maskormenacelogs | 002 ☂ Let the bodies hit the floor

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002 ☂ Let the bodies hit the floor

WHO: Allison Hargreeves & Jacob Taylor
WHERE: Maurtia Falls
WHEN: Backed dated to the July 28th
WHAT: A Continued Association of Unexpected Proportion aka Hargreeves Have A Terrible Taste for Psychos
WARNINGS: Discussions of criminals, the OTO/Constellation criminal organizations, multiple murders, non-consensual coercion, arson, car crashes, purchase and intent to use biological weapons, and assault. As well as all normal possible Hargreeves warnings of drugs, death, and child abuse.

Allison had a busy week. Another set of shoots, on the entirely reworked Special Summer Edition Project Walkway has shifted around for her debut outside of the soft open showing of her at FanPort. Even if it’s not as taxing as her job used to be, it’s still long hours. Added to that during the end of the week she very slowly let herself be talked around to considering trying out for a silent acting project that got dropped on the doorstep of the Project Walkway agents since whoever was making it heard of, and or saw, her.

Something she hasn’t mentioned at home, because it seems pointless and trivial and like a slap in the goddamn face. A reminder, again, of everything she's lost, everything she's not.   

That is the reason this never happened sooner.   

This being Allison following up on that tension hooked between her shoulder blades about the bizarre morning after with Klaus and his friend-significant other, and the way he looked at her singularly as he was leaving, like she committed some previously judged sin that made her below him, and about how much Klaus wanted them to be sure the man wasn’t trying to destroy the Earth. Like Harold Jenkin’s. Who never did either.

The Network may still be new to Allison since getting to this Earth, but she’s gotten to be rather a dab handed at it, between studying Kaneki’s FAQ and having to rely on the Network for even a facsimile of communication with the people around her. Which means it does not take her long, to put Hux’s name (first name? Last name? She has no clue, since he was never fully introduced) and come up with several majority report links covering the last six months.   She nearly bumps into three people before she stops heading home and sits down to finish reading them first. She’s not even through the third before she knows home is not where she’s going now. She debates her communicator. Debates the Mental Network. Debates calling Luther, but like Harold, she wants to be sure first. After all, Klaus promised this Hux was nothing at all like Harold Jenkins.

She wants to believe Klaus, but she'd wanted to believe Vanya, too. Vanya's who's new boyfriend rubbed her the wrong way and had no existence in research. Klaus's new boyfriend who ran all the stoplights in the direction of having no end of it during the last six months, and each piece of it worse than the previous.

Which is how Allison finds herself at the porter, and then, for the first time in over a month, in Maurtia Falls. At the Aegis headquarters. Giving her name to someone and asking them to relay the message that she's here for Jacob Taylor, with the request to speak to him. That it's important. Hoping he might have the time. Waiting, and scrolling the Majority reports that feels all too impossible -- and absolutely possible, given their last week on their Earth -- to be real, to be happening again so soon.

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The man who takes Allison's name and runs her through security- verifying her identification, checking her for weapons and espionage devices, inquiring about her purpose today- is named August Park. He's polite, efficient, and shows signs of recovering from a recent injury sustained the last time HQ was attacked (during the dream disaster, to be exact). Once he's confirmed that Allison is not, in fact, here to blow the place up, he escorts her upstairs two stories to Commander Taylor's location - the Command Room.

Money and influence ooze from this place. It's dominated by a holographic central map of Maurtia Falls, ringed by a circular conference table equipped with the consoles necessary to interact with the map and switch it to different modes of information display.

Jacob isn't looking at the map, though. His attention is on Allison from the moment August brings her to the room, salutes smartly, and excuses himself.

"Hey, Allison," he says warmly. "Welcome to the base. What can Aegis do for you today?"

This place is nice. Like truly nice. Allison's gaze taking in everything it can as she casually watches what parts of the building she can see as she's led upstairs, with the understanding that this was only a birdseye view. A public walk view. No one had ever seen where the Hargreeves children were trained, or lived most of their waking hours, by walking into the foyer and living room of the Academy. Still. It's very, very nice. Aegis really did not want for much, did it.

When they reached the room that looked definitely like the war room of a base, straight out of any film, Allison gaze first shifted around the room. Taking in the chairs, and the consoles, and the floating, transparent map. The very central meeting space-ness of the whole room, before her gaze centered on the man coming toward her. There's a moment where she's almost uncertain if she should shake his hand or just stay standing, but she doesn't move forward, her hands pulling at each other slightly, still upside down and inside out.

Settling for, with a serious expression, and a cursory look at the room around him. Can we talk somewhere private?
Allison doesn't know if this is, but her family wasn't a public affair. Especially not on things like this.

Edited 2019-07-06 03:58 (UTC)

Jacob watches her taking it all in with no small amount of pride. He knows he's working with the best, both in people and equipment, and it feels good. But his face is serious when she makes her request, and he nods.

"My office is right this way." He indicates with a tilt of his head. "If that works."

Allison followed behind him, but not by far. Direction which did not quite enter into discretion. Her demeanor remains calm, if colder and more serious than any other time. A side her siblings know well, and her ex-husband. Maybe the closest to what she'd meant to be when she originally met Jacob. Before he tripped her up entirely, giving her a shadow of one of three things taken from her.

She doesn't want to jump to conclusions without evidence.
She doesn't want to, and can't ignore, the voice that says she already has it.
There'd been so much less to go on, and no one to ask, where it came to Harold Jenkins.

(Never so very many casualties the could be counted in bodies and would-be, almost-were, bodies.)

She's never been a creature of patience, Allison Hargreeves, not when action was so much more effective, and it's why it takes little more than stepping into his office and the door closing, but not even to anything like actually taking the time to find chairs, to lock her network and say the one thing beating in her mind, on her silenced tongue, since the second she knew she was coming here.

To: Jacob Taylor (Locked)

I need to you tell me how dangerous Amritage Hux is, or isn't.

Jacob's office is Spartan and tidy, with no ostentatious signs of status or cluttered paperwork, decorated with only a few mementoes and photographs. The main distinguishing feature is an exercise mat rolled out in a corner, for when the Commander wants to do some crunches while he's thinking or working through a frustration.

Speaking of frustration- the moment Jacob gets the message and sees the name 'Hux', his face goes dark.

"You should keep far away from him," he says, firmly and without hesitation. "That's how dangerous he is."

Hmh. That's an expression she knows on a face she barely does. The sudden seizure of seriousness that drops any of the ease, or even 'at ease' of as close as a leader might get to it, in the middle of their workplace, middle of their work shift, middle of being surrounded by others who always looked to them during it, whatever any of those really looked like on a normal day here.

And if I think that might not be easily accomplished right now, how bad could that get?

Edited 2019-07-07 02:50 (UTC)

Shit. Jacob doesn't like the sound of that. Text of that. Whatever.

He knows Hux is good at worming his way into things. He knows he's good at pretending to be something he's not. And the thought that he might be in a position where Allison can't easily distance herself from his poison is not a happy one.

"Bad," he says bluntly. "He uses people when they suit him, and hurts them when they get in his way. He's some kind of a war criminal in his own world, and was involved with organized crime in this one."

Allison looked to the side, trying to even take in that new part. War Criminal? That's. That's not even like walking into Harold Jenkin's creepy dungeon room with the Umbrella Academy magazine's and posters and toys with their eyes all gouged out. That's. War Criminal. What war? What actions that earned it? How few? How many?

She does have to step to a side, seeking a chair as she starts writing something. Carefully. Because it's taking a chance, and it's taking a chance she doesn't like taking. A chance that involves putting not herself, but her family, at risk, in the transparent, and Allison usually did neither, not with herself and her life, and not with theirs, not even between herself and her own family.

The kind that if he fucked up, she would never do again. Ever. Good excuses be damned.

Allison is sitting, arms crossed when she finally finishes writing it. One of my brother's is sleeping with him. I woke up to him in my house last weekend. I got busy and didn't look until today, but something about the end of his visit just rubbed me wrong. More precisely, being stared down at by the man, like she, personally, was a stain on the ground in front of him he was considering smearing under his shoe. I only just saw the Majority Reports before I got here.

Before she came to him right now; before she went to the rest of her family. (To Luther.) She'll deal with all of that later. Facts first. Along with the other important part to her. Before it can be questioned. About her brother. Klaus has made a lot of terrible choices with his life, but I don't think he knows. About ... any of this.

"Shit."

Jacob rubs the back of his head. He'd been picturing Hux stalking the Hargreeves, or trying to gain control of their powers somehow, or something else along those militant lines. Something as personal as Hux's sex life was... somehow much worse.

"I don't know Klaus. But I know Hux. He tried to join Aegis once. Got rejected for flunking the ethics test hard. That was before I caught him trying to buy ricin or any of the rest. He likes hurting people and has an ego the size of a planet."

I could have guessed at that very last part.

That is up and out before she even considers that it's as simple, as a straightforward observation of him as it is petty reflection of her own feelings based on that one moment, too. Not that she's mentioned it. Not that she needs to. She's born so much more than a seconds scorn as Allison Hargreeves, Star of Page and Stage and Screen, called even by her sister 'one of the most famous people on the planet.'

World wide noterity came with more rancor and rumor, hate and stalking, than she ever could have expected, more than had even come with being part of The Umbrella Academy, where she'd been stalked, nearly lost an arm, and once had a serial killer placed on her by her own father, 'as a lesson to be learned,' but it hadn't ever been deadly, and she'd learned to bear it with at least acted-grace.

It hadn't been the look that had brought her here, only that had opened her network.
It was everything she found there that found her in this office.

It all just kept turning in her mind, over and over and over.

Jacob steps toward her, concern written all over his face.

"It took weeks to get Hux in custody," he says. "And now that he's completed probation, there's nothing we can legally do to touch him until we catch him committing more crimes. You want my advice? Get your brother to dump his ass, and tell Hux to stay away if he knows what's good for him."

He has no expectation of Hux respecting the Hargreeves' or anyone's wishes, of course. But Jacob knows Hux cares about Hux, and is at least smart enough to recognize the consequences of pushing too hard on something like this.

As much as she needed him, to ask him these things, from a half dozen articles all with his name in them, too, she doesn't entirely even notice that Jacob moves towards her or moves at all. Allison looks at her knees, his desk, rubs her fingers against her nose, her mouth, hand pressing there a long moment. It's more unguarded and uncontrolled movement of her person than most people see outside of her house, but she doesn't care. She's trying to even get her hands on it. Again. It's happening again. With Klaus now.

And it's not that easy. The things Jacob's voice is still drilling down toward her through the black of her thoughts. It won't be. Because. Klaus. Except. The Harold Jenkins thing, it'd absolutely been wound up in how their whole world stopped existing. Or didn't stop existing. Had an apocalypse that vaporized the planet and wiped out all life, but kept standing. War Criminal. It keeps repeating in her head.

It's a stupid question, but she asks it anyway. Half in a daze, even as she can feel her anger starting to spark.
Her expression the least collected it's been since all those strange things that ran them into each other.

It's all true? Everything he did? Murder and biological weapons and ... and everything?
She knows she read it. She still has all of it on her communicator in tabs. She just. Needs him to actually say it.

"The murder was never proven," Jacob says, his voice dry as a desert. "But I wouldn't be surprised if I found out he was involved. The rest, though? The mind control, the arson? I saw it with my own two eyes. Hell, he tried to kill me twice."

They weren't particularly good murder attempts, not compared to the long list of enemies Jacob has encountered in his time, but it's the thought that counts. Especially when it comes to someone who pisses him off as deeply as Hux.

Allison wants that to be some kind of solace. Consolation. But Reginald Hargreeves did not train his children to look for excuses to look away. He didn't even once give them the option for it. Some of them took to the glaring, blinding light better than others. Luther, and Diego, and Allison, most of all. She nodded, trying to slot that into place, trying to press her emotions down under her fingers, thoughts. Control. Facts.

Those were only the last six months and he'd said, and where silence had reigned, questions finally start to line up in her vision. How long as he been here? Is he still part of any criminal organizations? Is there anyone else here that comes from his world? Or that he's done whatever it is he's doing with my brother?

Edited 2019-07-13 02:47 (UTC)

Jacob cast his eyes upward, thinking back. The first question is a detail that hadn't been focused on in the original investigation, but he'd seen in the research file on the suspect that...

"Hux has been here since at least 2017," he says after a moment. "That's when his first Network post went up. Over two years - longer than most imPorts. There's lots of other people here from his world. More than almost anywhere else, actually. No idea why."

The explosion of imPorts who came from the universe with the Jedi and the Empire had started around 2017, come to think of it. Jacob idly wonders if there's a connection, but doesn't focus on it. Trying to find reasons for the Porter's operations is always a losing game.

"If I knew whether he was still part of any crime network, I'd have busted him for it by now," he continues. "As for your brother... it's honestly the first I've heard of him even having a personal life. He's not exactly sociable."

Allison wishes she was more surprised than she feels about that part. The number of people she keeps hearing of who are just reaching or have already passed two years has kept existing at her. Like this place was trying to impress a point she wasn't going to listen to. It's numbing to hear its repeated refrain echo even into this. Though the rest of what he says makes sense enough, it would make sense, not to know, about a lot of it if it was being kept in the dark.

From those who might stop him from doing whatever he was doing. Whomever. (Klaus.)

Allison thinks of her own family, and the very few people she's managed to find who've all come from the same place and time like hers did. It hasn't been many, but from what she can tell, it has been slightly close-knit. Especially against the threats and toward this whole having to build a whole new life. Are they all like him? The people from his world? Is there a way to tell who they are?

That question gets Jacob to crack a smile. The idea of a whole world full of people like Hux is amusing in a horrifying way.

"Hell, no. Most of them are against him. A few are even Aegis agents- and you can trust all of them. Talk to Luke Skywalker, Finn, TK-622 or Akobi. They know that Galaxy better than I do. And if you want to find more, just pop on the Network and say something about the Jedi. They'll come right out of the woodwork."

He has seen so much Jedi drama, Allison. So much.

Jacob smiling in a reaction is a better smile than the polished presentation, shaking your hand one. It's better surprised from nowhere, even if it makes her feel a little self-conscious about how far off base she'd been. But maybe, even a decade and a half later, she's still too entirely keyed to that thin grey line between what a leader looks like and how to recognize the slivers of seconds when everything under the crown shows through.

She nods, focusing more on rereading the names, trying to commit them to memory, even if she can pull up this network conversation later, on her own. Probably will to make sure she reaches out to the right people.

Okay. I guess that's good. Potentially not crazy people to potentially get an even clearer idea of what her family is dealing with now. This out of the fire and into the frying pan situation suddenly happening at the Hargreeves again.

Then, still sorting through the disarray of her thoughts. What is a jedi that they'd all come of the woodwork for it?

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002 ☂ Let the bodies hit the floor

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