Participants:
| Scene Title | Treacherous Brotherhood |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The ghost lets an old spook know that his boy is gored and missing, and they converse about the chess game. Its players, the stakes. |
| Date | June 10, 2009 |
Cellular
~My friends, think its their appointed duty. They keep tryna tell me, all you wanna do is use me~
Bill Withers, drones into the hangar late at night, the place is almost completely abandoned at the moment and dark too. Only a single row of lights remains, and a single pilot. Baba yaga was the name Fedor had given to his Tucano, and its here in the witch's cockpit you can find Fedor. Adjusting the color of his instrument backlight, the way the seat enclines, from standard units back to metric. Its actually a fair amount of work, theres new data and targeting terminals to concern himself with to. He hadnt exactly flown anything western this modern in a little while, save for the PC-12s but those were big fat airliners. This was a attack aircraft.
~All you want to do is use me, but my answer, to all that use me stuff? Aye aye aye, I wanna spread the news if it feels this good being used you just keep on usin me…until ya use me up. Til ya use me up.~
It's then that the mimic's cellphone goes off, shrill in the cold expanse of the hangar's fluorescent recesses and a dull note to the pulsing reverberation of the sound system. By now, Teodoro Laudani's phone number is recognizable, though it likely fails to raise the alarm for Fedor that it would so many others that fall within the demarcations of the Sicilian's acquaintance.
Indeed, he almost doesn't answer, but alas Fedor reaches up to silence the music with an audible little beep. "Yes Teo, what can I do for you?"He snuggles down in the cockpit a little more, reaching up to tug the canopy closed. Pretending just a little, like he was already flying. Que the plane noises, though he has enough sense not to do that over the phone.
"I'm not exactly Teo. There's bee— I— wh—" the ghost starts off without missing a beat, though he pauses, then, in a chop and seesaw of rhythm, halting and fumbly clumsy, that is all too familiar in the Sicilian's voice. There's a brief stretch of puzzled silence, in which he has Teo's eyebrow lifted and his head tilted in the opposite direction.
Then, "The air sounds weird in there, signor." Pressurized, he probably means, the background silence emphasized and hollowed out. "Am I interrupting something? This is kind of urgent, but the 'best without distractions' kind of important, not to cut in if you're en route to putting missiles toward something. I could call back later—"
"Nono, I'm just sitting around. Dont worry bout it, just tell me whats going on my young man. I haven't spoken to you for awhile, are you doing well?" Fedor rolls his head back, peering through the back glass at the brightly painted tail art that was still drying. He had never been much on decorating aircraft, but he'd be damned if he wasn't happy he'd done it. "And whatever did you mean to tell me that's so urgent,Helena hasnt conspired to get the rest of you arrested has she?"
There's a desultory grumbly noise that is probably more at home in the lungs of an old man than Teodoro Laudani as Fedor knows him. Not that thirty six is all that old, really, even where the ghost comes from, but rarely does the difference of ten years feel so uncomfortably poignant as when Helena Dean outs herself on national television in grand and blond style. Young people. "No," he says, heaving a sigh across the perforated flat of the cellphone's mouthpiece. "Nothing like that or to do with her— media experiment.
"I'm doing all right, but I've made some changes." That is some sort of fatally ironic understatement, Ghost knows. He rubs his face, glances up at the evening firmament. From the Happy Dagger's rooftop, you can't smell the sea. "I'm not the Laudani that you know. Long, short, I've left Phoenix, and I've adopted little lord Fauntleroy— also known as John Logan to get to Linderman.
"Your boy Cardinal got caught on Logan's territory the other night, and now he's missing a few pints of blood for it. I think I managed to get him out, but you should find him soon. He's pretty fucked up."
"I see." Fedor goes silent after that for a couple moments. That's a lot to digest. "your a good kid Teo, but your going about this all wrong. Get me a line on where Cardinal is right now, and then come find me. I'm in this deeper than Logan is, I'm closer than he is and I'm six steps ahead. It would be beneficial, to have cardinal safe and Logan in custody by the way. I have friends on the inside, who would appreciate his arrest."
Rubber scratches concrete, clopping, before Ghost settles on the edge of the building. Teo lets his feet dangle over the bricking and into empty air.
"I don't know where Cardinal is right now— he ran off. I'd assume Staten Island because it's familiar ground, but that aside… he's probably staying morphed. Mimics tend to do that." To this day, he still remembers the sight of Rickham's lazer-graven chest. The spars of severed ribs and blooded flesh once the old man returned to form. "So telephones and shit are probably out of the question. I'd review the usual contact points. Wherever you normally meet him face-to-face.
"Logan's small fry, Fedor." The ghost's voice changes slightly when he says this, flattening out into something less tensely terse, even as he scans the area for eavesdroppers, a quick circuit of his psychic entity. "Eurotrash punk with some money. Nobody who has any rank or power in the system gives a fuck. Muldoon and his holdings are what anybody inside would want, and I have no fucking idea where he went. Trust me, I looked.
"If you want to throw a few minnows to the wolves, I'm sure there are any number of associates Logan would be willing to turn on. But I'm using Logan."
"I'm offering you a job, Teo. Logan is a bargaining chip, I need him to trade for a favor. I'm working with the big bad wolf himself, because neither of us likes Linderman. Your on the outside, help me out and come inside from the cold." Fedor sits up, clearing his throat. "Remember, who I am. Ask yourself who's better equipped to take Linderman apart and destroy his legacy? If you just want to satisfy your own sense of self worth, and tell yourself you know what the fuck your doign that's ok. That's a failing of youth."
"Bring me Cardinal, snag Logan for me and I would be happy to have you though."Fedor winches, just a touch. Rolling the rudder pedals back and fourth, as he thinks. "Besides, we both know that this is my game. I dont think your so foolish so as to assume you play chess at the same table."
Five fingers splay against the sky, cut a fan-shaped shadow out of the limitless glitter of starlight. Despite the Rookery's nocturnal bustle, Staten Island is dead enough that the celestial bodies reign higher than all of the electric grid together. "Not to be arrogant," Ghost says, after a long moment. "But I don't think— you understand how this food chain is structured. Linderman is our President's sponsor. He is probably the money behind your lawman friends, which is presumably why you're enjoying the benefits that you are.
"I have no immediate plans to fuck with Linderman, myself. I'm going in so I can get information. I want to know who to watch.
"Logan's worthless to your purposes and I'd always imagined secondhand vendetta was a little too sentimental, even for you. He's someone else's pet sociopath. He kidnaps, tortures, kills, regrets nothing, and that's no less than Phoenix or any number of our other mutual friends have done before. As long as we're being reasonable and polite—" there's a dim rasp of fingernail down stubble. "Ask your contact how much John Logan would be worth. I'll get back to you when I find Cardinal."
"My Friends aren't law enforcement, they don't have a name. They're angry, but these sorts of people don't do field work. I destroy Linderman, and well lets say my compensation is exceptional. I'd do it for free of course, but payment is always nice. Trust a spy, to know a spy. Logan's worth, well Logan is worth a clean slate for Cardinal and I imagine you as well if your so inclined." Fedor pauses, rubbing at his own stubble now. He needed a shave. "I dont give a fuck about Logan, he's nothing but a biting fly. I do however, fully intend to demolish the dagger and all the buildings associated with it. Staten island is mine to destroy, if you'd rather just give me a big list of Linderman's assets on the island in place of Logan I would accept that in turn."
A dark horse starts the track. Ghost hadn't expected that. Definitively. As Pinehearst and Primatech come in for their clash, Linderman is his insurance policy, based on the progression of history he had witnessed. There is a weighty sort of silence; not that sort that implies any real possibility that he would refuse. That is, after all, what he had suggested. "Never hurts to have a backup plan," Ghost acknowledges, more simply, unkindly, than Teo ever would. "Okay. I'll see what I can do. Try to find your boy before someone else does, get a healer for him. You—
"Be careful, please?" There is something faintly apologetic about the ghost's tone that not even he is particularly aware of, a token of deference for the audacity. "These new friends you've made— they sound like they would be old hands at treachery. Risk nothing you can't bear to lose."
"They're my brothers, I could explain it to you but really it'd take a very long time. Spies miss each other, even if they're on the other side."Fedor smiles, mostly to himself. "Come see me, soon. Even if you dont, stay away from the dagger. Now, goodnight Teo. I need to go find my bird."and then..click..
"It takes five minutes and a taser he tells me, I'll be fine on my own he says."Fedor sets his phone gently away, before pushing the cockpit back open. "I'm the pilot god damnit, I'm the only one around here allowed to be cocky."