No Gloves No Love

Participants:

cardinal_icon.gif magnes_icon.gif

Scene Title No Gloves No Love
Synopsis Magnes shows Cardinal his 9th Wonders collection, and doesn't trust him at all.
Date April 18 2009

Panucci's Pizza/Magnes' Old Apartment

One room with wooden floors, with lots and lots of comics on the walls.


It's early in the afternoon, and Magnes initially met Cardinal saying he needed more time, but today is definitely the day. Panucci's Pizza is a modest little shop, that Cardinal unfortunately doesn't get to enter the front of. They go in through the back, Magnes having asked Panucci if he could use the old apartment for a few days. There is no furniture, instead there are only temporary shelves lined up all across the walls, with every issue of 9th Wonders in his possession. He's missing the last year or so of issues, but it's still a pretty impressive collection. "This is what you wanted to see. I hope you brought the gloves, natural oils can mess a comic up, and the early ones are hard to find."

The shadow tags along behind the pizza deliveryman as they head into the back, the shadow swirling away from him once they're in the old apartment. "Excellent." The darkness spills upwards, pouring free of the figure like an oil-slick to form the shadow behind him as he straightens, fading to greyscale and then to colour — and oh, hey, wasn't that guy at the poker game? Cardinal adjusts the gloves he's wearing, slanting a look over the edge of his shades to Magnes, "You talked to Nakamura lately?"

"I haven't seen him, he's not at his usual place. He had some personal business the last time I talked to him, so he might not even be in the country." Magnes explains, rolling around the hard wood floors, showing that the comics are arranged in chronological order. "What do you think you'll learn from these?"

"I don't know," admits Cardinal as he takes a step over, looking at the covers rather than touching them just yet, his lips pursing in a slight frown, "Something about the major players in this game, maybe. A better… idea of how all this shit fits together, and what's going on."

"Don't I know you?" Magnes asks, finally taking a good look at him, but shakes his head and continues on with the subject. "Well, I can say that I'm not in the comics, and you're not either. I was in most of the major events though, when I went back with Hiro, so there's no doubt that the comics are genuine."

"Confirmation's always good," Cardinal picks up the first issue, gloves on, very carefully turning the pages and being cautious not to bend them too much. He knows how to handle valuable merchandise, and art. It comes with his business. "Mm. And we've met, a time or two."

Magnes casually jumps up, flips his body, then crosses his legs and sits on the ceiling, looking 'up' at Cardinal. "Hiro says that most bad stuff is connected to Linderman, and he's worse than Logan and Muldoon put together."

"They work for Linderman," notes Cardinal, pausing as he realizes the voice is coming from above. He tips his chin up, squinting at the ceiling where the teenager's seated. A shake of his head, and then he looks back to the comic, lips pursing, "Maybe not directly, but there's a connection there. I just need to find it, and exploit it."

"You can get out of trouble pretty easily, right?" Magnes asks, obviously beginning to form some sort of plan. "So why don't you just shadow an employee who's close to Linderman, and spy?"

A faint chuckle tumbles past Cardinal's lips at that, as he flips through the comic book. "I could follow Linderman himself around all day," he notes, a bit dryly, "Chances are I wouldn't learn much, unless I got lucky. No, he works through — intermediaries. I need to get a hold of one of them, and maybe I can work something out. Zarek's the one I need. Kain Zarek."

"I know that name." Magnes says as he suddenly perks up a bit. "Flint Deckard told me I should go after Kain, but I learned my lesson after that Minea woman." He almost shivers at the thought of Minea; scary. "There anything I can do?"

"The old man was probably trying to get you killed," Cardinal murmurs, setting down the comic for the moment and glancing up, "Who's Minea? And — I don't know. Possibly eventually, if you've gotten over your whole forthright avenger of justice thing."

"I don't know, Flint Deckard says she's a two-faced harpy. I was following her with the intention of seeing if she was a bad person, then she dropped a newspaper and I went to pick it up, and suddenly she tasered me." He winces at the memory; getting tasered hurts. "Her and Hiro don't like eachother. But anyway, Hiro showed me a lot of stuff and I learned that if I do wanna be a hero, it's not the way I was trying before."

"Smart man," Cardinal notes, his head shaking a little, "All you were going to get yourself before was dead, or get someone else dead." A slight grunt of breath to the mention of the tasers, and then he returns his regard to the comics, "I'm still finding out as much as I can. I don't want to do anything before I know who all the players are, and what the board looks like. S'why I need to talk to Nakamura."

"I'll know when he's back, but I could try calling his sister…" Magnes suddenly remembers, he does have her number, maybe she knows where Hiro is. "Yeah, that's what I'll do! I'd give you her number, but I don't really think he'd appreciate that."

Cardinal admits a bit wryly, "Probably best not to hand out his relatives' numbers willy-nilly, no. I…" A sidelong look over, "…I have some things I want him to take a look at. They might be important."

Magnes suddenly jumps down from the ceiling, landing lightly and slowly skating for the door. "I'm trusting you to lock up, and I told all the workers that if anyone but me comes out with my comics, they're stealing." he warns with a light laugh, but is completely serious. "So, I'm gonna go call his sister, and you have fun reading those comics. Gloves on at all times, no eating while reading, you know the rules."

"You sound like the nuns," Cardinal deadpans, though he tips his head in a nod over, "If I can keep from ruining expensive paintings and rare literature, I think I can keep from ruining your comics, Magnes. Thanks."

"I'm just making sure. My comics are my most valuable possessions, so you know, I gotta protect them." Magnes nods to Cardinal once, giving a friendly smile, then he exits. There's no sound of walking down the steps, but the second door can definitely be heard opening and closing.

"Not a spot, or a mark," promises the thief - ironically - before settling down to sit cross-legged on the floor, carefully cradling the first issue in his hand as he starts to read. He may be at this for awhile. There's a lot to absorb, once you know it's all true.


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