[b]Pope:[/b]

He stumbles a step and stares at Orange while he processes things. It’s like he’s walked into a movie and realized fifteen minutes in he’s in the showing one room over from the one he’s supposed to be in. “While I wasn’t ready for the specifics, no, it does go some way to answering why I was so surprised a tossed table would be your reason, when it should be anyone’s. It’s just, it’s no missile, is it?” He holds up a hand. “No, we should not hold our friends to the standards of our enemies. Just. Damn, girl, an attack copter? For real?” 

He snickers at that, shakes his head, looks at Orange seriously and gently rests his fingertips against the wrist of the arm over his shoulders. “Speaking as someone most and quite literally born to do HR, if you’re scared of being made redundant the question is taking on new tasks. And you’re the social core if I’m remembering you all correctly, right?” He playfully raps his knuckles against Orange’s forehead. “Then make allies just so November’s got someone she is compelled to negotiate with. I’m saying that to you, not [i]you[/i]. You want to stick around, [i]Orange[/i], then figure out how useful friends are on your own.”

“You know friends are a risk, I know it.” He looks at her with a wry irony, visibly in street agitator clothes, all the hallmarks of someone who was ready to get involved in something violent and illegal, pulled out at a rough time because this time it’s his turn to be Ms Glazer. “And you’re the only one they’ve got to manage that risk, if they want to keep the rewards.”

“But that’s only if you want to… [i]stick around[/i].” His smile flickers and dies and flickers back like a cheap fluorescent bulb trying to start. “There’s no shame in it if you don’t.”


[b]Dudekov:[/b]

He sits up and smiles. “Really, a ballooning accident?” He looks… content. There is peace upon the skull. “So who are you really? Real agents it’s bribed? That would be my guess, though I wonder how much you must have cost. Actors in uniforms recovered from corpses? You did well until you ran out of script, still quite believable. The weapons can’t be props. I am no less dead for being right” 

He stands up, suddenly. “That’s the only thing I don’t get, now. Why you haven’t just killed me yet? Unless…” He touches the wound on his head with delicate fingertips, as if for the first time. “Is this fake? It must be. But why? Why fake this? Just to scare me into seeing who I’d call if I’d been burned. You have nothing.” He walks up to Naval’s face and laughs in it, shrill and manic. “You have nothing!”