Participants:
| Scene Title | Apo To Nima Tis Moirae |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Fire burn and cauldron bubble |
| Date | May 20, 2018 |
The view from the top can often be dizzying.
Fifteen stories from the street, the view from the Clocktower Building in Red Hook can’t be considered the top by most stretches of the imagination, but the analogy still fits. The eponymous clock tower penthouse views four faces of the city. One clock face window looks out to the ruins of the Manhattan Exclusion Zone, little more than a dimly lit smudge of black in the hours of night, where the crumbling concrete wall surrounding the island is lit by a handful of floodlights maintained by the military police. Another window view shows the ruined Brooklyn Bridge in close proximity, with its broken suspension wires and shattered middle span. The eastward window looks out to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, filled with ships offloading supplies and construction equipment for the future of the Safe Zone. The south-facing window views the Safe Zone as a whole, with the neon-lit haze of Yamagato Park a vibrant but distant smear.
Standing by the west-facing window that views Manhattan, Claudia Zimmerman cradles a glass of wine in one hand that she’s been nursing for close to a half hour now. Though years have passed since she aligned herself with the other matriarchs of the Deveaux Society, time has not shown its passage on her features. Able to maintain a perfect body equilibrium, Claudia has discovered perhaps not the secret to eternal youth, but a far longer span of Golden Years than she has any right to maintain.
“We need to do something,” aren't Claudia’s words, but she agrees with them in spirit. They come from Alice Shaw who sits in slouched in a low-back, cream-colored armchair, a tablet in her lap displaying an article about the death of Soleil Remi Davignon. “There’s wars going on in the shadow of every building in the Safe Zone. It’s only a matter of time before it spills out of the dark.”
Claudia regards Alice through proxy of her muted reflection in the clock tower window. Taking a sip of her wine, she considers the possibilities that the night hides from view, and ruefully looks for an alternative in the glass in hand. “The reprisal will be severe,” Claudia opines. “Mr. Ray isn’t a forgiver, or a forgetter, in spite of our best attempts to temper him. It might be best if we sit this one out, and not act, rather than step into the line of fire.”
Alice raises one brow, leaning her head to the side. “We can’t just do nothing,” the more tempestuous of the three notes, though it is the third voice that is temperance. Where Claudia is patience and the long view, where Alice is the one who wants to act, the third voice finds balance between the tortoise and the hare.
"Do nothing?" that third voice adds to the conversation, speaking with a particular shade of geniality that her companions know very well not to take at face value. "Why, what a novel idea."
Seated in an armchair of her own, Sabra Dalton raises her brows, then takes a slow sip from the wineglass in her hand. "Perhaps I will have Ashton look into a Florida house for my retirement," she continues, closing her eyes and relaxing back into the chair's cushions. "The winters up here are not kind to my old bones."
A few moments later, Sabra sets aside her affectation, blue eyes cracking open to regard the other matriarchs levelly. "We should marvel that the city made it so long with so little strife. There would be wars in the shadows even without outside actors stirring the pot."
Sabra’s voice has Claudia turning, cradling her glass of wine like a more penitent woman would a rosary. “For the first time in decades, all the proper channels answer to a healthy mind. Raymond isn't poisoned, and the apparatus he controls is well-oiled.”
“In the blood of the innocent,” Alice interjects. “I'd like to remind you of just how many people had to die for this to all come about. We've saved twice as many more from nuclear fire, but if you're suggesting we leave this to official channels…” there's challenge in Alice's tone, and Claudia accepts it.
“I'm suggesting that we consider our resources before we throw anyone else in the path of this oncoming train.” Claudia takes a sip of her wine, walking back to the vicinity of the conversation. “We three are lucky we made it out of the war in as good a shape as we did. If we keep stepping in front of bullets, one day we won't get back up again.”
“This isn't a bullet.” Alice clarifies, “it's a nightmare scenario.” The metaphor is lost on Alice, perhaps intentionally. “Rhys says that her personal entanglements don't line up with anyone proper in this world. That her historic silhouette is out of focus. He's certain she's not Eileen Ruskin, but in contrast he can't tell what she is.”
Claudia looks to Sabra, one brow raised. “I feel we have bigger concerns than revenants.” Her attention steadies on Sabra’s knowing stare. “What's your biggest concern?” They'd all wanted to hear Sabra’s perspective, but Alice had been eager to start the conversation.
Sabra remains quiet while the other two present point and counterpoint to each other, a small, fond smile not particularly hidden by the rim of her wineglass. Prompted, her brows lift, and she takes a deliberately unhurried sip of her drink before responding. "Accept for sake of argument that she is an Eileen. Not the same Eileen, but… we know well how murky those waters can become."
She lifts her glass towards the others in a prompting gesture. "Consider this question instead: what is she building?"
But not just that question alone, implicitly. Lowering the goblet, Sabra looks down at the liquid within, watching it ripple as she idly swirls the glass. "What concerns me," she continues, "is not what unfolds between any two people, even those remarkable magnets for chaos and complications." She lifts her gaze to regard her fellow matriarchs, expression somber. "What concerns me are the fracture lines in and between Yamagato and Praxis. Our continued reconstruction depends on those corporations… perhaps more than it ever should have."
“I agree,” Claudia admits, with some reluctance. “No one entity has the resources to rebuild this country, and given how volatile their relationship has continued to grow…” She starts to pace, shoes clicking across the hardwood floor. “The attack on Yamagato’s holdings in Washington State by what amounts to a proxy army doesn’t bode well for the future of their conflict, or the players they’ll wind up pulling in. The last thing any of us needs is to have America become the interstitial battleground for two international corporations.”
“The bombing was just the start,” Alice opines, her eyes distant and unfocused. “We’re fortunate that Kimiko survived the attack, and until we can open a line of dialogue with her about what happened, we’re left largely without information. I think it’s time we pull Barbara in to see what she’s uncovered.” That much has Alice looking to Claudia.
The response Claudia gives is a worried noise in the back of her throat. “You say that like she’s just a mole we planted.” As much as Claudia would like that to be the case, it isn’t. “But… you’re not wrong. I hate to put her in a difficult position, but we don’t have much choice. If the conflict between Praxis and Yamagato doesn’t end soon, everything will start to fall apart. Unless we find alternatives, but even that…” Claudia shakes her head, “the ink is already dry on the contracts.”
“We need more information. Our networks aren’t what they once were…” Alice considers, brows furrowed. “Our old standbys are… well,” she turns a rueful smile, “old now. I helped Ben Ryans on his course, and he’s barely moved two feet. It might be time to stir the pot a little, see what bubbles up. Fresh eyes, fresh hands, fresh ideas.”
Sabra sips at her wine as the other two discuss the issue raised, bright blue eyes following the figurative conversational ball. "You're correct," she agrees with Claudia's final statement, "we'll have to work with what we have in that regard. Yamagato at least should see common cause; they are nearly as vested in the Safe Zones as we are, and the victims of these recent actions." The slow gesture of her glass that follows is not so very sanguine. "Praxis… will take some thinking."
"And information," she adds in response to Alice, echoing the other woman's wry smile. "We have perhaps become a bit too comfortable with our success." Sabra raises her glass towards the other members of the Deveaux triumvirate.
"If we aren't retiring, my dear friends, then it's past time we got back to work."
There's a scoff from Claudia at that remark, brows raised and a partly-lidded stare leveled at Sabra. “The men of the world eagerly await the day women like us retire,” she notes with no small amount of both pride and cynicism.
Alice, though, seems more composed on the matter. She keeps her own council, merely offering a nod to Sabra’s speech, then looking to Claudia in brief thought.
“Then we best get moving,” Alice agrees, “before time gives us no other choice.”