The Deal He Always Wanted

Participants:

leonardo_icon.gif olson_icon.gif

Also Featuring

athena_icon.gif

Scene Title The Deal He Always Wanted
Synopsis Leonardo Maxwell poises himself to become a greater power on Staten Island.
Date July 24, 2019

Miller Field doesn’t look like much these days. Rows of rusting aircraft hangars are surrounded by miles of chain link fence, decade-old sandbags, and concertina wire and the memories of concentration camps and civil war. Graffiti still mars much of Miller Airfield, a far cry from the dark times when this was the center of operations for Leon Heller’s Frontline-OS squad. Hangar-3, the building that once house that paramilitary operation, is little more than broken concrete and fire-blackened metal these days, all of which is overgrown with waist high stands of tall brown grass.

The presence of two military humvees out here today is the first real sign of activity in years, but that doesn’t mean the airfield is abandoned. Rambling out from where the faded green and rust-streaked white hangars continue to rot is a field of wild lavender, sprawling for a quarter mile in every direction across what was once an airstrip many years ago. The black of the Military Police humvees contrast sharply with this shade of purple, as do the black and gray uniforms they wear.

There’s a sign, six hundred feet back where the chain-link fence opens into a gate, newly placed. It’s something the land’s current owner put there, to remind everyone that what this place is now isn’t its past.


“Sibyl Park”

The Ruins of Staten Island

July 24

2:17 pm


Not much has been done with Sibyl Park in the intervening year since Alister Black come Leonardo Maxwell purchased the land and planted a field of flowers at a young woman’s request. There were once guards here, pair for by Maxwell money, but after Leonardo’s relationship with Sibyl curdled, so too did plans for this location. Nevertheless, the rights to the physical property still rest squarely on the Maxwell family name.

For whatever that’s worth these days.

“Where the hell is he?”

Major Matthew Olson of the 91st Military Police Battalion has been standing out in the sun for nearly a half an hour. His subordinates, slouched in the cabin of the humvee for shade, are as sweat-dappled and frustrated as the major is. It isn’t that they don’t want to be here, it’s that they’re expecting someone.

The land’s owner.

“He said 2:00 pm.”

What Major Olson has yet to learn, is that Leonardo Maxwell operates on his own schedule.

What rolls up to "Sibyl Park" isn't the usual stylish car or whatever that Leonardo normally would have rode around in the past. No, it's an old repurposed armored truck, something long abandoned and now remodeled and repainted entirely white.

When it stops not far from Matthew Olson, the driver, who seems like any other random thug in street clothes, steps out to open the back for more rough looking thugs, a few guys in suits, Leonardo, and Athena.

Leonardo wears an entirely white suit with a single bright red tie, straightening it as he heads over to the Major with two suited men and his daughter. The more rough looking men stay near the truck. "Major Olson, it's an honor to meet you. I respect the work of proper servicemen, being a veteran of the Civil War myself. Though of course I was simply thrust into a trial by fire, so I imagine you actually knew what you were doing."

He holds out a hand for the Major, intending to give a firm shake. "I hope you don't mind the security. I already know of a corrupt SESA agent out to get me, so I don't take many chances on this island anymore."

"And this is my lovely daughter." He motions to Athena. "She's a tad more intimidating than any of my security."

"Why don't you change the fucking name of this place?"

Athena's voice can be heard as she climbs out of the truck and hops to the ground with a flip of her brunette hair, blue eyes trailing over Olson's men and their vehicle. She had begged to come along, it was that or she was gonna try to get close with one of the guards and though they valued their lives, Athena was persuasive. And so the Maxwell family errand began and she couldn't be happier. Dressed not as… bright as her father. Or is she. She's standing there in a pair of tight black pants, steel toed boots of the same shade and a vibrant red shirt that's open past the collar. That gold chain her mother gave her hangs loosely at the nap of her neck.

Almost six months with Leonardo had done her good.

Attitude or not she loved spending time with her father. This was why she sought him out. Although she had promised to be on her best behavior she almost never leaves home without her metal bar with barbwire wrapped around it. The dried blood isn't washed off, Athena thinks it intimidates people. Her eyes light up at the sight of the men and she swings the bat in a wide arc to land softly on her shoulder. Why they were there was a mystery for the teen but she knew that she didn't trust cops. Maybe in another life but now?

"Hey ladies." A surly grin and wink sent to the humvee's occupants. The Major is looked up and down and she keeps her eyes on him for a moment longer before moving to watch the others. Leonardo would be watching him well enough on his own as they had their "conversation."

"My pedicure appointment is in two hours Father," a pointed but lazy reminder delivered from

Politeness encourages Major Olson to shake Leonardo’s hand, politeness and practicality. The look he gives Athena is nothing short of incredulous, but it’s quick to pass. He’s left to wonder what a pedicure looks like on Staten Island, and decides he’s better off not knowing the answer to that. That incredulity is the same that he gave in reaction to all of what Leonardo is. And just as quickly he let the look fall off his face.

“Mr. Maxwell,” the Major says, looking back to the other military police who come to stand around outside of the humvee with one seated in the driver’s seat checking something on a satellite phone. “Mayor Short wanted to meet you in person, but given that you wanted to meet on Staten Island, she sent me in her stead. I hope you understand given the security concerns.”

A warm breeze blows across the parkland, through the wild stands of lavender that Leonardo had promised would grow here when he was another man, to another young woman. Olson sweeps his hand over his head, wiping off some of the sweat from his scalp. “I’ll try and keep this meeting brief, I imagine neither of us want to be standing out here in the sun for any longer than we need to.” Olson motions to one of the MPs who approaches with a slim leather legal binder, which the Major takes and opens, showing an equally slim stack of legal documents on the letterhead of the mayor’s office.

“Mayor Short would like to lease this plot of land from you — everything that was once Miller Field — to turn it back into a functional air strip and a forward base for the 91st Military Police Battalion. The mayor is, much as you’ve indicated, invested in improving the lot of Staten Island and welcoming it back into the fold of New York City. But in order to do that we need to establish law and order, which means pushing out things like the triad and the human traffickers. Which— it sounds like you and I might benefit from a longer conversation about.”

Olson closes the folio and offers it out to Leonardo. “For your… legal team to,” he eyes Athena, then back, “to look over. The mayor’s offering you to retain ownership of the property and lease it to the City of New York on a 3 year term. But, she assumed you might have questions and seeing as how the military police would be the ones operating out of here, I feel I’m the suited qualified to answer your immediate questions, in lieu of the Mayor’s presence.”

"What I have aren't necessarily questions. Even in our post-apocalyptic hell, I assume that the law, and contracts, matter greatly. No, if anything, this situation is ideal. What I have aren't questions, but requests, and what will surely be a reworking of this contract after some negotiations." Leonardo does, indeed, stare at the folio, thumbing through it.

He's had plenty of business education and contract experience, but it will most certainly go through lawyers. "Attempting to establish law and order on this island has been tricky. My men aren't exactly trained for it, they're barely trained for anything, except for the few I keep closest to me." He nods to the ones at his side.

"No, law and order is most certainly the purview of the government. The idea of running this place as an independent fiefdom has gradually lost its appeal. I instead have some rather specific, but most certainly within the mayor's power, requests. Requests that will only benefit her beyond the bounds of what you're asking anyway." He slaps the back of his hand against the folio a few times.

Turning his head to Athena, he nods for her to come closer and pay attention. "One of the water treatment plants is up and running, we're currently working on getting another up and running, but it's going rather slowly due to so much manpower being put into actually trying to get the infrastructure to work more reliably. Local pipelines and things like that. If we can get this area functional, turn it into a sort of Staten Island safe zone…"

He motions a hand around them. "That will start with the water, I need to replace some of my people with actual experts rather than assorted handymen and the few experts I can find on this island, if any are at all available."

"But I have a larger request…" He looks dead serious at this, peering right into Olson's eyes. "Daniel Warrington Knight, I want everything that was in his name regarding Maxwell Development Corporation, entirely returned to mine. It was stolen from me by the very people who started the war and kidnapped me. I imagine that this will take some bureaucracy, and I'm hardly asking for all of the property back or anything so massive. I simply want my LLC and the various legal workings to be corrected. Anything on this island that I currently own will be shifted into that LLC, including the water treatment plants. However…"

He motions in the vague direction he's aware the treatment plants are in, even though they likely surely can't see them from here. "They'll be treated as a public utility, subject to the normal regulations of any utility. Sharing the burden with the government will, in the end, be better for everyone, and the return of my legal business holdings will allow me to slowly invest in property and gradually rebuild this area that we're all invested in. This will be best for both you and the mayor, because if I'm given these things I need, I'll be able to gradually decrease crime through the sheer return of civilization, while you gradually decrease crime with your, well, being the military."

Athena coolly looks Olson up and down as he speaks about the fuzz moving in. "You guys are going to try and tame this place huh?" Running a hand through her hair as she walks closer towards the two men "doing business." One day this would be hers… it wasn't as nice as her family penthouse but it would do.

She needed to learn her future Kingdom, the ins and outs.

The teen does keep eyeing her father while he talks about lowering the crime. Again and again.

What in the flying fuck was going on here?

“I can’t guarantee that,” Olson says with a motion to the paperwork, “in fact — and this is just me saying what I know — I don’t think there’s anything Maxwell Corporation owned that still exists to hand back over. A pre-war industrial corporation? Probably got stripped for parts by Eminent Domain, especially with Knight executed for treason and you presumed dead.” Shrugging, Olson looks over to the other military police, then back to Leonardo. “If you’re willing to come to the Safe Zone, I’m sure the mayor would be happy to discuss the logistics of that with you though.”

But as Olson clears his throat, he looks over to Athena. “No try about it. More than half of the Safe Zone’s criminal activity comes from Staten Island. It’s been that way since Midtown. It’s time we start bringing civilization and the rule of law back, block by block if we have to.” It wouldn’t be the first time the military came in and tried to return the rule of law to Staten Island, though.

Behold those results.

"Chaos is for mindless, frothing at the mouth demons who only want destruction and violence." Leonardo reaches over to gently rest his hand on Athena's head. "We want law and order, because law and order is how both the weak and powerful thrive. It creates structure, a ladder that can be climbed and fallen from. The order on Staten Island is basically full of criminals fighting for scraps, I never had any intention of living this way forever."

He lowers his hand to Athena's shoulder now. "You can rest assured, what's coming is a war between law and chaos, and we will certainly not be defeated by the lowly demons of this island."

"I will have that meeting with the mayor, Major Olson. And I will additionally turn over any information that I have on the criminal activities I've been monitoring that have continued to get in the way of my attempts to rebuild, including that of a certain corrupt SESA agent." Then he lets out a breath, suddenly relaxing his posture. "Well it seems like we have our business in order. Who wants dinner?"

Athena still stands there with a sort of dumb founded expression on her face before she catches herself and settles into that cocky, smirky way teens carry themselves. As if they understand more than they do and in some instances they actually do but in this instance… she's straight up confused. Leonardo had to know she'd be so thrown off.

She does lean a bit into her father's touch, it still felt grounding to have him near. Within touching distance, Athena can hug him anytime she wants.

Dinner. With the Dude Over There.

"Um.. did Martha make.. something special for our guests?" Small smile plays across her lips.

“Don't worry about it,” Olson offers as an aside to Athena, grimacing until he can smile at Leonardo, “I'm not hungry. I'll relay your message to the Mayor and someone will be around — same methods as before — to communicate a time and place with you.” It's clear from his posture that Olson wants to get out of the heat as much as he wants to get away from the Maxwells.

“You have yourselves a good day,” Major Olson adds, giving one last look to the overgrown and ruined airfield-come-park.

It's the deal Leonardo always wanted.

Even if Sibyl is the one who made it possible.


Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License