ivynian
Occurs December 21st.
Worry laced its thousand greedy little fingers into his mind while he ran the breadth of a street. The city brushed its dust over his eyes, and whorled it at his back as he passed with his unlikely speed. Stroud's house -- he knew the path to it by heart. She burned it into his mind enough times that he visited the place in his unbidden dreams.
Rowan knew. Rowan knew where his allegiance belonged and he had the audacity to ask Elex questions about it. Prying questions -- prodding questions. The type of questions that pressed its way inside of a man and stirred the truth with dirty fingernails. He sifted Elex's private life for confirmation. He wore concern like a brandished weapon. The conversation looped ad infinitum in his mind, forming a monotonous backdrop to his relentless journey. He combed through dialogue looking for second thoughts, for excuses, for avoiding his implacable commanding officer.
But that sifting only wasted the precious seconds of peace before he reached her residence. His heart rattled out its morse code objections -- I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared. He was far more than that, he realized, as he broached the tri-floored loft.
She was home by now, he knew. Doing whatever it was she did to pass her dried-up life in her posh apartment. Even Faustite's derision failed to temper his apprehension. The bulk of it filled his throat like a lead stopper. Swallowing was ineffectual, as it often was.
Swallowing meant nothing around her.
"Stroud," he called from the interstice between teleportation and walking. His head still reeled when he managed the first steps. "I need to talk to you. Something went…" He bit the words back down.
Bitterness found its home again. "You're going to laugh."
Sodium silicate added to dry sand, tamped into molds, vinegar and bicarbonated soda made the CO2 to harden the sand, and an hour later found Stroud carefully releasing the mold piece from their wooden chambers. She was seated at the regular coffee table and wingback nearest the workbenches. The draw of voice drew her eyes upward, appraising, while her hands worked without needing to watch. “The prodigal one returns.”
Went... ‘wrong’? Mouth crooked into an easy half-grin. “You know how I love a good joke. Please. “
“Go on.. “
Faustite made no disguise of his chagrin. A roll of the eyes and a sigh meant to cut conversation were his most telling symptoms. He hated watching the way her spine bent so delicately when she was at work, as if all her willowy stature had no strength in it. As if she didn't pickle her most potent poisons into her speech.
Step one. Admit the fault. "I made a mistake."
Step two. State the intentions. She doesn't care about your intentions. Only your results.
Step two. Explain the situation. "Barbary's told you most of it." You just want the play-by-play for your own entertainment. "I was working on a Dark Mirror Senshi. Sinope. He came by my identity with his magic. I drew him in how I could and put him to work gathering energy. At the same time, I met someone I used to know. Rowan Cameron. I was keeping an eye on him."
Step three. Show how it all collapsed. "They started to overlap. Sinope started stalking me. He found out that I'd been spending time with Rowan by watching me as a civilian. He's the only one who could've told Rowan I was 'involved with a gang'. He described the Negaverse in so many words." He leaned, shoulder pressed to wall as he folded narrow arms about himself. "'Stealing souls' gives it away. He confronted me about it a few hours ago." Bone ground against bone and he swallowed the smoldering coal of his anger.
Step four. Demonstrate learning through trial and error. "..." Brows furrowed, his mouth formed wordless syllables. The delicate fingers of his throat worked up and down, waiting to apply voice. "I don't know how to fix this without killing them."
Step five. Leave.
Step five. Beg for mercy.
Step five. Accept brutal consequences without crying this time.
Both eyes, instead of one. And not on him, per say, as on him.
“Sun Tzu was in your required reading this semester. The Arthashastra and studies about the Pochtecas of the Aztecs will have to be added to the near future. Espionage is one of the oldest games of advanced warfare. The leak. You cannot out maneuver what you cannot identify. Death won’t tell you, though it can be in the likelihoods of how far the stain spreads. How many know, if from this one source. “
“Can you re-contextualize the information, turning suspicion to fear or pity? Acting, to the great Stage of Life, and get this morsel to sympathize and feed you what he knows and from whom? And how far it could lead. There may be more behind Rowan and Sinope, or around them. ”
Faustite listened with as much restraint as he could glean from his quaking bones. He knew his mistake; she didn't have to rub it in. But that was half the fun for her, wasn't it?
Can you speak English? The bitter thought posed a twitch of his mouth, a clockwork sign of his malcontent. He leaned against the desk; objects proved so much better at support. A moment was spent parsing out just what Stroud was trying to say, through her mix of unwanted metaphor and obfuscated references. He felt certain Chrysocolla must nod along through these parts, unless Stroud chose to use child's language when speaking to the brat.
"I'll see what they have to say." A lone knuckle, the farthest and most offensive, rapped on the wood once.
"One can't be trusted for what he says. He muddles his own credibility. Do we have someone who can make him tell the truth?" And what happens to both of them afterward?
“There could be magic of Veritas out there.” She set the mold full down on the table, then sat back in her chair. ‘What they have to say’ didn’t seem to cotton on to more than just asking the sots right out. Truth serums and torture were the straightforward solutions that he was jumping right into, and torture often muddied the waters about what was full truth and what was concocted for relief. “It isn’t open to us for this. Credibility of both marks is important to consider. Break them both down as targets: ‘Can you re-contextualize the information.’“
“ Can you play the victim convincingly to turn Rowan into your white knight. A paramour is often an easier target, since it has more emotional baggage already attached. If he believed you a victim, he might divulge if he’s talked to connections already about couch surfing for you, or if he has any connections that are involved and could help you get away if he knows any senshi, mauvians or knights. “
“A distracting afternoon could also do much, if you wanted a different route. While he’s cleaning up in the bathroom, you or Tibs take a crack at his phone to look at numbers contacted as cross reference. Spy work. Can you act? Use what you know of these two for which one can be played and how. Do you need your team to help in other staged roles? Formulate a plan of attack, captain.” Adolescent panic had turned to frustration rather than listening, it seemed. It may always be his greatest challenge, for however long he lived, ever improving his listening skills. He had the experience with his rich life, though, to be able to pull something off. Killing both was the fastest option, the most efficient to one set of goals. It hurt the goals of helping him to become an exemplary operative for Infos and Infiltration.
Killing them is an option that doesn’t go away if the practice doesn’t work out, as well.
"The magic of what?" Did it ever occur to you that being clear is more efficient? The question was shortly discarded.
"Playing victim will work on both." Faustite shifted into a pace, no longer satisfied with the fixed position next to Stroud's table. "Rowan will tell me if he told anyone else, as long as it looks like a reputation smear. I don't think he's involved." The dangers of proof and assumption rose on their own; Faustite bit away the rest of his thought to avoid looking more like his corrupted counterpart. She wanted the cat to look through Rowan's phone, to puncture all his meager fantasies away from this life. The choices presented were clear: skip out on effectiveness to preserve a sense of normalcy, or dismantle it as thoroughly as possible to protect his identity.
"Giving Sinope the satisfaction of winning will make him tip his hand. He'll tell me if he's told anyone else. He needs the external validation." He's oriented his whole life around me, like a planet clinging to a sun.
A breath, then he turned to Stroud a second time. She looked much too calm; it wrinkled his features into a frown. She hadn't yet cut him with an incisive insult, either. "Fine. I'll need Tiberius. He'll grab Rowan's phone while I spend an evening with him. I've seen him enter his passcode enough times to have it memorized. We'll see if his contacts match up to what he tells me.
"Sinope is better approached alone." Some of that conversation I won't have to fake. "He'll perceive more power that way. He'll either act remorseful about it or assume he holds the yoke." A pause invited heavy, stagnant air. He hated the way he needed to flounder around Stroud, and how she seldom filled that silence. "I can play subservient for a while. Let him get sloppy. See what else he knows." If it works. He needs a more permanent solution than Rowan does.
She looks at this like it's an opportunity.
“Sounds like you have an idea of the plan of action. After the breadth of the leak is known, it can be determined how best to plug them both up. “ There was no levity or remorse in these words. Bald, matter-of-fact statements and implicit understatement that was made explicit after a pause. “Death, Appropriation, Repurposing, and in the case of your Sinope, working out the intrigue to turn around and use him in his foolishness. There is no formal alliance with the Dark Mirror. Delicacy is required. Some Sovereigns still tender personal leniency with them in spite of their poaching and interference. A new identity may be required regardless, but to use him first that he will not need to know. I’ll see what can be done with the InFos.”
