained—imprinted—active. But where were his sweets? A man could only think so much without his sweets. The apocalypse would wait until he had had his sugar-coated candies.

Lyrics - Say Anything
Icons - Moodymegg

[TOPHER BRINK]

It had all gone very very wrong. Topher had been so bright, so full of ideas and wonders when he first arrived at the Dollhouse. He was a Genius, a failing, crumbling genius perhaps but a genius none the less. He had the highest IQ in the entire facility and now, he was often no more use than an Active unless you wanted someone to sit with you, look at you puzzled before spouting off about some random game you had never heard of. Topher's intelligence and sudden conscience overload weren't doing him any favours.

And he knew it. His brilliance had been flaunted but in an amusing if not slightly self centered way but not rubbed in anyone's face...particularly..intentionally. Topher had always wanted people to know he was brilliant. No one ever understood him but he was better. At least he had been. Claire Saunders had brought him down a peg or two and he did the rest, but that was the idea. Saunders, Whiskey didn't know it, but she was designed to be his downfall. Deep down Topher always knew that this was the likely end for him. At least it wasn't the Attic. That was his only consolation on his good days. It wasn't the Attic. he was still around, sometimes asked to help out, others left to his own devices and he'd wander off, perhaps visit Claire. In his childlike state he forgot, or didn't care that she hated him, that that's what he wanted and could only see Ellie. He both wanted and feared her hacking into his own Profile. He couldn't remember now, wasn't quite sure if her skills were advanced enough to decrypt and unlock an entire section that invovled her. No one could see it besides Topher and he never looked at it. He knew it all already. Perhaps she'd never know. Saunders always had been afraid of death.

Topher had never been that bothered. When faced with the Attic he was sure he'd rather shoot himself in the head, or force one of the guards to do it rather than become something worse than an Active. He had seen it done too. It was hardly pleasant. Topher knew well the fates worse than death and when threatened with the Attic you damn well did everything in your power to avoid it. however, the ATtic was now out of commission. There were worse things than that: being a butcher, being sold, being imprinted remotely. The whole world had gone to hell and he knew it came down to him. The technology wasn't his but he vastly improved it within minutes and then developed a way that did it in less than five minutes and from a distant point. There were Actuals running around the surface scared for their...lives he supposed while the LA Dollhouse huddled together behind closed doors.

Today Topher wasn't completely gone but he was mentally broken at the moment. He imagined if you looked at his brain scans you'd see fissures, giagantic chasms like the one he imagined in his head. The old Topher would have said deterioration of the mental capabilities and death of electrical routes and nerve receptors but today, for now Topher was swinging betweey layman's terms and full on jargon which hadn't helped DeWitt earlier today. She had simply let him talk it out, before giving him a juice to which he replied he'd much rather have mango than orange had it had been supplied but before he could finish he had the overwhelming urge to clean and tidy. Topher often forgot to feed and water himself.

It wasn't required, he knew it but he was slightly OCD so he had to look anyway. He had to check the Imprint Archives were in perfect order because he had this annoying nagging feeling that something was out of place and he knew it would bug him until he checked it out. Of coruse he had found that there was nothing wrong. Quite a few of the Actives had some self awareness enough to react in a more normal manner than a broken child. Seirra had request something other than their usual clothes and Topher felt it fitting to provide her with similar but slightly more designed clothes. Adelle wouldn't get mad would she? Upon entering the wardrobe Topher looked around before turning right.

[ALPHA !]

fake players and the twisted webs they weave
i contend that the coming holocaust will be of those who choose to believe
in nothing but a phallic sense of self
hang alone in the attic, tied up tightly with your father's belt

It always seemed that he was the only one who could get things done in a timely fashion. It would have been a different matter if Topher had needed to battle actives and hurl himself through an obstacle course to get into the wardrobe, but the case remained that Topher and his addled brain simply needed constant prompting to get anything done. Alpha, cranky and tired, stretched his feet out as he sat in a pile of rather raggedy looking clothing (and yet still cleaner than his back at the warehouse), just as the door opened. Alpha drew the knife from its sheath, then rolled beneath one of the racks, over the sprawls of clothing that cushioned the noise. Catching site of the wrinkled pants of the intruder, Alpha relaxed and pushed himself to his feet. Finally. His eyes searched the boy's empty arms for sweets, and upon finding none, he frowned. "Topher! You promised. It's my birthday." He could complain now, legitimately. How was his brain to function if he hadn't eaten any food since last night? And even then, how much good could peanut butter really do? And as one of his scientist imprints flared up, tugging on his nerves as he attempted to explain the multiple reasons, Alpha shook his head and resheathed his knife. Skinning Topher wouldn't solve anyone. "Next time. You promise?"

But the possibility of a next time was fast becoming obsolete. He could only hide from the butchers for so long before he was forced to change locales or perhaps even retreat to the Dollhouse and beg for mercy. Like they would ever take him in, make nice with him, like they wouldn't be as bad as any band of butchers. Except for Topher, and maybe Claire, or what was left of Claire, at least. The hollow look in Topher's eyes, or the way he saw them at least, gave Alpha the slightest twinge of guilt as to what he'd done to Claire, but soon the feeling was replaced with glee. Alpha didn't know any better, like a small child playing with matchbox cars, he played with knives and destroyed memories. Of course, he did occasionally wish he hadn't done it, wiped out the genius mind that, coupled with Topher's, probably could have saved the world in a week's time. But no, he'd gone and gotten impatient, moved his hands faster than his synapses, and now he was suffering for it. Oh, good old karma, how it pained him to acknowledge its existence, not to mention its continued vendetta against him. (Though he did deserve it for the most part.) Despite his lack of planning, at least he had kept Topher focused on the job, or so he was led to believe. For Alpha couldn't truly tell how Topher's brain worked these days, nor could he truly tell if Topher was crazy. In fact, Alpha merely found Topher to be rather scatter-brained lately, in need of prompting, and prone to tangents, but the word crazy would never show up in Alpha's vocabulary.

"Toph, Toph! Tofu! Don't you ever change your clothes anymore? Does Mommy Adelle always do your laundry?" Alpha wished he'd had that luxury in college, instead of lugging his peculiar smelling, month-old overflowing laundry basket down to the corner mart bi-monthly and feed the machines quarters and use the one laundry detergent left on the shelf which always had a very feminine smell. Looking back, this was probably the reason all the girls wanted to spend time with him and then freaked out when he tried to make a move on them. He grinned at Topher and spun around. How could you live in the lab next door and not take advantage of the never ending supply of clean clothes? Then again, when did Topher take advantage of anything besides a good brain to study? Alpha laughed and looked longingly at the door just behind Topher. All he had to do was walk outside. All he had to do was slip into the lab and make it happen. He could stop everything. He could save the world, and then start destroying it from scratch, by his own means, instead of using an army to do the dirty work. Rossum could never do anything the right way, the fun way.

[TOPHER BRINK]

Topher wasn't right in the head anymore. This he knew. He was adamant that he deserved this mental decay or whatever it was. When sane enough to hypothesis it could simply be, not a proper mental breakdown, but simply his consciousness turning to a time and/or place where he felt safest, and least guilty. As a restul it plunged him into a world of games and simplicity with his stubborn easily bored nature and lack of concentration - on anything other than what appeared to everyone else as nonsensical scribbles. Topher always knew what they said though. They spoke to Topher in a way they couldn't communicate with anyone else and anyone who walked on his 'scribbles' usually got yelled at loudly unless they were a select few and Topher was actually happy to see them. Otherwise he'd entirely ignore their presence and pretend they don't exist. It was the easiest way he felt. wip

"Topher! You promised. It's my birthday. Next time. You promise?"

Topher froze. That voice. He knew that voice. There was only one person that tone, that resonance could belong to.

Alpha.

Alpha. Alpha was here. Alpha was hiding in the wardrobe room. Funnily enough Topher did take a moment to process this with a bemused feeling before concluding yes, it probably was a good place to hide and moved back onto being panicked out of his unstable mind! What did the psychopathic Alpha want with him? Was it just chance? Was he waiting? What what what why? alpha had never actually touched Topher. This was true. While everyone else got massacered, sliced to pieces nad had their eyes gauged out Topher was always clocked on the head. It was slightly appreciated as much as anyone can appreciate that sort of thing. Alpha had never actually attacked Topher but to be fair Topher had, at the time, made himself as small as humanly possible and non-threatening. Alpha could see him as a threat right? He was just here to toy. Yes toy. Murderers liked to do that. See fear. Taste fear. Smell fear. Know they caused it. Revell in the sight. That was it wasn't it? No more? Just fear. calm down Topher. Just calm. Very very calm. Can't do it can you no? No Topher an't calm down. How could he calm down. 8 seconds and the guy was a genius. Topher was a genius but Alpha was a genius genius. He was like Bennett! Only scary and not hot. Well, not not hot noo. The whole I want to slash you up into flesh confetti kind of off set all of that and Topher was straight! With the exception of not actually knowing if Bennett was a girl or a guy. It was the one time!

"S'your birthday?" Topher asked quietly. He didn't even know what time it was let alone what day. He never payed much attention or wasn't interested in it at all. His equations were all that captured his attention. His work was what was needed. He had to. He just had to. there was no other way forward, no other way out of it no other way but it continue scribbling and making changes and Topher very nearly tore his hair out every other day. Why was it so hard? Was he looking at it the wrong way? He had to be right? Looking at it the wrong way? How was Alpha looking at it? No! Bad! Very bad! While Alpha's help was obviously required he didn't want to work with soemone like that. It would make him too nervous. He was already shaking like a leaf and resisting the urge to crawl into a corner , put his hands over his head, rock and ignore his very existance. Topher asn't doing so well over here but armed jigsaw people tended to do that. He associated Alpha with knives and blood and terror and screaming and annoying impossible remote wipes and messing around with his actives and being a general terrifying pain. "Next time what?" he added entirely sure he wasn't going to like the answer.

"Toph, Toph! Tofu! Don't you ever change your clothes anymore? Does Mommy Adelle always do your laundry?"

This was entirely strange, bizarre not to mention utterly terrifying. He remembered The Annoying NASA Traitor Turned Attic Ally Dominic not even refusing to give him a gun which would have been nice by the way. Ballard had insisted that Alpha had only went for those that were in the way. But there were two other staff members that didn't make themselves threatening to alpha besides himelf and he happily sliced them up. Alpha had been an accident though sometimes Topher just wasn't so sure. He was an accident right? Alpha hadn't somehow planned it? It shouldn't have happened. He could run diagnostics and imprint simultaneously so why did alpha get dumped with all the personality imprints? Being implicated hadn't been fun. Not fun at all. topher didn't like being threatened by intimidating men with fire arms who were, in his opinion all to trigger happy and free with the love of death, violence and blood. "I have, um, other things to concentrate on." Topher replied nervously. "How long have you been here?" Topher asked though he was entirely sure he did not wish to know. Realy did he? alpha could have been here 30 minutes, 5 hours or 2 months and the longer it was the more edgy Topher would get and that would not help him one bit now would it? Not one bit.