maskormenacelogs | We're killing strangers

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We're killing strangers

WHO: Count Dooku and Darlene
WHERE: BREW WORLD ORDER tea shop, Maurtia Falls
WHEN: An early evening in October
WHAT: An initial meeting of imPorts with little in common except being 300% done with the government's bullshit. Connected by Jesse Pinkman, Darlene begins to enter Count Dooku's orbit.
WARNINGS: Darlene's mouth, Dooku's existence

There were some who might have regarded Dooku's continuing use of this same tea shop for private meetings as a possible weakness. Predictability and routine were a blessing to any possible government surveillance. Dooku acknowledged this as a potential issue, but in his view the benefits outweighed the costs. The Count was a man who valued reliability, and the people running Brew World Order had repeatedly proven themselves reliable in two important fields: one, they actually served halfway passable tea, and two, they had discreet booths with shadows and a silent atmosphere, with a staff that knew to stay out of the way.

Dooku chose one of the most secluded booths for this meeting, casually scanning the minds of the staff with his powers to confirm that no, there were no undercover government agents present today. Then he ordered a pot of his preferred black tea, and waited.

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It does not prove to be a long wait.

Darlene isn't much concerned with schedules, but there is little point in dicking around. She isn't a mercenary, she can get paid for what she does but mostly she has goals and in between those goals, distractions, way to keep busy and occupied and also alive.

Did she expect an old dude? It would be a lie to say, totally, yes, but she's also familiar with people not being exactly what you expect, all the shit that works below the surface level of a person to make them move and think and act and choose. And anyways, old dudes always want their asses covered. Jesse was a figure Darlene got, intrinsically, a person she knows in a way even if she doesn't know him. Maybe that's overconfident too.

It is with no lack of confidence that Darlene plops herself down in the booth bench opposite of her new contact and slides across, her bare thighs squeaking quietly against the seat. Sunglasses still on, backpack shrugged off and pushed to the side, all very matter-of-fact. She folds her hands on the table and tips her head to indicate, silently and probably pretty obscurely, the name of the shop as displayed in several locations.

"Interesting choice."

The name. It's funny. Darlene appreciates the choice the way only someone who worked out of "f[un] society" for like a year would.

The Count greets Darlene with a half-smile as she seats herself. "I have always found it an amusing title," he admits, as though Count Dooku does anything primarily for the sake of puns. "More importantly, I like their tea."

He makes an inviting gesture toward the menu, her cue to order something if she pleases. But somehow, Dooku has the sense that this woman will be more interested in business than in comparing different tastes in tea. Which is perfectly fine with the Count.

First things first. "I am Count Dooku," he intones, sitting up straight in the booth with the bearing of born nobility. Dooku has made an attempt to blend in more today- he is wearing a more ordinary dark suit instead of his standard space clothes and long cape- but it would be difficult to mistake him for an ordinary person just from his voice and his body language alone. "Thank you for meeting with me. Our... mutual acquaintance believes you can help me."

Count.

Darlene ignores the tea and zeroes in on that instead, which is wielded with enough inflection to telegraph it as a title instead of a word or a celeb baby name. Which she could have inferred, based on her research. The bullshit face of bullshit authority.

But she does like the part where they get right down to business.

"I didn't bring my resume, but yeah, I can do pretty much whatever." Very matter-of-fact and confident. Darlene doesn't have any of his noble bearing, sits slouched instead, her arms crossed over her chest. None too charmed and none too charming, either. "Except, FYI,m our mutual acquaintance didn't mention that I was covering up shit for the government, from the government. Which I am now super interested in knowing more about."

For all that this is a critique, she still walked over and she hasn't left yet. Helpfully, she prods: "So this is the part where you tell me what's up with that."

Impudence. Wonderful. Dooku resists the urge to sigh and puts on his wide-eyed face as he spreads his hands upwards on the table in a gesture of innocence.

"Oh no, no, please do not misunderstand," he implores. "I may work with the government when it is necessary for the interests of our community, but I am not with them in any meaningful sense. In fact, I have criticized their policies and failings quite often since I was brought here... for what little good it has done."

If only he had won the election. If only the imPorts had listened to him. Ah, well. Now he would simply have to pursue other means of improving things, hence his current association with Pinkman.

He brings his hands together, steeples his fingers. "Which is one of the reasons I feel the need to secure my communications. I am under no illusions regarding how popular I am with our gracious hosts."

Darlene deadeyes him through that speech. Arms folded, mouth set. There is something about the deep rich pitch of his voice that works under her skin. She doesn't like it. She doesn't like words like community, or the impotence of due process and legal bullshit and letter writing campaigns and whatever else it means to criticize policies. It is always better to hit hard, hit where it hurts, hit so it lasts.

But.

She shifts her ass on the seat of the booth, settles in.

"I can do encryption." The best part of that will be she can break her own encryptions. "I can even test it for exploits, make sure it runs real clean for you. Private server, sure. I'm not wasting my time on building you some whole new network. Transfer your shit to the mirror network that nobody frickin' uses, run anon, that's what it's there for. Is that seriously all you want?"

If Darlene doesn't like deep, rich voices, she is going to be shit out of luck with this guy. Count Dooku's voice sounds like a subwoofer received classical training in England and then went on to a career alternating between Shakespeare and Parliament. He leans forward slightly, his bearded chin brushing but not quite resting upon his steepled fingers.

"The question is, what do you want? It is true that encryption is only the beginning of what I desire. I may also have work available that is of a more... investigative nature." Read: hacking government files to expose embarrassing and scandalous information. Probably some sabotage too. "But I would like to know more about what your own goals are in this matter. I can pay you well, but I doubt you would be here if money was all that interseted you."

This is a delicate moment. Through the power of the Dark Side, Dooku already knows Darlene can and will do the things he wants from a tech expert. Hit hard, hit where it hurts, hit so it lasts- a laudable philosophy in the mind of the Sith. He senses the anger in her heart, the desire to burn down falsehood and boundaries, and recognizes it as a cruder version of the sentiments that originally led him to the Dark Side.

But he also knows she's cagey enough to think him a fool if he is too forward about what he is really after. Pinkman's implicit endorsement in arranging this meeting can only go so far- he must put on a show of caution, as though he does not already know what he knows.

She looks at him, as narrow in the eyes as she can get without it being a true glare. Arms folded tight, posture aggressively poor. Darlene's best work on knowing shit about people is what she digs up behind the scenes, crawling up from their e-drains and rummaging around in their closets. It's harder in person. Wouldn't it be nice to have some magic ability to help with it? Like irl hacking. Too bad she got the shaft on super powers. She isn't patient enough to pick people apart. Briefly humors the method before she decides instead to smash with fists.

What does she want?

"I'm not saying no to money, okay. A girl's gotta get paid, and my bank account is getting sad." Partly a lie. Just because she never put in a shift on her government issue job doesn't mean Darlene has been sitting on her ass. "But you're right. We might very well be living in a material world, but I am still no material girl. If I'm working on shit, I want my little shit to be going toward some bigger picture shit. So before I really answer, I think you should tell me a little more about the kind of investigation you want out of me. Is this going to be personal hacks, or government hacks?"

The Count's body language is an inverted mirror of Darlene's: back straight, shoulders squared, chin lifted, eyes focused yet open. His thoughts are inverted as well. He has often wished that the Dark side conveyed the power to lift knowledge from machines as easily as it sensed the truth in people. If that was the case, he would not have to deal with fountains of impudence like Darlene in order to do what he needed.

He decides to take a chance. "I believe that governments should be held accountable by those they control," he says, tacitly admitting he wants her to hack the authorities while wrapping the truth in friendly-sounding ideals. "Our hosts in this universe control our lives with very little accountability. I believe people with your particular skills could be most important in... correcting this situation. And I can assure you-" that little half-smile again. "The picture I seek to draw is quite large indeed."

"Government hacks."

Helpful and blatant. Still not rife with detail, but, okay. She's into it. Holding the government accountable is a big step in the right direction toward the kind of crippling Darlene wants to see done. Her mission in life has taken on depressingly personal connotations--not just screwing the rich, but getting herself (and Elliot) out of this shithole, back to their own shithole, to the for real New York instead of cheapo copy. Back to work and back to being at least a little less owned.

"Okay," she says, dispassionately, like this is just another coffee shop convo, "well, cool. Because I totally agree with your speech, I just so happen to be good at that shit, and I am so tired of getting jacked around it isn't even funny. Guess that mutual friend of ours set us up pretty good."

The corners of the Count's mouth tug downwards for a moment. Blatantly saying things like that in public is the kind of honesty that goes against a good 90% of Dooku's whole deal. But if nothing else, he has further confirmation that Darlene is bold enough to take the kinds of risks he needs.

"Precisely," he says, inclining his head. "He does have a talent for establishing certain connections." The Count lowers his voice as he raises his teacup. "I would be particularly interested in new information regarding the Porter which abducted us and the nanites which infest our bodies. But I would be surprised if someone like yourself had not already looked into those topics. Am I right?"

"It's more psycho abnormal not to look into that kind of shit," she says, crisply, oblique confirmation of his guess. "And every time a new asshole jumps on the internet to run yet another pop opinion poll completely devoid of any meaningful contribution to getting us the hell out of here, I lose another finger of faith in the ability of the collective consciousness to actually help."

Admittedly Darlene's research is more intent than content at the moment, though not for lack of trying. She has done her backreading. Written scripts to pull out key phrases from the backlog of shit. Asked around. What's not surprising is the tight lockup of anything that would be super useful. With Elliot here, Darlene's situation has improved--if anyone can crack tough shit, it's Elliot--but there are still miles to go.

Not that she's going to pee her pants about it, but that's what makes this proposal so much better than a job offer from some balls-old politician looking to hide his details. Valid contacts, valid work, valid resources. Darlene and Elliot could run on their own. But tapping into something larger has its uses.

"If it's new info, please tell me that means you have shit on the Porter. Or am I starting with a cold import of what I've got so far?"

Dooku's mouth reverses itself, displaying a smirking half-smile that's equal parts contemptuous and rueful. It's a grimace he has a lot of practice showing in response to the idiocy displayed by the masses.

"Sadly, it has often been my experience that the collective can rarely be trusted to truly act in its own best interest," he says with regret. "At least not without proper guidance from exceptional individuals among them." The view of a committed aristocrat, one who lost faith in democracy long ago.

"Regardless, I'm afraid I have no new answers for you," he continues after taking a sip of his tea. "But perhaps I have a new question. Tell me, have you heard anything of the Soviet weapon called LACKEY?"

LACKEY- the artificial intelligence unleashed against imPorts in the war the Soviets launched at the beginning of the year. LACKEY, who had managed to seize control of both the Porter and imPort nanites...

Edited (better icon) 2016-11-03 00:37 (UTC)

Darlene narrows her eyes.

"Okay, so I freaking hate being tested." She folds her arms a little tighter, slides her ass down further. Sulking.

After a second, she expels a big irritated breath, fluffing wisps of hair away from her forehead. "LACKEY. The Russians. January, depressingly recent in current events. That was right around the shit which the kidnappings, ImPorts were weapons, blah blah, blah. Those fucktard A-Team douchebags went into save the day, someone dude shot to shit. I think you're pretty friendly with his kid now, which is weird, but also none of my business, so basically, yeah, I have read about LACKEY, I did my homework, thank you, but people were actually kind of tight lipped. For once. Way more interested in dishing about puppies and V-Day parties, which, gag me."

She arches her eyebrows, expectantly.

"Next question."

Dooku chuckles slightly, just a deep huffing coming from within his chest. Such a childish reaction, such colourful language. But if one cut through the colloquialisms and epithets, essentially accurate.

"So you've learned of Carl Grimes, and his terrible tragedy," he observes. "I assure you, my interest in the boy is purely sympathetic." If by 'sympathetic' one means 'political.' "But please do not misunderstand. I do not raise LACKEY only as a test, but also as a clue to be followed."

He hushes his voice again, dramatic without a touch of self-awareness. "That wretched machine was able to control our nanites and interface with the Porter. Might one not then assume that its creators know something worth learning about both those things? Our answers may lie closer to Moscow than Washington."

"Hack Russia," she surmises, bluntly. "That's what you want. Because it sure would have to be a hack, given all the terrible tragedies that keep happening. Hell of an international relations minefield to freaking navigate."

But it's something. And already, Darlene is off thinking about it, with her deadpan stare fixed on Dooku's stupid face. LACKEY was a go-between. Something more accessible and malleable than the well-protected Porter. People interacted with it. Got their hands on it. Met it, kind of.

"Can I ask you something? Since you've got so much info. What happened to it? LACKEY. Where is it now?"

The Count raises an eyebrow. "Hack Russia? Oh, I would never suggest something so rash- and likely illegal. I am merely speculating on current events over tea."

Translation: Dooku's stupid face totally wants to hack Russia. And maybe do more than hack them. The Soviets are a threat, and they inflicted great suffering on Dooku when they invaded. Vengeance is the way of the Sith.

"As for LACKEY, I believe it is currently in the hands of the government." He shrugs, as though apologetic for the lack of deets. "ImPorts captured LACKEY, and then the military took it into their custody. What has become of it since then, I cannot say."

"Okay, cool, and I'm just gonna go home and download Rusky Duolingo, and watch a little James Bond with the subtitles off."

A half-smirk hitches itself onto Darlene's face. Suuuuure that's what he's doing when he's all but elbowing her in the side and winking. Which, good for him; she would not appreciate getting elbowed.

Even if he's got no clue and no real info on the current whereabouts of LACKEY, it's at leas a start, a direction to go in. The weapon that is Darlene is more sandblasty than nuanced. And as much as she hates authority, and order, and being told what to do, she can appreciate a Project, big P. She drums her fingers on her upper arm, thoughtfully.

"Think you can fry a Porter?"

It's probably a good thing the Count isn't winking, either. That would look really weird coming from him. About as weird as Darlene's references to apps and superspies Dooku doesn't recognize are to him. Unwilling to admit his ignorance, he settles for smiling and nodding.

"Destroying a Porter?" The thought genuinely hasn't occurred to him. He's far more interested in controlling the technology for himself. "I have never heard of such a thing being done. Why do you ask?"

Please don't fry the Porter, Darlene.

"I like to be prepared for all situations." Including the destructive. She holds up a hand, warding off reaction. "Chillax, though, I don't mean I want to fry it. But we should probs consider if the government would, or could, do the frying. If they get desperate enough."

In fact, she isn't magnanimous enough to consider frying the Porter for some greater good. Controlling the source of their arrival and departure--if it's all true; if that's really how it happens, and she is nearly sold on that, no matter how much of a mind fuck it all is--is infinitely preferable to wiping it out, because then their asses would be stuck here. Not cool.

Impassively, Darlene shifts her gaze out to the cafe at large, considering the surrounding patter of daily routines and activities for the first time in several minutes. There are people here who came here against their will, people who are glad to be here, people who would fight tooth and nail to get the hell out. Someone with a more sensitive soul might suggest considering all of these people, these various viewpoints, but there's casualties in every revolution. You have to be able to look at all the levels, including the shitty ones where a little destruction might be the necessary component to completing a job.

"Okay," she announces, as she shifts back her attention, "like I said. I'm in. You know this'll be slow-burn, right? That better be cool. I'll do recon and check back on big issues in like, a month. If you want some encryptions for your shit in the meantime, that comes together a lot faster. I've got a guy. We do encryptions for fun." Or the guy has got her, or both; or whatever. Elliot is going to love this. "That would require some payment, which I'm sure your rich ass can afford. The rest, TBD. Okay?"

Ah. A level of insight the Count had not expected from this one. But she is right, of course. Why wouldn't the government have a contingency in place to destroy their prize rather than let it be commanded by another? It's what Dooku would do in their place, after all.

"Time is no issue, and neither is money," he promises. "A man of my experience knows the value of both patience and investment. So long as you produce results, we have a deal, Darlene."

And he extends a pale hand across the table for her to shake.

"Cool."

Blithely, and with a little too much force, she slaps her hand in his and gives it a firm shake. This is business, or something. Personal point of view puts handshakes at the weakest level of guaranteed, but whatevs. Old men are going to be old men.

She scoots out of the booth once the handshaking is complete, slings her backpack over her shoulders again. "So that's that, unless there's anything else up with you. If not, then it's just--" She waves, a quick wiggle of her fingers. "Smell ya later."

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