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[It's not unusual for transmissions to start en route to whatever they'll eventually show; this one follows the floor for a moment, spins its focus past a wall, shows a glimpse of common room.
Shows a partial view of a possibly familiar face, frowning in concentration, muttering more or less to himself.]
Number of things nowhere near as simple as they should be: two so far. Well done, Admiral. Catch up to the twenty-first century, huh?
[A few more small adjustments, and Alec is fully on screen, standing mid-corridor on one of the hallways. He beams, pleased with himself.]
There. Now. Floor numbers go up or down? Is this thing actually on? Hello?
[ Spam : Open ]
[Once his presence is successfully announced, it frees Alec up to investigate his new environment more thoroughly - and explore it he does, once he confirms what his research alone in his cabin has already told him: this place is nothing like Manticore. They seem to pride themselves on it, even. Additionally they're recovering from some kind of unusual crisis, and that leaves him a unique opportunity he doesn't intend to waste, especially not with what else his reading of the network has shown him.
He covers his barcode with the collar of his jacket, and separates the Barge as he understands it into a grid, sets out to fill in the blank spots. He can be found poking around in the dining hall, the infirmary, the gym, the greenhouse, the art room, and lingering outside the pub, the maintenance office, the engine room. He even wanders down near Zero just to make sure he's left no corner uninvestigated.
It's simple: act like he belongs here, see who takes the bait; he's friendly to everyone he sees, smiling easily, often waving in greeting if anyone looks at him. Evaluate, adjust, advance. As long as he has new surroundings to investigate, as long as he has new rules and social angles to learn, he doesn't have to think about why he's here, what it means, or what he means to do once he's sure of himself.]
[ Private : Dillon Cole : A few days later, after this ]
[No fumbling this time. He wants to be taken seriously and he expects this Dillon person is already familiar with X5s, too - enough to know that a few days is more than enough time for him to become competent with the communicator anyway, if nothing else.
His speech is a little more formal, too, although he doesn't bother with being as starched and rigid as he's seen his clone on the network; he can, but he only needs the vague connection in this case.]
Good afternoon, sir. I was told to contact with you a possible employment inquiry.
[It's not unusual for transmissions to start en route to whatever they'll eventually show; this one follows the floor for a moment, spins its focus past a wall, shows a glimpse of common room.
Shows a partial view of a possibly familiar face, frowning in concentration, muttering more or less to himself.]
Number of things nowhere near as simple as they should be: two so far. Well done, Admiral. Catch up to the twenty-first century, huh?
[A few more small adjustments, and Alec is fully on screen, standing mid-corridor on one of the hallways. He beams, pleased with himself.]
There. Now. Floor numbers go up or down? Is this thing actually on? Hello?
[ Spam : Open ]
[Once his presence is successfully announced, it frees Alec up to investigate his new environment more thoroughly - and explore it he does, once he confirms what his research alone in his cabin has already told him: this place is nothing like Manticore. They seem to pride themselves on it, even. Additionally they're recovering from some kind of unusual crisis, and that leaves him a unique opportunity he doesn't intend to waste, especially not with what else his reading of the network has shown him.
He covers his barcode with the collar of his jacket, and separates the Barge as he understands it into a grid, sets out to fill in the blank spots. He can be found poking around in the dining hall, the infirmary, the gym, the greenhouse, the art room, and lingering outside the pub, the maintenance office, the engine room. He even wanders down near Zero just to make sure he's left no corner uninvestigated.
It's simple: act like he belongs here, see who takes the bait; he's friendly to everyone he sees, smiling easily, often waving in greeting if anyone looks at him. Evaluate, adjust, advance. As long as he has new surroundings to investigate, as long as he has new rules and social angles to learn, he doesn't have to think about why he's here, what it means, or what he means to do once he's sure of himself.]
[ Private : Dillon Cole : A few days later, after this ]
[No fumbling this time. He wants to be taken seriously and he expects this Dillon person is already familiar with X5s, too - enough to know that a few days is more than enough time for him to become competent with the communicator anyway, if nothing else.
His speech is a little more formal, too, although he doesn't bother with being as starched and rigid as he's seen his clone on the network; he can, but he only needs the vague connection in this case.]
Good afternoon, sir. I was told to contact with you a possible employment inquiry.
[private]
Date: 2015-07-17 08:32 pm (UTC)From:He has practiced this - long before now - so it doesn't even rankle when he says it.]
I'm an inmate. What is relevant about that at this juncture is that my abilities have been reduced. I would be much more effective, much sooner, with my senses returned to full strength, and with my speed and strength.
[private]
Date: 2015-07-21 04:03 am (UTC)From:You can come meet me in person, and talk about nothing for a little while, while I freakishly pick up on, like, at least a quarter of your deepest darkest secrets, which I duly promise not to divulge unless I decide later that I should, but like, it's probably not anybody else's business anyway. And if none of those secrets is 'I'm a cannibal interested in leverage over people specifically because all my joy comes from picking them apart and watching them twitch' or, like, the sadism freestyle equivalent, then I'll give you want you need to be effective and sign you up.
Or you can walk away, and if your permanent warden vouches for you when you get one, I'll consider that good enough.
[Dillon is aware that he can be anathema to a lot of people. Sometimes he is conscientious about that, and sometimes he's not, but from the glimpses he got of Ben - he wants to be careful, right now. He has to check, before he takes a gamble like that, trusts like that, but he doesn't want to do it on the sly, even though he could. He doesn't want to take anything from Alec that he isn't allowed.]
[private]
Date: 2015-07-21 04:43 am (UTC)From:Fact: Unless he finds a way out of here first - and he has a percentage on that, but as it is a realistic one, it's in the single digits - he will be assigned eventually, and there will be a file.
Fact: Unless he is paired with someone he can manipulate into letting him have the file first, into never reading it, and/or never thinking to request a new copy from the Admiral, that warden will read that file. (He has no idea how comprehensive his will be, but it's safest to assume the worst.)
Fact: He needs as much of his own, independent leverage as possible before that happens. It's worth the exchange, especially if Dillon is telling the truth about not divulging, unless he decides later that he should, which is par for the course anyway. Manticore demands loyalty, does not bestow it in return.
Fact: Alec - Knox - X5-494 has navigated certain parts of the PsyOps division intact, and failed utterly at other parts. He's not sure where Dillon's process will fall, but there is approximately a 50/50 chance Alec will do it again.
Fact: None of his secrets are that he is a cannibal seeking leverage over other people because it is where his joy comes from. In fact it is highly likely, given Ben's presence, that most of them have been compromised anyway, and he has already been operating on the assumption of this fact.
The corner of his mouth quirks, because it's what he's taught himself to do when he feels anxious and is not bound by rank.]
That's very specific, but no. Any sadism in my rolodex was purely mission-specific and on orders.
And do you have any clue how many calories are actually in humans? No thank you.
[He has a choice here. As long as that is true, he can work.]
[private]
Date: 2015-07-21 04:17 pm (UTC)From:[This is just a little bit Too Serious. It wasn't him, on the other ship, but he still remembers what souls taste like. He twitches lightly, like a dog shaking out its fur, writ small, sending that thought away.]
...anyway, yeah, there was a specific guy. I wasn't a fan.
[Dour and casual to cover up heavier things; it's reasonably transparent, but it's enough to keep going on.]
Anyway I'll be in the infirmary for another few hours. It's a quiet day so far, knock on wood.
[private ~~~> Spam ]
Date: 2015-07-22 04:53 am (UTC)From:Instead he nods, eyebrows ever so slightly arched.]
I'm going to ignore how certain you sound about that, and agree to report within the hour. Thank you.
[He cuts the feed after a polite pause, and then immediately moves locations so he can think more about the conversation, dig a little more on Dillon specifically even though he already did this homework.
He shows up at the infirmary forty-five minutes later; he's dressed in cargo pants and a fitted sweater, perfectly acceptable civilian clothes as opposed to his clone's steady rotation of military-related items. The fabric at the neck of the sweater covers his barcode, as opposed to wearing it out in the open. He is smiling, shaking off the remnants of the interview mode he'd set up for himself as he glances over the infirmary, seeks out Dillon smoothly but without failing to acknowledge the people he passes on the way there.
The starch comes back for just a moment, a glint of steel shot through in the straightness of his spine when he stops, head up, eyes steady and hands loosely clasped behind his back. It only lasts a moment before he's shifting his weight so one hip is ever so slightly cocked, before he's slouching comfortably.]
Is there one of those cartoon face pain chart things for how freakish this is going to end up being, and if so, whose scale does it use?
[He's pretty sure his threshold is different than most peoples'; not sure whether that means higher or lower, but definitely different.]
[private ~~~> Spam ]
Date: 2015-07-23 02:36 pm (UTC)From:Dillon's in a plastic chair, scoots one over to Alec in obvious invitation with one gentle kick that gets it right where he intends.]
Logarithmic, probably.
[Sorry, bro, his freakishness scale goes pretty high.]
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-07-25 03:27 am (UTC)From:Fantastic. You should put that on the sign, it's very encouraging.
[But however uncomfortable he might be with this entire situation - and he is - he settles perfectly comfortably in the chair, slings one elbow over the back, raises his eyebrows expectantly.
Every appearance of confidence gives him an excuse not to break line of sight with a potential threat.]
Is the meter running? I'm not sure how much nothing I've got in me to talk about.
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-07-25 04:19 am (UTC)From:[So. So. It's still performative, still utterly polished. But it's there. Like trying to pick up a glass figurine someone spilled oil on. There's no purchase, but it can be done, carefully.
The polish is its own tell, tactical, trained, ground deep. There it is, like the corner piece of a puzzle, or the first word filled into a crossword. The rest will fill itself out.]
Couple minutes, maybe. Have you got an opinion on penguins?
[Instead of I've never met anyone as perfect at deception as you, but I guess I've gotten better at this. That would be - not nonsense.]
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-07-25 06:13 am (UTC)From:[The trick of it, he learned a long time ago either by sheer luck or by instinct or by having a particular knack for it, is not to become something so completely different from himself as to be utterly unrecognizable; the trick of that, then, was to pick someone to be because none of them got so much as the chance at Manticore. He picked as shape and he hung the clothes he wanted on it, and he hid the rest under that, locked it away, scrubbed until the surface was smooth and free of flaws.
But it's there, and beneath that, there is more: locked doors with light shining under and noises bleeding through the walls, ugly things and messy things and dark, quiet, shivering things, things half forgotten and things placed just out of sight until they are needed. There is anger at the core of him, bright and hot, that is evidenced nowhere near his skin, his just so casual sprawl, his generally bored and mildly skeptical expression. There is anger in him but it is rigidly brought to heel, held firmly in check, controlled by him and not the other way around.
The closest it comes to the surface is the weight of his eyes, unmistakably intelligent, inherently intent. And over the top of all of that, Dillon asks him about penguins and maybe he complained about filling the time with nothing, but that's all he ever does: fills space with noise that doesn't mean anything.]
Most people haven't even seen one in person. Just inspirational posters on the walls, "Just jump in!" Like anyone really wants to slide belly first down an ice floe and belly flop into water that will freeze their eyes open. So I mean sure, bother having an opinion about them, but don't pretend like it's relevant.
I'll tell you what's relevant to have an opinion on: seagulls. Those damn things get in everywhere, they'll chase you down for your food, and they're loud. You ever heard a seagull in person? They sound exactly like they look.
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-07-26 08:52 pm (UTC)From:I lived in L.A. for awhile. I have tried to fight off an undignified number of seagulls.
[God of all he surveys, half the time, but he did not win all those fights. Fucking seagulls.
There's a marvelously lenticular quality to Alec, Dillon thinks; completely obscure from one angle, but from the right one, it's crystal clear at least most of the way down. His will, over his anger and his identity as much as his bodily reflexes, blinks and swallows, a cloudy-rough industrial diamond forged in the tectonic pressures of his training and retraining, not entirely explicable even to him, but hard enough to cut through anything else. And that's what he wants, here - control over himself, first and foremost, and leverage next, but not to hurt with, just to have, to be ready, to have options. Dillon will have to watch him, lest he decide on further goals, but not a lot would be worth risking the first, to him. That much will keep him halfway reliable.]
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-07-26 09:37 pm (UTC)From:[Alec wasn't in Seattle long - he was barely there a week, didn't even have an address or a single rally point - but he can take the shared injoke of major coastal cities and their residents and turn it to his advantage, the easy assumption of tone. Something simple and mundane and global such as the struggle against prevalent pests. They're on the same side here, fighting against seagulls, even though he only just now learned that it was a common point between them.
He is watching Dillon as much as in return, suspicious of the way he can't tell how he's doing whatever he's doing, unsettled by nothing he can pinpoint specifically until it eventually rises out to meet him like one of those 3D pictures: he's too well put together, despite not being someone who is well put together. His youth and his posture and his choice in clothing are all too haphazard, but it all fits together too neatly for what it is.
Alec doesn't know what that means. He smiles.]
There's so damn many of them. They don't need to be smart enough to have tactics - even if they still sometimes do, like we need some kind of reminder that doorknobs are all that keep us on top - they just. Breed. And eat, and poop, and squawk, and there's nothing you can do about it but run for cover.
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-07-26 10:20 pm (UTC)From:[And the homeless people, of whom Dillon was one for some time, although even then he had more options than most of them, even with his powers inverted and siphoned and channeled toward destruction.]
Okay. I'm gonna ask the admiral for your speed back, but not strength. I realize you're clever enough to cause plenty of trouble with just that, but also clever enough not to. Yeah?
[Which really means: clever enough not to get caught causing trouble, but as long as he's spending time around Dillon, he doesn't know how easy it is for Dillon to catch him just by looking. So it sort of works out.]
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-07-27 04:51 am (UTC)From:So he smiles to acknowledge that yes, he is clever, and yes, he understands what's being told him, but he tilts his head.]
And my senses? Do I need to explain about those or do you already know that I'm basically a walking diagnostic wet dream?
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-07-29 01:06 am (UTC)From:[Oh, what the hell. It is Alec's, it's not especially offensive, and Dillon feels bad for being stingy after that little twitch, everything Alec won't beg for without an angle he thinks will work, even while he stubbornly feels like it's really not his place to give back anything that's not relevant to the job.]
Fine, fine, senses too.
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-08-01 07:31 pm (UTC)From:[Maybe he can sense the waver, maybe he just badly wants not to feel like he has a head cold that never gets worse and never gets better; made worse because as a genetically superior killing machine, it's not like he gets sick often anyway. Once or twice in his life, that wasn't intentionally induced to test his immune system.
He breathes out when Dillon agrees, relaxing some part of him that wasn't visibly coiled tight until this moment.]
How long does that take? And what are the conditions?
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-08-02 06:22 am (UTC)From:[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-08-05 03:02 pm (UTC)From:I can do that. Or... not do that. As applicable.
Thank you, sir. [He's already pushing to his feet before anything about their arrangement can change, but not so quickly as to be insubordinately dismissive.]
[ Spam ]
Date: 2015-08-08 02:50 am (UTC)From:It's Dillon.
[But casually, as if they've already had this not-argument a dozen times. He won't let it go unremarked on, but he isn't going to punish Alec for it either. He's not watching Alec anymore, already getting out his communicator to call the admiral.]