[b]Fiona:[/b] It’s Fiona waiting for Pink outside the elevator, when she next comes back to the room. Wild eyed, covered in cake, and holding a large knife. “I missed you, yesterday.” Is all she says. She’s unhurt but changed from the experience of the dining room. Wild-eyed and inspired. The gunpowder in the Christmas baubles? Incredible. The nerve gas in the humidifier? Beautiful how it sparkled in the air like that, Fiona was grateful she checked the bins for all the labels she could find before she went in there. Hollowing out all the chairs with a file to install landmines in all the seats? Well, Pink couldn’t get landmines, they were all hand-drawn pictures of landmines for now, but it was clearly the thought that counted. Especially when Fiona didn’t know it was only going to be the pictures when she cut the chairs back open. Give her a few minutes to come down from it all, and she’ll gush about it. The cake was surprisingly easy to defuse, actually, for artistic reasons. The candles themselves were sticks of thermite made from ground-down metal filings of pieces of the kitchen oven and aluminium foil run through a herb grater. Incredibly safe to pluck out, and deal with the core explosives after, safe without their fuse. The hardest part was resisting the urge to light the candles. Seriously, that was actually the hardest part for her. She [i]loved[/i] this. She shakes her head and hop-skips to the kitchen to drop the knife in the sink. “Crystal’s busy today, she says she hopes it’s obvious how much she wishes she wasn’t. But she filled me in on as much as she could.” Then she goes to the bedroom, and comes back with a gray turtleneck and cargo pants on a hook, the pockets bulging with their pre-filled goodies. “She says that the first thing one must do for a big event like this is scout the location, make sure it’s a good fit, get a sense for what you can do. See if it inspires anything last minute, like the big window did for her here.” Fiona shrugs. “I’m butchering it, but you know. That’s the idea.” She pauses on her way to the bathroom, and sticks her head back out the bathroom door behind her. “You want a shower before we head out? I don’t want to rush this, but it’d be nice to get back here before 5pm. If that’s not enough time, we can always go back.” She never says “to the Everest mansion”. It’s too obvious to her for her she thinks she has to. [b]White and Yellow:[/b] You know in 2023 how there were those furry costume makers who just went absolutely insane on the mechanical aspects of costumes, stuff that really blinked, stuff that mimicked wolf leg walks, wings that really beat? The closest real word to it is puppeteering, but I actually rather like Disney’s ‘imagineering’ to describe it. Yeah, so, in sixty years from now, those people get access to the same kind of tools Blue was getting told about, charcoal looms and glass and all other sorts. The world is not so neat as to fold neatly along the lines that would give you a second unicorn, one made of fire and steel in oppositional contrast to Crystal’s warm flesh and blood. Well, it’s not so neat as to give you that [i]this time[/i]. Such a thing would feel a little too [i]neat[/i], anyway. That’s fine though. Yellow’s heart is still clear here. A cybernetic unicorn wouldn’t have been nearly so interesting a decision, what, use the horn as an antenna for drones? Something like that? Something is betrayed in that aesthetic by making the horn a whimsical way to hide a practical consideration. Yellow will instead be casting her lot among the fae to make her deal. Hazel was born with a genetic condition that stunted her growth significantly, but genetic treatment had already come a long way. She didn’t opt for traditional treatment though, from a young age she wanted to be a [i]fairy[/i] like many little girls do. And her parents allowed her this modification to her treatment, thinking that if she ever - pardon the phrase - grew out of it, it would be reversible. Getting [i]larger[/i] is much easier than getting [i]smaller[/i] with these things. She never did. Still only as tall as Yellow’s hip but with rail-thin proportions, Hazel grew fixated on making herself real wings. It wasn’t enough for her to wear costume pieces, to just be small and peppy and costumed. There’s an engineering term, AM/FM, which means ‘actual machines’ versus ‘fucking magic’ as the difference between what’s promised in a white paper and what’s actually implementable in reality. Hazel has a tattoo in moss green ink down her right forearm instead: AM:FM. Actual machines [i]make [/i]fucking magic. Her fairy wings beat like dragonfly wings, and she hovers and she soars and she sups from the crowd like she’s drinking nectar from flowers. The cowling that protects them is done in sculpted glass, to protect their delicate internal membrane without sacrificing anything of the illusion. She powers them with strips of graphene battery packs, arranged as blue-green faery fire tattoos that cover her entire body - the tradeoff of keeping them so skintight is needing to maximize surface area, but again she just makes that another part of the look. Hazel Belle-Fleur is not in costume. She even folds her wings on her back to sleep, designed them so she can lie on them indefinitely without breaking them, because in the moments between changes of outfit, in the minutes she takes to change her batteries, she feels [i]amputated[/i]. Severed. This is all superficial, though. This is her sleeve, and all the heart that’s worn on it. When White and Yellow approach her now, what is in her voice and her words that makes her… [i]perfect[/i]? [Out of character; it wouldn’t be a proper deal with the fae if you didn’t give me a voice that I might steal it. Happy to workshop this, I can think of plenty, but as she’s replacing Blue’s role I enjoy being more collaborative in implementation before I steal her back. First blood all yours] [b]Knightly:[/b] Of course it had to be him. He’s been rehearsing this. Microbead camera-bugs are doable, but problematic. Like, signals and transmitters and lenses all got good enough that a camera the size of a dew drop can send its raw feed to Black’s phone and get as clear a picture as a 2023 phone camera can at around 5x zoom. Which is nothing to sneeze at when you’re using an aperture that tiny. The problem is that battery tech didn’t get better enough to support it how you’d want, it’s only got between half an hour of up-time. That and there’s no storage because it’s just junking its signal as soon as it sends it, no storage. This thing’s only good for being used when you know exactly when you need it, and when you’re a few rooms away at the most. That’s fine, that’s all you need. You can’t get into her office, can’t risk more than a walk past. But a pretend pick and flick lands the camera on a bookshelf through a crack in the door. You’ve already made your plans for it to be retrieved after, by someone else, haven’t you? So there’s Black, in the bike storage area of building 1D, directly under the office. Still in signal range. It’s dark down there, intentionally low-lit to make it harder to identify the bikes from one another and malicious tampering or targeting. At the absolute lowest threshold of what is considered the legal minimum of lighting. Carry a vape pen in one hand, your phone in the other, and nobody will ever be suspicious of you for loitering here. It’s like how a plant growing in the middle of an office is suspicious until it’s in a plant pot, and then it’s invisible - a thing in its rightful place. The feed shows Moriarty’s office and of course it’s a British ministerial old wooden style office. What is it with these smarter-than-you rich assholes and wood as a status symbol? This one actually is forested from Gaea to meet demand, but it’s not a sustainable practice. Water is a mineral you have to mine as much as aluminum or iron out here. It’s just a way to say… Well, actually, that’s what it is, isn’t it? IIt’s saying: I maintain my chain of authority from the old world. I am the Roman administrator in Londinium. I refuse that the empire has fallen, for I am still here. We shall keep it alive in its traditions, and first of its traditions is to venerate me. Some people just like wood, because wood’s pretty. It’s great. But do you think someone like Moriarty or Rudy would so enshrine themselves in it for that surface level aesthetic? Nah. They wear their offices with it like an Oxford tie. Knightly enters without knocking, dressed in his jacket again, his sign of the old world. Of the collapse. The symbol of the people that had to deal with the fallout of the breakage. Neither of them intended this symbolism in their conflict, but it’s that subconscious draw to these symbols that makes their conflict inevitable. Knightly: “I want Colon and Gomez, and I want you to pay me their cut for taking them.” Through the lens, Moriarty looks up. Gaunt, hollow-cheeked and gold-wire glasses with permanently pursed lips coated in flaking red lipstick. Moriarty: “Cut?” Knightly: “You’re paying them off. Caldwell, Crane and Casey might be true believers, but I know you’re paying Guy Colon and Hermione Gomez, and I know they’re pissed, and I know that’s becoming a liability for you.” Moriarty: “Is that what your skulking has been about? Aaron, we’ve been worried about you. These… paranoid delusions, they are not the sign of a sound or stable mind. The promotion has clearly been too much pressure on you, you weren’t ready yet.” Knightly: “I can’t… come out and say anything against you yet, and you know it. But I’ve been talking to the both of them, and they’re actually talking to me when they didn’t before.” Through the camera, Moriarty lowers the lid of the laptop she’s typing on, just slightly, and sits up straighter. Not on purpose. Her attention is more than she can hide, now. Knightly: “I think a limited hangout would be the best for the both of us. You give them to me, and I’ll keep them in my little conspiracy, stop them going to those journalists that have been going around. That helps me too, I… Honestly, I’m disgusted by all of this. The shame of whatever it is your doing would stain my beloved SES for years, years from now.” The most plausible lies are the truth. If you didn’t already know that Knightly planned on breaking this anyway, you’d never be able to suspect it. It’s going to crush him to help you, but it’s not as important to him as doing the right thing. Moriarty: “You don’t know what you’re asking.” Knightly: “No, I don’t. But they’ll tell me what they were getting either way, soon. This is just… for their protection too.” Moriarty: “Protection?” Knightly: “We do a limited hangout. You know that I can keep the lid on them, they think it’s because I’m protecting them from reprisal, and you get to cut loose agents you can’t afford to pay before they defect in some way that’s worse for you than this. We both win.” Moriarty closes her laptop completely, checks and double checks her door is closed, and casually cleans her desk, as if for any other kind of bug than the one she’s actually checking for. Moriarty: “These are the paranoid delusions of a man cracking under the pressure. I have humoured you long enough. I’m putting you on one week [i]paid [/i]medical leave.” Her eyes dart up as she emphasizes paid, and she tugs an earlobe. It’s a smart play by her. She wants him off-site, but the punishment will increase his legitimacy to the agents she’s cutting. Knightly: “I- No. Maybe you’re right. Maybe the time off will be good for me. Just, you know… ever since the Godard Pump…” Moriarty: “Of course, of course. The damage to Erebus has been taxing on us all, and to fall into your position in the middle of it…” Knightly: “I hope we do find out just how much was broken, in the end.” The camera dies, fizzles, feed out. You don’t see what happens after that, but it seemed like the end of the conversation anyway. Might as well make sure he’s okay when you enact your quick plan to retrieve the bug you set up before. But then what?